Heroes and Cultural Identity Project
Project meeting: Gdynia, 10-15 April 2007
REPORT OF THE COMENIUS 'HEROES AND CULTURAL IDENTITY'
PROJECT MEETING HELD IN GDYNIA, POLAND, 10-15 APRIL, 2007
Tuesday 10 April
Participants arrived. The following teachers were in attendance during the week:
| From Scotland | Donny Gluckstein | Harry Kogon | Gordon Plews |
| John O'Neill | Penny Gower | David Bouttier | |
| From Poland | Oktawia Gorzeńska | Kasia Hołownia | Aleksandra Szczepińska |
| Ewa Wołowska | Ania Leszczyńska | Izabella Niklewska | |
| From Norway | Astrid Myskja | Ivar Sognli | Einar Stølevik |
| From Italy | Marzia Zabbatino | Cristina Fuga | Michele Minenna |
| From Slovakia | Renáta Kelemenová | Henrieta Martincová | Silvia Miklisová |
| From Turkey | Serkan Erenler | Serpil Doğanyiğit | Sevcanur Özcan |
| Ahmet Gökçen | Şenay Vanlı |
Wednesday 11 April
The meeting opened with a welcome from Ewa Wołowska, the head of the Polish school, Gymnazjum nr 1 in Gdynia, who were hosting the meeting. There then followed a note of thanks from the Project Coordinator to the Polish hosts on behalf of all participants of the meeting.
The
purpose and plan of the meeting was then outlined. The first day would
be to report on the project activities carried out so far and the announce
the winning heroes. The second day would be to evaluate the project and
to investigate new project activities. The final day would be to reach
agreement on what activities would take place in the next phase and to
discuss administrative aspects of the project.
Students and teachers from each participating school then reported on
the activities that they had carried out since the last project meeting
in Edinburgh:
Scotland
Visiting students talked about their experience of the project. The teachers then explained that five classes with five different teachers had been involved in the project. In total, about 100 students were involved in the project from Scotland. The flexibility of the project meant that each class could choose to carry out project activities in the way that best suited them and which best integrated with the main curriculum.
Slovakia
Visiting Slovakian students told the group about their heroes and the presentations. Students had used ICT to make Powerpoint presentations on their heroes. 10 heroes were chosen and the school voted for the top two heroes.
Turkey
Five heroes were chosen by students from both Turkish and international fields. The students were attending the after school club. They used multimedia to produce their presentations.
Norway
Two classes of 16-17 year old students worked on the project - a total of approximately 60 students. Students first discussed what a hero was to them and then made PowerPoint presentations, films and music. One winner was chosen from each class to go through to the international vote.
Italy
Six classes were involved in the project. Students first discussed what were the characteristics of a hero and could then work on either public or private heroes. Most chose private heroes. There were two rounds of voting within the school; in the first round 2 winners were chosen from each class, and in the second round two were chosen for the international vote.
Poland
In November, individual teachers and their classes selected and worked for two weeks preparing presentations about their heroes. 140 students applied to take part in individual work - the form of the presentation was at the student's discretion. In December, voting for the two most popular school heroes took place. There were fourteen well-known characters to choose from who had been designated beforehand by each class. The election was organized by the European School Club. Polish students at the meeting also talked about the heroes they had worked on.
Heroes competition
Each
country then took it in turn to introduce the two heroes that had been
voted for within their school. The results of the international vote were
then announced. Over 450 students were involved in the voting process,
an impressive figure. The winners and runners-up from each country were
as follows:
| Country | Winner | Runner-up |
|---|---|---|
| Italy | Giovanni Falcone | "My Mother" |
| Norway | "Hero Within" | Sgt Lobster |
| Turkey | Florence Nightingale | Mustafa Kemal Atatürk |
| Slovakia | David Steinbruner | Jozef Króner |
| Scotland | Robert Owen | Sandy |
| Poland | Pope John Paul II | Leonardo da Vinci |
There then followed an award ceremony in which certificates and prizes were awarded to representatives from all of the schools.
