Europe, a heritage made of stories Erasmus Project

Project Title

Europe, a heritage made of stories

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : School Exchange Partnerships

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Cultural heritage/European Year of Cultural Heritage; Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills

Project Summary

The 1954 Hague Convention states that “the conservation of cultural heritage is of great importance to all the peoples of the world and that it is convenient that this heritage has an international projection”.
By using the term culture, Heritage is given a broader meaning and many objects around us acquire a meaning: to serve as a document.
Our project revolved around the current youth literature as a creator of cultural heritage, based on the conception of cultural goods as elements transmitters of information about the History, juvenile literature that tells us about the societies that created it.
It has been a 2-year project involving partners from Spain, Italy, the Czech Republic and Ireland, so that the diversity of cultures and societies have enriched and given added value to the results envisaged. The applicant school is characterized by a high level of commitment to its environment and a high knowledge of its socio-economic context. This project responded to the needs of connection with other ways of seeing the world for the students and to encourage them to read as a learning tool for life.

The objectives that we wanted to achieve were clearly linked to the priorities selected and we made many activities to get them:

-The European cultural heritage, its safeguard, its dissemination and the recognition of its value for the progress of society.
-The acquisition of key skills and competences, especially those related to oral and written expression and reading comprehension in the mother tongue and foreign languages and the use of ICT.
-Open education in the digital era, to promote new educational methodologies and the educational challenges of the XXI century, in an increasingly connected society.

The project has been developed by a multidisciplinary team composed of 17 teachers from different subjects and 2 professional librarians highly experienced in fostering reading with students. In addition to this, the involvement of local authorities such as municipalities and their areas of Culture and Education. However, the main actors of the project have been the students and their families, whose involvement has been fundamental. We had 60 students who worked directly in the project, who were responsible of carrying out the tasks and activities and of disseminating its results amongst their colleagues and at a local/regional/national/international level, using the resources that ICT’s offer them.
There were 3 types of activities:
Training events: courses and exchanges of good practices for teachers and librarians. The topics were the promotion of reading, new active methodologies and the use of ICT’s.
Exchanges of students, to share the results of the activities and to work together in an international environment, discovering the heritage of each country and its relationship with juvenile literature. There were visits, creative workshops, theatre, shared readings, exhibitions, meeting with authors, like Blue Jeans, Giusseppe Gatozella or Alan Nolan.
Local activities: creative activities (surveys, readings, photo exhibition, etc.) whose results have been shared during the exchanges or through eTwinning and the social media.
From the methodological point of view, the project has been eminently collaborative, its activities and its implementation has always counted on the active role of all participants and their school communities thanks to the outcomes that has been published on eTwinning, the Twinspace of the project and on online ICT tools and popular social networks among adolescents to achieve maximum dissemination. Throughout the project, students have been sought to be protagonists of their own learning and have provided with the necessary tools to do so through new methodologies such as PBL or Visual Thinking.
Regarding the impact, it was intended to be as long-term as possible, since we conceived the project as the basis for the innovative educational practice of the participating teachers. In addition, based on the promotion of reading it will become part of the students as part of their personal enrichment and knowledge of the world as lifelong learning.
Reading also aims to have an impact on educational processes, since education can happen at any time and anywhere, with new media. Our project has also be able to generate heritage in their localities through documentaries (audiovisual heritage) and the results of our research.
Finally, it has been a project that has included students, teachers, families and public entities, so the deposit that has left will reach many people and will remain in time.
A major project, with partners from 4 countries and carried out over 2 years, that revolved around youth literature, heritage, ICT, new educational methodologies. It has left a legacy hard to forget in its participants and in their immediate surroundings.

Project Website

http://eurostorieska21.weebly.com

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 110987 Eur

Project Coordinator

IES Marmaria & Country: ES

Project Partners

• St Aidans Community School
• LICEO SCIENTIFICO AMALDI
• Obchodni akademie a Jazykova skola s pravem statni jazykove zkousky
• Killinarden CS