Transnational Meeting 1
The first transnational meeting was hosted by the Maltese school. It was held between the 12th and the 14th October. Ms Dagmar and Ms Charlotte represented the Austrian school, whilst Ms Joanna, Ms Nathalie and Ms Romina represented the Maltese school. Throughout the three days, planning for the first year of the project was carried out. The following is the agenda followed:
The meeting started off with an ice breaking activity, during which the partners got to know each other better. Schools, together with the educational system practiced by both countries, were discussed. Later on, the Maltese teachers took their partners for a visit to the University residence in Lija, for a tour of the premises. The Austrian teachers showed interest in using these premises during their exchange visit later on in the scholastic year. Ms Dagmar and Ms Charlotte were then taken to their hotel, after which they had some free time to tour Valletta. We all met again later on in the evening for a networking dinner. We used this time to briefly recall some of the activities we had planned earlier on in the year, when completing the application. We also discussed the several opportunities offered by the Erasmus+ program.
The second day was the most intensive day with regards planning. The following are the main points of discussion:
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During October and part of November all students are to design the project logo.
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By the end of November students from each country are to vote for each other’s logo through Tricider. The best logos are to be compiled into one collage.
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During November the students will be involved in a Netiquette program. The students will be involved in various activities that educate them about eSafety and copyright usage. By that time all the students would have been registered on Twinspace, enabling them to follow the activities easier.
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Ms Dagmar and Ms Charlotte were taught how to use Google Drive, and how to create a Google Doc, Google sheets, Google slides and a Google Form
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The December activity was then discussed. This will focus on the students' daily patterns. The students will communicate and collaborate together through the chat room in Twinspace. This will be recorded and filed for audit purposes. It was also concluded that should the students wish to exchange telephone numbers, they could also collaborate through WattsApp.
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The December activity will be conducted through a shared Google slides. Each student will express its daily patterns on a slide. In this way all the students' opinions would be compiled in one presentation.
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This activity will be followed by a survey, which will be presented to the rest of the students attending the schools. The aim is to investigate whether there is a specific pattern in the daily life of a student.
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Throughout January the annual patterns practiced by each country will be discussed. Each school will work on a national annual calendar of events; this will include all national, public and school events. The calendar tool chosen must have collaboration facilities so that the final product will be a common calendar celebrating cultural diversities.
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From February to May the focus will be on cultural heritage of each country. Students will be expected to work in teams to produce a brochure per team to advertise each country’s treasures. Art students to prepare drawings and paintings related to local patterns in our cultures according to history such as Neolithic, Roman, Norman and Baroque. The final brochures will be exchanged during the respective exchange visits.
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The exchange visits program were then discussed and finalized. More detail can be found in the exchange visits page.
The third day of this transnational meeting was dedicated to the tools that will eventually be used during the project. As a start we opened a project email address which will be used for exchange purposes throughout the project. Its Google Drive will also serve as a common cloud storage for files and photos related to the project.
We proceeded by discussing the tools that will probably be used during the first year of the project, mainly Padlet, Tricider, Google Slides. Adope Spark and Team Up Calendar. The Maltese team, who were more familiar with the tools, explained how best to make use of them
The Maltese team was joined by Ms Sue, assistant head at St Theresa Secondary School. Ms Sue lead a tour round the school, focusing on the special classes and areas of the said school.
