Let me show you my town Erasmus Project

Project Title

Let me show you my town

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: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning

Project Summary

The Heinrich-Heine-Gymnasium in Dortmund and the Ogólnokształcących school center in Torun maintained a student exchange many years ago, but this has not been carried out for a long time for various reasons. Both schools are very interested in becoming more international and in further training with regard to new teaching methods, with a focus on the use of digital media in the classroom. For this reason, the two schools planned to offer their students intercultural and digital learning in a project lasting 18 months. The two partner schools would have liked to include other partners in the project, but various inquiries to other schools in other European countries showed that the schools in question were already involved in projects. The Heinrich-Heine-Gymnasium and the Ogólnokształcących school center were happy to revive their partnership with the project “I’ll show you my city”. The plan was designed for 12 participants each, accompanied by two teachers, to travel to Dortmund and Torun to get to know their hosts’ hometown together using digital media (the Biparcours app) and then using the app to evaluate “Biparcours”. The pupils first familiarized themselves with the history and sights of their own hometown. The German participants took part in a city tour through Dortmund to get ideas for planning a digital scavenger hunt. This scavenger hunt should deal with what they would like to show foreign students about their hometown. The Ruhr area is specifically linked to Poland through the long history of immigration by Polish citizens since the second half of the 19th century. A visit to the twin city was planned for 5-7 days, but due to the pandemic, no encounters could take place and therefore no city explorations could be experienced on site. In order to still be able to implement the project’s goals, the participants met regularly in digital video conferences via Zoom. These meetings were alternately prepared by the partner schools. During these video conferences, introductory games were played initially. In a further step, the participants presented their cities in films and photos and each prepared a quiz (kahoot). Between the meetings, the partner schools used TwinSpace on the eTwinning platform to exchange ideas and send greetings in the form of videos and photos, for example at Easter and Christmas. During the entire project, both schools used the eTwinning platform for the first time. Before the first meeting, this should serve as the first contact between the students and during the project to exchange the results (documentation of the stays abroad and the city tours). The participants used TwinSpace to upload all the materials there. The films made (f.ex. my favorite place in Dortmund) can now help new students and refugee families, i.e. international students, to get to know their new hometown better. The plan was for the digital scavenger hunt to be made available to the Dortmund tourist office in the “Biparcours” app, but since the participants had no way of producing such a city exploration due to the long lockdown and contact restrictions there was only a publication of the results, which contain photos and films of students, to the internal school. The tutors of the international classes can work with it. With their project, the two partner schools were able to promote the handling and use of digital media in class and initiate intercultural learning. The participants created their own media products and presented and processed them in video conferences. The participants were able to get to know each other at least digitally and made contact that will continue to be cultivated. All participants are committed to visiting each other and exploring the city to catch up on. All participants have become curious and want to get to know each other better and “for real”. The time of the pandemic demanded a lot from all participants, but it was still possible to establish contact for the future and to have the feeling that you already know Torun and Dortmund almost well.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 12438,8 Eur

Project Coordinator

Heinrich-Heine-Gymnasium & Country: DE

Project Partners

• II Liceum Ogolnokszlalcace im Krolowej Jadwigi w Toruniu