Thursday 12 April
The morning started by evaluating the project activities. The participants split into national groupings to look at our experience in terms of:
- what went well
- what did not go well
- the role of ICT
In the report back session the following views were expressed:
Poland
Students
distinguished between heroism and fame. In the process of working on the
project they learned how the process of democracy works (through the voting
system), and they also learned tolerance of other people's views and approaches
to heroes and their own culture. Extensive and skilled use was made of
ICT. In the school they were able to involve most teachers. In addition
the project helped the teachers cooperate. The students were able to meet
different cultures through the project.
The main negative aspects of the project were the difficulty in operating
the voting system and of finding adequate time to do it.
Slovakia
On the positive side, lots of students were involved and there was a lot of enthusiasm for the project. There were a broad range of activities - brainstorming, research, preparation of text, use of ICT. The project was worked on in an after school club. The prize of an MP3 player was used as an incentive for involvement. Parents and the school council supported financially.
On the negative side, students did not necessarily vote for the best hero, but for their friends. The ICT aspect proved difficult. There was, for example, no access to ICT during language lessons, and due to the way they operated the voting system it was not known how many had voted. The election itself clashed with exams. Language was also a problem as ICT teachers were unable to use the website effectively.
Turkey
Choosing a hero taught the students about different cultures. They enjoyed seeing the work of other countries.
There were problems with language, and those who were not good at English found it hard to be involved. Some students who did join did not continue. They said they were bored or they did not have enough time due to the pressure of exams. They could not stay after school. The limits of 1 minute videos and 10 PowerPoint slides created difficulty, though limits are needed. The school had some technical problems with the ICT and a limited number of computers, so students could not all work at the same time.
More music could be used in presentations.
Italy
The project had the positive involvement of 6 different classes, even though the school is on four different sites. It was interesting that one of the sites, which caters for refugees and the disadvantaged, was able to be involved. They chose heroes themselves. Students were free to pick whatever hero they liked with no restrictions, including non-Italians, footballers, etc.
It was hard to involve other teachers because anything that is not strictly part of the curriculum is seen as a problem. So the project went through ordinary class activities. Other teachers could not easily fit in. Like other countries, the exams and the time of voting clashed.
We may not have had elaborate presentations, but we got many more than expected, in spite of the worry that language would be a barrier. It turned out that instead of the 200 words being a bit obstacle, students said 'that's not so difficult'. Simple instructions were issued and the students left to themselves to do the work.
Scotland
The
teachers here worked independently, and the project was used in a very
free and flexible way to fit all the different types of class. So in some
cases the project was student led, in others it was tied into the curriculum.
Where it was student led they felt a sense of ownership because it was
voluntary. The project also tied into the wider context of the European
dimension. The scientists were able to tie the project into a specific
unit of their course which is assessed for their final grade.
It was only possible to involve 6 teachers in the process, and it would
be hard to get all 300 working on it. In general there was not much focus
on the European dimension until it came to voting. There were few links
between the team members.
Norway
The project started with two parallel classes (though it is planned to expand this next year). As a result other teachers had no ownership. The project had to be rushed. A feeling of ownership must be generated. It was decided to have one winner in each class. The problem with this was that there might have been very good submissions in one class and poor ones in another. The danger was that the better students would be de-motivated by this. There were problems with getting on to the net.
On the positive side, students were able to express themselves. They got to know other people in their class. They also could see what people were doing across Europe, and they knew that their work was being looked at elsewhere. They were not just working for the teacher, but for other students. This was peers reading each others' work. The use of multimedia was also important, as not all students are verbally skilled. The project provided an opening for creativity, not just intellectual work.
The freedom of the project was a motivating factor. Also ICT could be used in many different ways. There can be a problem in that the content of the presentation is not necessarily educational, and perhaps only a little English is learnt. But to insist on a particular approach to the presentations would limit freedom. There was also a problem in terms of voting. Were people voting for the best, or for the most glamorous presentation?
A demonstration of the Learning Management System used in Norway was then given.
Workshops
In the second half of the morning, the participants were split into 3 workshop groups with a mix of nationalities in each group. Two tasks were set for each group:
Task 1 - Brainstorming activity
In groups, list project activities that might be included in the next
phase of the "Heroes and Cultural Identity" project. Suggest
as many different activities as possible.
Task 2 - Activity ranking
In groups, discuss and evaluate the activities in Task 1. Decide on a
shortlist of 3 activities from the list in Task 1 for presentation to
the plenary session.
