Newsletter 1st issue

NEWSLETTER 1

NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2013 2013-1-TR1-COM06-47699 3

contents Project summary Project aims Distribution of tasks The story of 1st project meeting: 13-15. 11.2013, Sopuerta, Basque country What’s next?

Lycée Tézenas du Montcel

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According to the priority areas set out in the Europe 2020 Strategy, forming “digital agenda for Europe” is among seven flags and most relevant for education and training.

Basing on the digital agenda, the Multilateral Comenius project, “European Digital Stories” ref. number: , funded with 198.000 EUR with support of European Commission through the Comenius Programme, intend to educate both students and teachers on New Technologies and methods, like digital storytelling and public screenings at schools. The project is a partnership between 9 schools from different countries across Europe: TR – project coordinator, PT, IT, ES, NO, GR, FR, PL and RO. "European Digital Stories" aims to combine the tradition of storytelling with contemporary technical tools, raising the key competences on EU-enlargement topics and on European common values, teaching digital storytelling competences to 12 to 18 year old students and teachers.

This type of activity will generate interest, attention and motivation for the "digital generation" students in today’s classrooms. The medium of digital storytelling will offer tremendous opportunities for teachers to engage and assess students and by integrating visual images with written text, digital stories will be use to enhance and accelerate student comprehension.

Besides this, it is proved that digital story telling method is a very effective tool regarding Human Rights Education and that can lead to positive change, promote mutual understanding, empathy and tolerance in European society. In this way, during the partnership meetings and communication chain, both students and teachers will perceive the multicultural and intercultural life of Europe and will acquire a common identity under the European citizenship.

We, the teachers from „European Digital

Stories” team consider that it is motivating as everyone can write, tell, produce and publish their own story by using a standard camera, computer, voice recorder and software practically. So, this project came up from the idea of combining the art of telling stories with a variety of digital multimedia, such as images, audio, and video. The Digital storytelling will be a productive method to teach students of all ages, not only to develop skills in the use of a variety of digital tools, but also to voice their point of view, to enter a (virtual) discussion and to try and find mutual ways of communication with others.

Digital storytelling will become a potent tool for students who are taught to create their own stories. The digital stories process will capitalize on the creative talents of students as they begin to research and tell stories of their own as they learn to use the library and the Internet to research. In addition, the students will develop enhanced communications skills by learning to organize their ideas, ask questions, express opinions, and construct narratives.

The project will help students as they learn to create stories for an audience, and present their ideas and knowledge in an individual and meaningful way. When digital stories will be published on the site, students will have the opportunity to share their work with their peers and gain valuable experience in critiquing their own and other students’ work, which can promote gains in emotional intelligence and social learning. Digital Storytelling will foster collaboration between students and it will provide value in enhancing a European experience through personal ownership and accomplishment and creating European common values.

This project wishes to transform the digital storytelling in an effective instructional tool for teachers. Because we come from different EU countries and we have different perception regarding the use of ITC in learning and assessment process, this project will help the teachers how to use digital stories in the curriculum. Teachers will be able to use digital stories effectively especially in English, ICT, Drama, Literature ,History and even any other classes as telling a story always captures interest of the students at any ages. It represents an opportunity to learn one from each other, to share pedagogical experiences and to link our

national educative systems to the European. It will serve as an anticipatory set to capture the attention of students and increasing their interest in exploring and self development.

While many educators still lack a cohesive plan for integrating multimedia into their instruction, during this partnership, a growing number of teachers will become interested in exploring ways to engage their students by including images, audio and video elements in their instruction.

The project “European Digital Stories” employs the method of digital storytelling to help participants in familiarizing with other European cultures and ways of life and to provide a strong foundation in many different types of literacy, such as information, visual, technology and media literacy.

The topics that we are going to use in our digital storytelling range from personal tales to the recounting of historical events, from exploring life in one's own community to the search for life in other corners of the universe, and literally, everything in between. It will be the perfect tool for the students and teachers to realize and perceive the multicultural diversities of Europe, become tolerant to the cultural differences, and acquire a common identity under the European citizenship.

Sharing digital storytelling with other students from Europe helps our students to understand at a younger age that everyone has a story to tell. The school will become a new place where they will be able to share and talk about their experiences with other peers from Europe in a safe environment. The participating in this multilateral Comenius project is the best opportunity for our schools to work together on new pedagogical methods based on ITC, to enlarge afterwards the local curriculum and to contribute for the safety e-learning.

The project supports the process of European integration and common Europe and promotes the improvement of the eight European key competences being necessary both for teachers and students in order to gain new linguistic, intercultural, cultural benefits, which will bring us together in unite European learning environment.

Digital stories allow individuals to give others an insight of their everyday lives, their convictions, their goals or their concerns, helping to create a common Europe.

Storytelling has always provided a good means to share experiences, to distribute what’s new, to maintain tradition and to promote developments.

Digital storytelling means that the boundaries between people disappear: It matters less where you are at the time you are telling your story.

