Students’ Own Creativity In All Languages & Mindful Effective Democratic Internet Awareness Erasmus Project

Project Title

Students’ Own Creativity In All Languages & Mindful Effective Democratic Internet Awareness

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 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning; Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

The project called “S.O.C.I.A.L. & M.E.D.I.A.” – in full words “Students’ Own Creativity In All Languages & Mindful Effective Democratic Internet Awareness” – has been designed collaboratively by St.-Irmengard-Gymnasium, Germany and Collège du Fiumorbo, France. This German-French tandem has discovered its complementarity during several eTwinning projects carried out previously and being awarded quality labels.
The German school is a private secondary school exclusively for girls and has a clear need to enhance technical affinity with the girls and foster digitalization (the school’s equipment is quite old-fashioned and parents are quite hesitant about their children’s digital education because many of them lack knowledge about how to educate them within the family). Still, the school is doing quite well in teaching diplomacy and democratic participation. On the other hand the French school, as a mixed public secondary school, is well equipped with digital media and has become project school for tablet classes whereas the students’ behavior needs improving to be called diplomatic. In addition the isolated position on an island makes it more difficult for these students to imagine different points of view and different professional careers.
Direct interaction (including voice, mimic, odor, gestures, postures etc that are mostly missing in eTwinning activities) and peer teaching in the Erasmus+ project “Social & Media” will allow the 13 to 15-year-old students of these schools to exchange their knowledge and practices. Thus the students will acquire a set of skills that empowers them to consider possible future careers other than before and to become autonomous (lifelong) learners who are able to face the challenges adulthood will bring to them. On the basis of already existing programs at their schools, the teachers will establish a vertical curriculum for this crucial period in a teenager’s life when they need socialization with the adult world as well as with the digital world. This vertical curriculum will be tested in the participating schools and thus become transferable to other schools.
In addition to the German and the French school, IES Alyanub, Spain, and 12th High school of Acharnes, Greece, are partners in this project as they have also collaborated in eTwinning projects with the German and the French school. The Spanish school has already developed its own program which is called Project of Co-existence and which is very important because it offers a few sub-projects within itself. The sub-project of cybermanagers implies the creation of an awareness of the risks involved in the use of new technologies and tries to create a proactive attitude in the students towards life, giving them the suitable tools to act in a situation of risks. The Greek school has not yet created a similar program. Nevertheless it will offer the opportunity to implement and test the vertical curriculum to come without any hindering and fully benefit from the project as the students’ families belong to the middle and lower/ working classes. There are also many unemployed parents, as well as many multimembered families.
While carrying out the project, the students as well as the teachers will do various activities (asynchronous collaborative ones, but also communicative synchronous ones) in the virtual world of the accompanying Twinspace on the eTwinning platform. This will be done while training shared leadership between teachers, teachers and students and between the students themselves raising thus their democratic participation. During the LTT meetings in the real world, the main activities will be peer teaching (between the students, but also between the teachers) when it comes to ICT skills. They will also do collaborative activities that counterbalance the use of technical media in order to enhance their physical and mental health. The hosting families will be involved in some activities and will give their feedback in an evaluation dedicated to them.
Not only the hosting families, but more important the involved students and teachers will have their word to say in the evaluations. Some of these will be done after each LTT meeting so that the preparations for the following meeting can be adjusted. There will also be evaluations at a larger scale at mid-term and at the end of the project to make sure that the objectives have been achieved.
While carrying out the project, the students will produce online magazines that will serve them as souvenir of the project and as means of dissemination among their peers. The teacher team will produce Newsletters in the five languages dedicated to local authorities, the press and the administration of the schools (principals, parents’ association etc). The final product will be a vertical curriculum for a set of transversal skills that can be presented to teacher training staff in the different countries and will be available on the Erasmus+ Project Results Platform.

Project Website

https://twinspace.etwinning.net/86271/home

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 111063 Eur

Project Coordinator

Erzbischöfliches St. Irmengard-Gymnasium & Country: DE

Project Partners

• COLLEGE FIUMORBO
• 12th Gymnasium Acharnon
• IES ALYANUB