What's your c@de?

The aim of the project "What's your c@de?" is to motivate students for a long-life learning and to prevent early school dropouts by using a variety of ICT tools and coding activities. Students come from different socio-economic backgrounds and several issues. Participating countries bring into the project their different cultures from north to south of Europe, and this increases the chances to be enriched by each other diversity. We believe that students learn more by doing. We believe that students will develop a critical thinking and how to solve problems when they are asked to take part to innovative activities. Students should have fun in learning new topics, and this will motivate them for lessons and learning. We want to use new approaches in order to raise the students' interest and motivation to be involved into the future society with a promotional attitude. The project will foster young people's social skills in the students' own life at home, school and general in society.

The summery in the final report for school exchange partnerships.

The aim of the project "What's your c@de?" was to motivate students for a long-life learning and to prevent early school dropouts by using a variety of ICT tools and coding activities. The projects idea was that students learn more by doing. By taking part in innovative activities the students would develop a critical thinking and learn how to solve problems. To motivate them for lessons and learning the new topics had to be fun. We wanted to use new approaches in order to raise the students' interest and motivation to be involved into the future society with a promotional attitude. The project would foster young people's social skills in the students' own life at home, school and general in society. We wanted to give them an intercultural and intergenerational education. The project would also work with strengthening the profiles of the teaching professions.

The students in the project came from different socio-economic backgrounds and the countries in the project came from the north to the south of Europe. This increased the chances for the students to be enriched by each other. Due to covid-19, the project ran over three years instead of two years. During these years it involved about 100-140 students from each country school (aged from 12 to 16) and teachers of English, Science, Music, Maths, Geography, ICT, Art and Technology. The students participated in the student exchanges, project activities, workshops, webinars, virtual and video meetings. Due to Covid-19 and the related restrictions was it only possible to organize student exchange with family accommodation in Polen. In Italy were the students accommodated at a hotel. The other exchanges were organised virtually.

Students coming from difficult social backgrounds were involved in activities with positive feedbacks. Slower students were given longer times for the planned activities, more importance has been given to their creativity and self-assessment in their contributions rather than to the accuracy of the result to encourage their self-confidence. During meetings and workshops we fostered teamworking, inclusion, problem solving and self–esteem. We tried to highlight the importance of each individual contribution for the final collective result, and to consider diversity as a value. This project created an opportunity for continued international cooperation between the students as they made new friends in the partner countries, some of whom have continued contact. They learned English in an exciting way, got an insight into the EU's opportunities to build an international future and gained computer skills with the help of various ICT tools by creating Kahoot, 3D Mapping, Coding and robotic activities, Actionbound and Avatar- activities just to name a few of them.

During the project, the teachers' digital, professional and communicative skills were developed. During the pandemic, teachers were required to teach digitally and create teaching materials that were suitable for digital teaching. This further increased the teachers' professional skills in digitization and communication. During the phases of the project, all 5 schools haved produce educational materials such as lesson plans, worksheets and lesson scenarios. Materials and manuals based on our tasks such as shared e-books, Scrap Books, CLIL lessons, Actionbound, Microbit, Robots, virtual tours with the Vtility tool, Lego Mindstorms, Coding and QR codes. Everything has been uploaded on our schools' websites, on the Etwinning project website and the project website to disseminate project activities and final products. Our project results can be an inspiration for exchanging good practices. The project has also made visible through various means as press articles, banners, conferences, Erasmus days, meetings with parents, TV interview and project corners displayed at our schools. The outbreak of corona-19 was a challenge for the project. Changing to virtual mobilities put our creativity to the test. We fulfilled the project's commitments through online activities and had monthly staff video meetings, where we ensured that the project was carried out according to our project description.

Everyone who has participated in the project and completed their primary school studies during the project period has gone on to upper secondary school studies. No one has dropped out of their studies. In the students' evaluations and in conversations between teachers and students, it appears that the students have developed and strengthened their self-esteem and level of knowledge during the project. This is a long-term benefit for the students' development and for the EU from a societal perspective. Preconceived notions and cultural values have met and the understanding of our differences and similarities has developed. An intercultural learning process and lifelong learning with learning in different forms and environments.

This project has encouraged us all to continue with more Erasmus projects.