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-educate students and teachers on New Technologies and methods, like digital story telling and public screenings; -develop knowledge, respect and understand among students and educational staff on the diversity of European cultures; -encourage the students' use of English and motivate them on using English through drama, making new friendship and increasing tolerance; -acknowledge the importance of foreign language learning as a way to get access to other cultures, countries and people, and as a way to achieve better international understanding; -increase the cooperation among the schools in Europe by introducing other cultures' stories and develop a better dialog among the schools and their communities; -promote foreign languages study and creativity by using refreshing activities into classroom and support the use of a new and innovative content and practice of ICT “digital stories” into both European classroom and lifelong learning society; -integrate ITC tools and digital storytelling in the schools curriculum (drama, history, literature, music classes,etc) -create learner-based environment and increase the collaborative learning by using motivating and colorful activities; -increase the intercultural communication (students being free of prejudice and fear of communication) and personal development;

Both students and teachers will learn how to use Windows Live Movie Maker, to organize plot of stories with pictures, using first person narratives, voice recording, editing the sound according to sequence of the event, add subtitles to the stories in English.

•Organize international workshop for students “Digital storytelling •Students exchange 24-27.02.2014

Create website of the Project, Prepare digital questionnaire on website 21-23.05.2014

Kick off meeting 13-15.11.2013

•Select and compile of digital messages for Europe's new generation •Preparing a dvd for the whole pictures and videos during project •Students exchange

ES

•Organize digital story contest •Project newspaper •Students exchange 1-5.12.2014 Coordinate of the project activities; Organize international workshop for teachers “Digital storytelling”  students exchange 17- 20.01.2014

•Create questionnaries for studenst •Compile the questionnaire results and publish ebooklet.

•Students exchange 2- 4.04.2014

•Publish e-bulletin of the Project (per Year) •Preparation workshop for Call for Europe in France •Studnets exchange

•Organize last meeting • "Call for Europe”: theater representation •Students exchange

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The story of the 1st project meeting...

by Ecaterina Predescu (RO)

This first mobility story starts in a beautiful small town, Sopuerta about 35 kilometers away from Bilbao, Spain.

Between 13th and 15th November, the school of San Viator Sopuerta gave the start to the Comenius Multilateral school project entitled “European Digital Stories”, being the host of project kick-off meeting. The organizers were pleased that the invitation had been accepted and the representatives of the other 8 participating countries arrived and actively cooperated when negotiating the project activities and further details. At the meeting there were the school representatives of the involved countries, such as Turkey( project coordinator, 4 teachers), Poland ( 1 teacher), Italy ( 2 teachers), France ( 2 teachers), Norway ( 1 teacher), Greece ( 2 teachers) , Portugal ( 2 teachers), Spain ( 4 teachers) and Romania ( 2 teachers) having the objective of defining the guidelines and the activities to be undertaken during the next 2 years.

details and possible problems connected to the project were discussed.

We all reached an agreement: we clarified the roles that each partner had in the project, there were set out the concrete dates for the mobility of each country, as well as the mandatory activities specified therein. It was organized the logo contest and the winner was the Turkish proposal. In the second part of the day, we had also the opportunity to see the wild landscape of the region and to visit the Caves of Carranza ( Vizcaya ) , well-known for its stalactites and especially the stalagmites with crystal shapes.

During the last day, the session focused on storytelling, discussions about the second mobility in Turkey and on the prepara-

Situated between green mountains typical of this region of the Basque Country, the San Viator school has about 1100 student and among other professional courses there are workshops concerning electricity , mechanics and auto painting.

The international team was welcomed by teachers’ staff and students’ team with Basque dances and “bertsolaris”- a nice welcome song. On the first day , besides the visit to the premises of this school belonging to the Diocese of Bilbao , all delegations attended the first workshop in order to present their schools and the main activities they had developed based on the work made by the students ( PPTs, videos) In the afternoon, participants had the opportunity to make a cultural visit to the historical center of Bilbao, with main emphasis on the Guggenheim Museum , designed by the Canadian architect Frank Gehry and the main card of the capital of the Basque Country.

The second day was filled with working sessions where all the

-tion of the documents.( mobility rapport).

The project coordinator, Ms.Gulsum Hatice Unsal offered a short description of what digital storytelling represents and how digital stories will be used as well as created during the project activities.

In the same time, we decided that the technical expertise regarding the creation of a digital story will be given by the Norwegian school that will be responsible with delivering and organizing a technical workshop for all the teachers in Turkey.

During this kick-off meeting , the friendly atmosphere enabled all the participants to reach their goals and to develop relationships appropriate for future cooperation on the project which we are all looking at with great interest.

It is well known the fact that the firsthand experiences are the best way of getting to know someone and something and this project meeting was a proof of how important these meetings are.

2nd project meeting: Havza, Turkey, 17-20.01.2014 -Digital story: workshop for teachers -Students exchange -Presentation of national cultural stand -Presentation of each country: small traditional dance performed by students This project has been funded with support from the European Commission through the framework of Lifelong Learning Programme. This publication reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

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