In
the plenary session that followed, each group presented 3 possible ways
to extend the range of activities that could be included in the next phase
of the project. These suggestions were collated and put forward as proposals
for action on the final day of the meeting (see below).
The morning concluded with a tour of the school and a visit to some of
the classes that were in progress.
Friday 13 April
The suggestions for changes to existing activities and for new activities that were made yesterday were written up as proposals and put up for discussion.
The
proposals for changes were as follows:
1. Drop the online voting - This was rejected. The partners decided to
maintain the status quo - i.e. to still offer both online and manual voting.
2. Increase the time allowed for voting to 6 weeks. This was agreed to
help many of the schools plan around the event. In the next round of voting,
participants will be asked to submit all materials for international voting
approximately 6 weeks before Easter.
The proposals for new activities were as follows:
3. Each school to prepare a guide in the local language for use by other staff in the school. This was agreed. Donny Gluckstein would offer an example of this for downloading from the web site, but it would be up to each school to prepare their own detailed guide, if desired, for other teachers in their own school with school-specific implementation details.
4. Cultural Identity activities. It was agreed that each school offer activities on what defines cultural identity to their students. This might include use of the forum to generate discussion and PowerPoint presentations limited to a maximum of 15 slides.
5. Student exchange - twinning arrangements. If two or more of the partner schools agreed and if funding could be organised, it was agreed that a limited number of student exchanges could take place, perhaps with project work being carried out during the exchange visit.
6. International cooperation on heroes - forum "market place". It was agreed to use the online forum to allow students to talk about their heroes and to generate interest in each other's heroes. It was felt this might lead to student from several schools cooperating to produce work on a hero.
7. Develop a subject through heroes. It was agreed that a possible approach could be to introduce subjects or themes, for example, science, transport, health etc and to use the heroes project as a way of working in these areas. It was also thought that a useful long-term resource would be to generate a database, or list of web-links, of all the heroes that had been proposed by students working in the project.
8. Crosswords, puzzles and quizzes. It was agreed to include some 'fun' activities to generate interest and participation in the project. To start, Donny Gluckstein agreed to produce and distribute a crossword based on the heroes proposed by students from all the schools. This would encourage them to browse the school web sites to find out who the heroes were.
9. Each country to encourage postings to the forum. It was agreed that this would help to generate inter-school interest and cooperation. It was also agreed to develop a survey on what students consider to be the characteristics of a hero. Gordon Plews agreed to develop and distribute this.
10. Film students presenting their heroes. It was agreed, particularly for those using the project as a vehicle for teaching language or presentation skills, that students could be filmed presenting their work on heroes.
Proposals 3 to 10 above would be additional optional activities to the main hero presentation and voting activity. Each school can choose to do whichever of these activities they prefer and whichever best fit into the work of their curriculum. This will maintain the flexibility of the project within the overall theme, but give opportunities for each school to develop the work they started with their groups in the first year of the project.
It was further agreed that the next round of preparation of material on heroes would start later in the year, with voting starting early in 2008.
Dissemination
In order to disseminate the work on the project as widely as possible and to help with the end-of-year project evaluation, it was agreed to produce another edition of the online project newsletter containing:
- The names of the winners and runners-up of the first heroes competition together with their 200-word summaries.
- News articles that any school may wish to submit about the work they have done in the project.
All material for the newsletter should be sent to Donny Gluckstein by the middle of June for publication and distribution on 1 July 2007.
It was agreed that the names of all the heroes that were worked on would
be made available on the website, even though they may not have been included
in the voting system. Donny would collate this.
Project administration and funding
There followed a short discussion on project administration in the light of the tighter funding arrangements, in particular the concerns that some of the participants had expressed with relation to the next project meeting in Norway. Astrid Myskja and Ivar Sognli suggested a number of options to keep costs as low as possible to ensure that as many could attend the next meeting as possible.
Dates of future meetings
The dates of the next project meeting in Trondheim, Norway will be from October 16 to October 21, 2007 with an optional tour of the school scheduled for Wednesday October 17 and the meetings scheduled for Thursday and Friday of that week.
Any other business
A vote of thanks was proposed and endorsed by all participants for the host school.
