Exchange in Slovenia

Day 2

On Tuesday, we went to school at 8:00 am. When we arrived, we went to their great hall, a big classroom with chairs and desks, where we had a lesson in Slovenian language, based on a debate between Ivan Cankar and France Prešeren, the first one was a Slovenian poet, who wrote novellas and he was protected by three girls, the other one was another Slovenian poet, who had written the national anthem of Slovenia and he was defended by three boys. Each one of the group made a research to save their poet, and they explained it to us. After that we started the work for the 10 rules of safe Internet, each partner school presented their Do’s and Dont’s that they had prepared.

Then Mateja, the Slovenian teacher involved in the project, asked us to choose, divided in 6 mixed groups, just four of all of the rules, (adding or editing something) that all the countries had presented previously. The rules were the most attractive and significant for us.

All the groups created four rules, and we attached the written rules on the wall, setting up a long sequence of paper sheets. After that, each one of us had to decide on four of the most important rules, adding a post-it, of different colours, under it.

The teacher chose five judges each one from a different country, and they deleted all the rules that were the same, and they counted the post-it that were under each paper sheet. The rule with the highest number of post-its was the first one, than the second one, the third…

1. Be yourself and remember that nothing disappears from the net.
2. Report abusive posts on social media or on the net and avoid dark humour because others may misunderstand.
3. Use strong password and don’t tell them to anyone
4. Avoid websites that contain inappropriate or illegal content.
5. Don’t steal people’s identity.
6. Think twice before you upload something.
7. Don’t bully and don’t hate on others!
8. Be polite and practise good manners!
9. Do not share your personal information and details about yourself such as home address, school, plans…
10. When you feel that you have a problem talk to experts about it and not on forums.

At 10:30 am we had a tea break, with snacks, sweets and a cup of tea, and we had fun with the others in the library.

At 11:00 am, we went to the computer room where the Spanish teacher, Juan, taught us how to use Geociudad and layar. The latter is an augmented reality app that you can use if you want some information about a place, and with geociudad you can find descriptions of sites of interest such as restaurants, museums, schools, etc. And all the people can also make a description of something and add photos or videos to them, but you can only use it on a computer. In fact you can use layar if you want to read that description on your own on your smartphone, and if you are far from your house.

Then, divided in many groups, we started reading the cyber-bullying scenarios, that all the countries have written. and all the groups started filming them using different part of the school.

At 13:30 we had lunch at the school canteen, next to the Gimnazija (our school). In the afternoon we had spare time to finish the video, and for assembling it using HI-MOVIE at the computer. We watched all the movies on Thursday morning. In the evening we had fun with all the people of the project, and we cooked carbonara for all!

Day 3

On Wednesday our day started at 8. In the beginning us was asked to guide a game or dance familiar from all countries, from Finland for example it was Funky chicken and then we played some other games like Macarena and other dances.

After having a little bit of fun we headed to the bus which drove us to the lake in Bled. The drive was about two hours. We stayed at the lake for about two hours. After the long wait we were all hungry so we went to eat pizzas that we had ordered in the bus on the way to Bled.

After everyone was full we headed to Ljubljana. It’s a beautiful city and the third biggest city in whole Slovenia. We started with a tour in Ljubljana’s Castle. We were a tiny bit behind the schedule so the free time we had afterwards was limited. After the tour most of us headed down from the castle to see the city itself and maybe to find something to buy. We bought ice cream and sodas. After the long day we headed back to the bus which drove us back home. We were back at school at 7.30.

Day 4

On Thursday like every other day, we went to the high school at 8.00 in order to attend the lessons with our hosts. After that all of us gathered in the hall, where we carried out an activity called “Digital me” which involved drawing human shapes on a mural with your feelings and ideas inside them, basically the first things that came to your mind. All the shapes contained parts of our bodies from pictures of ourselves that we had previously cut. The silhouettes were holding hands together, which means we were connected and befriended through this amazing experience.

When that was finished, at 10.30 we attended a presentation and videos about forms of cyberbullying (the things that should not be done on the Internet and can happen). After that, we saw all the short films about cyberbullying that we had recorded previously and each group reflected on the situations of cyberbullying presented in each film and had an interesting discussion about the roles, behaviour, types of cyberbullying and how it can be prevented.

This activity finished at midday, when all of us went to a park close to the high school. Some students played basketball and others played cooperative sport games with the P.E. teacher. We had lunch and later some free time, so all the students decided to go to the top of the hill, where we stayed for two hours playing the guitar and chilling out.

At 6.00 p.m. all the teachers and students met in a venue called Patriot, where we had the chance to taste some traditional Slovenian food prepared by our hosts. Finally, all the partner schools, Slovenia, Hungary, Italy, Finland and Spain prepared some games and songs from each country based on something old and something new. We enjoyed each performance a lot and ended up dancing all together to the songs that we liked the most.

Day 5

Friday, April the 20^th

We began our day relaxed as we knew each other pretty well and got used to being together. First thing in the morning we drove to Maribor. We were devided into 6 groups and our (Slovenian) students were leaders of each group. We were given instructions and a map for a team activity called Photo scavenger, so we had to go around Maribor to see the most important sights and take photos in front of them. We had to start at different directions as we had to be back for the escape room at different times. Two groups entered the escape roomes at the same time. We enjoyed the communication and the challenge because we wanted to solve the problems as soon as posssible. Those who were in the escape room for the first time liked the experience more than those who had been there before. Both activities were a lot of fun but we walked quickly to be able to have free time and it was tiring.

We spent a good hour in the shopping centre to do some souvenir shopping and to have a quick lunch. Some of our guests spent most of the time shopping but we rather sat down and relaxed.

At 2 we all walked towards Mladinski kulturni center Marbor (Youth Cultural Centre) where they prepared a small Human Library just for us in the park in front of the centre. It was a lovely decorated place and it looked cosy and nice. HL is a method, first invented in Danmark, which is organized as a normal library with the library pass and everything but here the books are people and you read them by talking to the human books. The main purpose of the event is to overcome the stereotypes and prejudices about certain groups of people in the society by simply hearing their side of the story, listenting to their life experience... We had 8 books with several titles available: A disabled, a gay, an Indian student of budhism, an immigrant from Iran, a bisexual, a vegan... We had limited time, so unfortunately we couldn't read every book and we read in groups. It was a great experience and a nice ending of our exchange.