Triin
My aim in joining this project was to gain an experience in the field of teachers’ digital competences. I contributed to our project mostly with our e-portfolio and by testing out our proposed materials by 3D printing and then trying to teach kindergarteners physics. Our team had an “opinions welcome” policy, so our brainstorming meetings gave everyone opportunities to pitch their ideas to other team members.
My biggest learning experience was having a proper project management plan and getting tools to be able to plan and execute projects in a more professional matter. Overall I consider this project a valuable experience in teamwork and project management skills development.
Kerli T.
When joining the project, my goal was to be more aware of teachers' digital competencies and also to develop my own digital competencies. I contributed to the project by experimenting with Lever with the children, analyzing the activities and setting out my own points on how to carry out the activities. There was communication with the team, we made video calls within the team to keep together.
I learned from this project how to support children in acquiring new knowledge.
Marju
The LIFE course was well planned and conducted. It was a good experience. We got the support and guidance we needed. Mid-time review was a good place to reflect on our work.
I had the opportunity to contribute to a multinational project and got to see the insight of an Erasmus project. I learned a lot about teamwork, how important it is to set goals and have a working action plan to reach them. You have to be flexible and change directions when things do not go the way you planned.
I learned that with modern technology you can work with people productively without meeting them face to face. Technology gives tremendous opportunities if you know how to use it. I learned a lot about leading a team. The most important thing in teamwork is to stay calm when difficulties come up and try to solve them together. Communication is the key element.
Birgit
I am grateful that I could participate in this project. I got to work with people from different backgrounds, races and nationalities. Also, I got to develop my cooperation skills, divide my time between different activities and improve my performance skills (especially speaking in English).
Our group dynamic and collaboration were quite good, the communication went smoothly and everyone did their tasks well. We were lucky because we didn’t have any conflicts in our group. Group members were able to express their views and gave their opinions and thoughts.
Also working as a team, it shows you how important agreed dates and holding on the dates are. If someone in a group leaves their tasks to the last minute, then it creates tension in the group and makes it intense to reach out for the achievement of group goals.
Luckily, we managed to achieve our group goal – figuring out, making and testing out our game “Solar system and outer space”.
Eli
I joined the project, because I value STEAM learning and I have tried many STEAM activities with my kids in kindergarten. From the project I expected to become richer with some new STEAM ideas to try out with my kindergarten children and to gain experience with project writing. My main role in the project team was to come up with and finalize game rules, create physical materials and then test the game with kids in kindergarten. Collaboration with teammates went quite well, everyone tried to contribute to the project. Most challenging for me was to express my ideas and thoughts about the project in English. Also to find time to test the game in kindergarten was a challenge to me – the game needs a lot of individual time with each child and background knowledge about the solar system. In conclusion I can say that testing in kindergarten went well, but not according to the rules we originally planned, so I made many changes in game rules during the activity and was creative. I definitely gained the necessary experience. I can say that my personal goals related to the project and the project goals were achieved.
Arturs
I joined the project, because I was very interested in STEAM subjects when I was in primary and secondary school, so combining it with media knowledge to communicate it more effectively is very valuable to me. I was expecting a project with an interdisciplinary approach with people from different academic backgrounds. My role was to create the visual materials for the board game we were creating. A minor issue was that since I was the only one in our group who could do it, when I had an overload of other work I couldn't delegate or ask for help on my task which delayed our testing. However, it was a very interesting task as I had very minimal experience with graphic design before and finding solutions on how to create something visually appealing or for technical details was very satisfying and contributed to my personal growth. In the future when working on projects like this I'd make sure that there's always a back up plan in case something goes wrong. Even though this time it was fine, in more time sensitive projects it'd be really valuable to have some redundancy in the skills of the team. Since we had multiple teachers, the testing phase went much faster and smoother with abundant feedback.
Kristina Maria
I was involved in an international project SteamUpgrade I. Participating in that project gave me a lot of new knowledge and developed different skills. I had a chance to communicate with different people from different nationalities and countries, also I got to practice my English. Besides that, I developed my cooperation skills. I understood how important the contribution and work of each group member is. I learned a lot about using digital technologies in the learning process. So, I think that participating in this project will also help me in my teacher practice later.
We had a great team and really helpful coordinators. In general, everything went well and we managed to fulfill our action plan. I am happy that I could join this project because from one side, participating in that was not too difficult but from another side, it was definitely the right challenge for me which gave me a lot of useful experience.
Mari-Liis
Joining in this LIFE project my aim was to get more knowledge about teachers’ digital competencies and STEAM education. Through this experience I gained a lot of new knowledge and skills, for example how the 3D printer works, how to manage time more properly and effectively, I got braver doing presentations in English and also my English got a lot better and also new ideas on how to add STEAM education in kindergarten.
Our team had a good vibe from the beginning. I created our Messenger chat group, where we mainly discussed ideas and problems of our project and also held many video chats. I went to print out our Lever, whitch was super interesting, and got to test it later with children in kindergarten. I am very happy that I joined this Life project, because I met very different and amazing people around the world.
Kerli N.-S.
As a starting kindergarten teacher STEAM project seemed a good opportunity to get digital competences, I am glad to say that now I know more how to teach STEAM education and I have confidence to do that, which was the goal of the project, so I am living proof.
Our team was very conscientious. We had good action plan, we sticked with it. We held meetings weekly, everyone could give their opinions. I am proud of our team.
Marina
I joined the project as I wanted to apply my two different backgrounds: as a teacher and a digital technology student, in a new setting. I have been curious about the way how new technologies can be created and implemented right away in real life conditions.
My contribution to the project was mainly as a researcher, which means that our project was based on scientific knowledge and investigations. Added to that, I wrote an article to disseminate our findings and experience. In general, I consider this LIFE project a valuable and enjoyable experience and am happy to be a part of this international environment.