History a (very) bit different: A virtual intercultural tour across the castle lifestyle Erasmus Project

Project Title

History a (very) bit different: A virtual intercultural tour across the castle lifestyle

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 : Strategic Partnerships for Schools Only

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2015

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Creativity and culture; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

How were your history lessons? Frontal? Boring? Quiet, just a textbook and you memorized everything by heart? Nowadays teaching methods have changed and most teachers today enable their students at least a small discussion about the topic or they use the projecting system to show the students pictures from the Internet. But is that enough?
Four different secondary schools from four countries (Slovakia, Lithuania, Slovenia and Turkey) discovered that they are having similar problems regarding History at their school and decided to do something about it! The objectives of the project were:
1. to introduce a different kind of learning, that includes also other subjects
2. to enhance ICT learning and to improve the ICT skills of all the participants
3. to improve language skills of all the participants
4. to improve teaching methods of the History teachers involved in this project
5. to improve communication skills of all participants
6. to make the participants aware of their own national heritage they can be proud of, but also to meet other cultures and their history and to accept them and overcome any prejudice against other cultures or vulnerable groups.
On one hand there were secondary school students, aged from 14 to 18. Two of the schools were general grammar schools, two were vocational schools (students from one school were from Technical grammar school, from the other school they were from professions somehow connected to History ). On the other hand there were the teachers, which did not function in this project as just accompanying persons, but they also got to know other school systems, rules, teaching methods and in this way they reflected their own job and improved their lessons. The students that worked tightly in the project there were 6-7 in each country and there were in each country 2 History teachers, one ICT teacher and one English teacher (= Project manager) to help them. The project group (all countries together) consisted of 40 participants all together (plus 4 accountants, 1 for each country).
What if you had the opportunity to give lessons to your peers and they would give lessons to you via Skype, if you were taught by foreign teachers, would have the opportunity to go to a certain country and learn right there, on spot, visit a castle, touch it, smell it, feel it, hear it… you would cook their food, wear their clothes/hairstyles, learn their folk songs, tales, dances, listen to their music, learn about the herbs they were using, get to know their legends and to perform them? Would you like to be guided through different workshops by the local museum? Wouldn’t it be nice to be creative and to film a longer documentary about each country’s castles/natural heritage and to help your History teacher,since it would serve as a teaching material for next generations… What about creating a commercial for the 3 castles you will visit in each country, which would serve as a promotional material for them? What about making a castle calendar, a 3D print of a castle or a flash mob? This is everything what we did.
Quality of the project was ensured by 3 transnational project meetings in 3 different countries, at the beginning of the project, the middle and at the end of the project. Quality was also ensured by regular weekly meetings of each schools’ project team and via Skype/email communication between partners, project managers were also present during all mobilities and also two polls served as quality control.
There were many results anticipated in this project, but the most important ones were broadened knowledge of History in a different, more creative way, improved ICT skills with the help of modern technology ( as a result short commercials for the castles and long video for each participating country about castles/national heritage), improved English knowledge (and picking basics of other participants’ languages), improved teaching methods, improved communication skills of all participants and nevertheless the programme helped all participants to be proud of their own natural heritage, but also to respect other. We also expected that all he kids accepted students from vulnerable groups.
There was broad and long term impact not just on the participating schools, that improved their teaching methods, improved communication at their school, tightened bonds between students and teachers (that make work easier) or even get more future students, the project also had a great impact on the local community, since local museums prepared special workshops for the needs of our project, which they will later include into their regular offer and spread the knowledge nationally / internationally. This project also had a broader effect in all participating countries, the long videos were offered as teaching materials for free and participating History teachers also prepared seminars about teaching methods for their colleagues.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 162800 Eur

Project Coordinator

Stredna priemyselna skola & Country: SK

Project Partners

• MERYEM ABDURRAHIM GIZER ORTA OKULU
• Srednja tehniska sola Koper-Scuola media technica di Capodistria
• Kaunas A.Pushkin gimnazium