Heroes and Cultural Identity Project

Project meeting: Nitra, 21-26 October 2008

REPORT OF THE COMENIUS 'HEROES AND CULTURAL IDENTITY'
PROJECT MEETING HELD IN NITRA, SLOVAKIA, 21-26 OCTOBER, 2008

The following teachers were in attendance during the week:

From Scotland	Donny Gluckstein	Penny Gower	John O'Neill
	Gordon Plews
From Italy	Cristina Fuga	Marzia Zabbatino	Michele Minenna
From Norway	Astrid Myskja	Arne Øiaas	Ivar Sognli
From Slovakia	Renáta Kelemenová	Henrieta Martincová	Andrea Macáková
	Silvia Miklisová
From Poland	Oktawia Gorzeńska	Agnieszka Reszczyńska	Anna Leszczyńska
	Izabella Niklewska
From Turkey	Sevcanur Özcan	Serkan Erenler	Ahmet Gökçen

The following students were also in attendance:

From Italy	Luca Di Bartolomeo
From Norway	Jannicke Elverhaug	Maren Eliassen
From Poland	Karolina Gałka	Daria Kałużna	Grażyna Szubrycht
	Magdalena Mazur
From Turkey	Pamir Cark	Demet Ozdemir

Report of the meeting

The coordinator introduced the session and suggested that the main purpose of the meeting was to prepare for the final event in Rome on 14-19 April 2009.

Participants then informed the Rome partner of the exact number of staff and students who would be needing accommodation (as the city is packed at Easter time). Accommodation options were also discussed.

It was suggested and agreed that the first priority of the Rome meeting would be the presentations. These would take place on the first morning of the meeting when outside agencies and individuals would be invited along. They would be able to see what work the project had achieved and could leave at that point if they wanted to.

Harry's YouTube video was then shown. It was agreed that this would be a good way for people to generate video presentations for Rome. Partners would upload their material into YouTube and send Harry the links which would be put on the Heroes website.

It was pointed out that the Turkish government did not allow access to YouTube. It was suggested that the Turkish partners put their work on to a CD or DVD and post it to Harry.

ROME AGENDA

It was agreed that the overall project meeting would be over three mornings - Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

It was agreed that teachers from the individual countries would do an introduction to their school's work. This should last 3 - 5 minutes per country. These talks would be by alphabetical order.

That would be followed by student presentations. The nature of these was discussed. It would not have to be national heroes. Slovakia, for example, was likely to present a hero not from Slovakia. Norway might well look at a Scottish hero. It was agreed that as flexibility was the spirit of the project, that it was up to individual countries how this part would be carried out.

It was decided that there would be two student presentations per country (maximum 5 minutes per student).

So the format for the first session would be starting at 9am.

09.00 - 09.30 - teacher presentations (6 x up to 5 minutes each)

09.45 - 10.45 - student presentations (12 x up to 5 minutes each)

The morning will finish with handing out of prizes.

The second session in Rome would concentrate on the benefits and challenges of the project.

It was agreed that each partner should produce a 200 word summary in advance of the meeting on the benefits and challenges that have been encountered during the project. This would be the basis for workshop discussions in Rome.

The final Rome session would look at evaluating the project.

In addition there would be the joint report for the National Agencies, but this should be regarded as separate from the final product of the project itself.

We then broke up into workshops to discuss the following questions:

1) How are we going to have a multimedia competition? Is it a free for all with no time limit? If so how would we present this in Rome? If we have time limits what should they be? What language should be used? How will the competition be judged? What are the prizes? If a teacher does not use multimedia as part of the teaching process should they have another competition of their own (within their school, or between schools)

2) How do we want to develop the theme 'what have we learnt about heroes and about cultural identity'? Some might want to get students to submit articles/essays for the website. Is there anything else we can do? Or do we want to just have a discussion at the Rome meeting?

3) If we wanted to design a questionnaire about the project, what questions should be asked. Could each workshop group think of 5 questions?

4) How would we work on heroes from other lands?

Group 1 reported:

Students can be flexible regarding how they present their work. Speaking should be encouraged, but it can be a multimedia presentation if the student is unable to do a good English oral presentation. English should be the language used.

We should use the same voting system as before, with its two parts - internal voting (decided by the school), international voting (2 presentations of maximum 200 words and 2 minutes of video or 10 PowerPoint slides). There will be one winner per country, and prizes of small presents for a maximum of 15 students.

It was agreed that at the beginning of the Rome meeting a student from each country will stand up and greet everyone in their own language - just 5 words or so. ('Hello, welcome to this project').

Group 2 reported:

We think that there should be an internal process to choose who should go to Rome because an international competition would generate winners too late to attend.

Group 3 reported:

We thought that the best approach would be to use the same method as before. Each school should put forward two internally chosen winners for an international vote. The presentations should have 200 words and up to 10 PowerPoint slides or 2 minutes of video.

Group 4 reported:

Our group suggested that the international multimedia competition should be different from an internal competition where winners are selected to attend Rome. We debated whether the international competition should produce one supreme winner, or whether there would be a winner for each country. We preferred the latter.

Discussion about the different presentations and competitions was extensive, and after a considerable debate it was agreed that we should run a competition on the same lines as previously (200 words, 2 minutes video, 10 PowerPoint slides). This therefore required deadlines.

The agreed deadlines were as follows:

Last date for submission of video (and link sent to Harry for uploading on to website) - 6 March
Voting completed by 23 March
Results announced on 15 April in Rome

There was a discussion about an evaluative questionnaire. The purpose was to provide evidence for national agencies, but also to enable teachers and students to reflect on what they had done for the project.

John proposed a list of evaluative questions. It was agreed that John should circulate his list to the partners and this would be the basis for the evaluative questionnaire.

It was decided that there should be a comments box included, so that additional points can be made. It was felt that there did not need to be separate teachers/student questionnaires but that one would suit all. Teachers could make additional points in the comments box if they wanted.

The timing of the questionnaire would be the same as for the competition - to be completed by 23 March so that the results can be collated and presented at Rome by the coordinator. The voting at national level should be counted up in each country and only the aggregate results sent to the coordinator.

On how to work with heroes from other lands, Norway reported that their students would be working on heroes from Britain and Scotland, while Slovakia reported that their students would be working on heroes other than from Slovakia.

There was a discussion on the cultural identity puzzle in the fun and games area. It was decided that all words used should be in English, though names are allowed (e.g. Blue Mosque).

A short session was held on 'How to do your own project'. See website for details. It was pointed out that to find partners for the Heroes project around 100 emails had been sent out. One partner gave an example of a project that had gone disastrously wrong and ended after one meeting.

Final product

So far our project has been working for ourselves and our students. We need now to show the agency what we have done.

It was agreed that the website would be the principal 'final product'. Between now and Rome we would be adding additional items:

Results of students' questionnaire
Results of teachers' questionnaire
Student presentations for new round of voting
Teachers' presentations on experience of the project at national level

Dissemination

Videoing of Rome presentation? Italian partner to look at this possibility.

Disseminating information about the website. Partners could contact their national agencies to see if they could put up links to our website

There is a problem with showing students on the web without permission if they are under 18. This needs to be checked out before mistakes are made.

Final report

A separate joint report would be prepared by the coordinator after the Rome meeting. It will have to be ready for July and will be circulated for approval before being submitted to the national agencies.

For a shorter version of the report see the summary of decisions made