6th (virtual) student exchange in Croatia

9-20 November, 2020

The 6th student exchange took place in a virtual form in the organisation of the Croatian partner school. Although this mobility was the first one we had implemented in a virtual form all the objectives of the meeting could be achieved and the activities planned for the meeting could be carried out with slight modifications.

All partners participated in the mobility and since it was implemented on the Internet many more students and teachers could take part than originally planned for the 6^th student exchange. with the participation of 86 guest students and 16 teachers. Students spent twelve days together virtually with their peers and engaged in a wide range of activities planned and organised by the Croatian partners.

The main topic of the meeting was Unesco World Heritage sites and Gastronomy, so activities were mainly centred around these themes.

Prior to the meeting students had carried out a research related to Unesco World Heritage sites located in their region or in their countries. These sites were selected in a way that the historical value of the place was emphasised. During the meeting they presented their findings in the form of ppt presentations and films. During the two weeks students worked in groups and carried out mini projects. Every project was preceded by a workshop with the aim of getting students acquainted with the digital tool to be used and giving useful tips on the successful completion of the task. They attended debate workshops where they made preparations for the formal debate. Students also took part in a promotional video and a gastronomy workshop, where they got useful tips on how to make a good film and poster and what applications can be used for these purposes. Afterwards students created their posters and videos based on materials collected and compiled by their Croatian partners. All the activities and the debate were of exceptionally high standard, which showed that these activities have become an integral part of the project. All the activities planned for the meeting could be fully completed and these activities had a strong team-building effect and it’s the fact that they were carried out in a digital form contributed to the strengthening of the partners’ digital skills and knowledge of useful tools and applications.

All activities during the last Thursday and Friday were part of the DigiEduHack, which is a series of online and offline idea-hackathons happening all around the world during two days, focusing on co-creating the future of education at the digital age. The expected outcome is to produce ideas and concepts with a high impact on society as well as ready-to-be-developed solutions.

There were more than 60 registered events, and only one in Croatia.

Srednja škola Hvar organized the event and set the challenge of implementing cultural heritage in education. There were 10 teams from schools and colleges from Italy, Greece, Northern Macedonia, Russia, Romania, Poland, two teams from Spain (Madrid and La Union) and two teams from Germany. All together there were 71 participants, 15 teachers and 56 students. The best solution was offered by the Greek team, who is now in competition for the global prize of 5000 euros.

During the event we organized online sessions with guest speakers. On Thursday we invited directors of local tourist boards and a director of a local tourist agency. They presented their work, the pandemic impact on their business, local cultural heritage they promote and they discussed our challenge of cooperation with local schools at higher level. On Friday there were guest speakers from local museums who presented their institutions, and focused on the importance of preserving cultural heritage and raise awareness of its importance with local inhabitants, beginning with school children.

In the afternoon there were workshops: on Thursday we showed a promotional video our students which was a result of another national project in cooperation with professional film directors. Then the participants created similar short promotional videos, focusing on cultural heritage.

On Friday there was a culinary workshop. Our students created a video recipe and then participants prepared those dishes at home to taste some of our traditional cuisine.

Furthermore, we registered those two workshops at the European Vocational Skills Week because we believe it is important to find new ideas to teach digital and vocational skills in this pandemic situation.

FORMATIVE ACTIVITIES:

Digital skills: creating digital presentations, creating films, making a poster

Live Debate 6: A formal debate on the topic of cultural heritage.

WORKSHOPS:

interactive quizzes created by their peers on Unesco Heritage sites

Workshops were organised to prepare students for the live debate.

Digital workshop for creating a promotional video

Culinary workshop

STUDENTS PRESENTATIONS on the topic of National Heritage sites

the Live debate

The students spent twelve days together virtually with their peers and were engages in a great variety of activities arranged by the Croatian partners on the topic of cultural heritage and gastronomy. They got acquainted with the town of Hvar through the materials compiled by their peers and the videos that they created.

By the end of the mobility the students had improved their presentation and argumentative skills through drama and debate activities.

All participants' intercultural, linguistic, social and digital skills were developed and all the activities as well as acquired knowledge and skills were documented.

Social skills. Students worked in groups in the workshops and they had to organise themselves in their spare time. They needed to cooperate in the interactive tasks. They got acquainted with many students both within and outside the project.

Debating skills. Student who had experience from before assisted the preparation of the proposition and opposition teams as well as the moderator of the debate. During the debate students obeyed all the rules and raised meaningful points. Questions were also asked and formal language was used.

Activities improved the students’ presentation skills and digital skills as they created videos from pictures and presented their findings in the form of presentations and films.

All partners had an opportunity to attend the event of DigiEduHack, which is a series of online and offline idea-hackathons happening all around the world. We could exchange views and ideas in the topic of cultural heritage with participants from all over the world. Teachers had an opportunity to network and establish new contacts for future collaborations.