Blende-N-d Branding: Die Spur stimmt! Erasmus Project

Project Title

Blende-N-d Branding: Die Spur stimmt!

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: Teaching and learning of foreign languages; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

By promoting working life relevant basic and transversal skills in form of training and learning activities the different partner institutions were able to provide their students a better access to highly qualified jobs in the European Labour market and in the international context. Because the target group was generation Z, the aim was to raise the students‘ awareness of leaving a responsible digital footprint in the social networks, such as LinkedIn and Facebook with respect to job search. The students worked out a common netiquette governing the online communication and had a critical look at ethical questions regarding the media throughout the project.
The best practices and good examples of the partner schools were tried, exchanged and benchmarked, enabling all the 170 participating students from schools with very different profiles (secondary education: science, media, tourism, nursing, arts, languages) to acquire new competences through the adoption of new teaching and learning methods.
Our focus was on Blended-Learning, the use of the English language as lingua franca and increasing language skills through the CLIL method: intergrated learning of content and language through Moodle platform and in real life during transnational activities, in social networks paying special attention to a responsible digital footprint and by enhancing digital, methodological and social competencies and soft skills respectively. Our strategic school partnership was based on long and innovative experience of the participating schools in these competence fields.
The participating students worked in internationally mixed groups and each group was tutored by at least one teacher. On Moodle platform the students worked on mainly problem-based exercises on different topics: Europe and Asia, the project countries and Turkey, Geography, Cultural influences, Differences in history, religion, literature, art, innovation, school, studies and working life. The students worked on these excercises at their own pace, as well as on developing and creating their own Personal Branding as their unique selling point on the job market. In need of help, they were able to turn to the other members or their tutor through Moodle messages or face-to-face. In order to enable the individual learning paces and to adhere to the annual work programmes in each schools, it was necessary to let go of originally planned strict deadlines. By keeping the exercises available for a longer time we hoped to achieve more online interaction between the students and enable them to follow the whole learning process. The contents of the exercises were also dealt with in the regular lessons and used as preparation for project meetings. The students had the chance to find out which skills and competences would be important for their own future career. These were addressed and strenghtened in the problem-based exercises and transnational learning activities.
Another novelty in the level of the partnership was that we used mobile computing for teaching purposes. This was seen for example in the BYOD initiative and the use of students‘ devices in lessons or project meetings for creating project relevant information. Unfortunately the project team could not test the innovative use of tablets in classrooms in the way it exists in the Turkish partners school due to the political situation in Turkey and the national decisions among the partner countries.
It was remarkable how the participating students became aware of their role as prospective jobseekers and employees in the European labour market, who create networks not only privately but also professionally.
As we had hoped, the interest in using Moodle platform for teaching purposes increased among the staff, and some teachers took part in further education courses and one participating school wants to do a test phase at their school. The Moodle course in the project was constantly updated and modified according to the wishes of the students. Thanks to the back-up function we can copy the course to other moodles. As the Personal Branding workshop held in the German school at „Europa Tag“ showed, the course can be modified to fit to a new target group. The participating teachers acted as disseminators within their schools and introduced their colleagues to: new online tools such as Padlet, goal oriented use of students smartphones in regular lessons, and hence help develop the outcomes of blended and cooperative learning in the partner schools. The project and its results , the Moodle course, international cooperation through the Moodle platform, cooperative learning and exercise types, personal branding and other project novelties were presented to teaching staff in different educational events and project days in schools. The aim was to motivate the colleagues to start thinking in European way, encourage them in using cooperative learning methods , and promote digital teaching methods in classrooms.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 127865 Eur

Project Coordinator

Georg-Simon-Ohm-Berufsskolleg & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Medgyessy Ferenc Gimnazium es Muveszeti Szakkozepiskola
• Seinäjoen koulutuskuntayhtymä
• Debreceni Egyetem Balásházy János Gyakorló Középiskolája és Kollégiuma
• Rakvere Ametikool
• Yahya Akel Fen Lisesi