This report consists of the following main sections:

• Project Management and Implementation
• Transnational Project Meetings
• Follow-up

Project Management and Implementation

Please provide an overall state of play of your project: what are the achievements of the project at this stage? Are the initial project activities and objectives being carried out and reached so far?

Slow start due to many participants (about 20 teachers and 120 students) and different time concepts in Sweden and in Germany, but…
– two transnational project meetings for project organisation and intense communication
– a lot of digital communication (mails, Skype, messages, …) between teachers and between students
– several subjects involved so far: Arts, Drama, History, Politics and Economics, Mathematics, Chemistry
– other will follow next year: English, Spanish, Programming, Physical Education
– blog for documentation since march 2017 (digitalbridges@lg-ks.de)
– first survey in mai 2017
– preparation of a student exchange in september and november

Please describe further in details the project activities supported by the grant for Project Management and Implementation that have been carried out until now.

– Information meeting about the project for all students of “Einführungphase”… almost 80 are interested. Essentially we organized students to do group work in one of their subjects in a collaborative manner sharing a theme together with another group in the other country. The students themselves created the manner in which they identify a question and then cooperate on gathering information, sorting through the data, make an analysis, present the results and then make an assessment on the quality of their work.
– The first coordination and introduction process took several months of time. We came out with some subjects running, others didn ´t. The areas we originally intended to work with are Math, Art, Business economics and English. After we found a Swedish Math teacher this subject worked very good. Some of the results are visible in the blog (digitalbridges@lg-ks.de). The art teachers knew each other from a former EU project. That made the collaboration much easier. Politics and economics had a slow start, because it was difficult to find themes according to both curriculums that students can work with. Finally we dropped English as a subject for this year because there was no Swedish teacher able to be in the project. But English is still the working language. Students use this language to work on different subject specific themes. At the first transnational project meeting we decided to take Chemistry, History and Drama as additional subjects students can choose. This seemed to be helpful to get the huge number of interested students involved. Next year we want to get more subjects involved, for example English, Physical Education and Programming.
– Project Management is time consuming. Mr.Weisberg and I spent a lot of time to talk to teachers, students, headmasters,… We found out that it´s necessary to meet people not only digitally. That´s why we organized several national meetings at our schools. Without sitting around a table and discussing peoples plans and the process a lot of work is done twice. We tried to have collaboration not only within each subject but also between different subjects

How is the monitoring of the project being carried out so far and by whom?

– Swedish students from the Behavioral Science course developed a survey which was implemented digitally from German teachers. It´s part of the Swedish curriculum for Behavioral Science that students should develop a questionaire, use this for a survey and evaluate the social process. The students asked about the manner and the frequency of digital communication. And they gathered information about the influence on the learning process with 15 questions.
– Besides the survey the blog (digitalbridges@lg-ks.de) is important for the documentation of the process. We get to know about goals, plans, products,… That´s why the blog is part of the monitoring as well.

How did the project partners contribute to the project so far? Has the distribution of tasks been adjusted since the application stage?

Every partner contributed to the project what was possible – according to the application. Due to the difficulties to find Swedish teachers for some subjects (e.g. English) some German teachers can ´t contribute to the project in this year. But probably this part of the project is restarted in the second year.
There is one aspect where we went back to former plans. We decided to organize a student exchange in the second year. In the beginning of september some Swedish students will visit the documenta art exhibition in Kassel and gather information for their art class. About 10 German students will travel to Sweden in the end of September to work for their “Facharbeit” together with their Swedish partners. And inNovember some more Swedish students should come to Germany to do the same for their “gymnasiearbete”.

 

Transnational Project Meetings

First Meeting (5.-7.Oct.2016)

After several strategic meetings with different teachers from different subjects and a meeting with the headmaster we made some decisions.

Subjects
We want to involve a lot of subjects and teachers in the Digital Bridges Project: English, Spanish, Arts, Literature/ Communication, History, Politics and Economics, Mathematics, Chemistry, Programming, Physical Education

First Steps
Teachers: first contact via E-Mail from Sweden to Germany to start the project, think about a small first collaboration for a whole group or some students (3 weeks according to the curriculum)
Teachers: Talking with their students, gathering ideas, forming goals for the project
Students: initiate group work (2-3 weeks), decide about a theme including orientation about partner country

Documentation
… is a must have for students. Several steps: 1. make a plan, 2. document the process like a diary, very flexible, about what was good or difficult, 3. present your results
… is an option for teachers. Guide the students in their learning process.

Assessment and Evaluation
– made by the students of the behavioral science course (Rudbeck)
– students do self evaluation at the end of each step of the project work
– questionaire or form as a guideline, designed by the students itself

Goals
– Collaboration, Transnational Peer Learning, Evaluation
– opportunity: gymnasie arbete/ Facharbeit in the second year
– possible if there´s a benefit: student exchange in the second year

Moodle or Blog

Keep in contact! The E-Mail-Adresses of all participants are available.

Second Meeting (19.-21.April 2017)

Again we had several strategic meetings with teachers who are involved in the project with their students. We had an ongoing discussion about the working process during the first months and some results.

Main Goals for the project:
– Get a wider perspective on working and learning.
– Involve students in collaborative work.
– Give them more freedom and responsibility for their learning.
– Use English as language for communication.
– Promote the interest for a certain subject or theme.

Working process in different subjects was documented as an extra document “Subjects”

All Subjects
– further planning (more detailled) for Facharbeiten/ gymnasiearbete
– find out how many exchange students there are for the student exchange, probably 24.9. – 29.9. to Sweden and 29.10. – 3.11. to Germany
– Use “Digital Bridges” as a keyword or a guideline for your subject and your projects.

Documentation in the blog: https://digitalbridges.lg-ks.de
– Describe the process of work, save results (texts, photos, videos,…), give examples that might motivate others, …
– Every teacher got a mail from word press (28.3.) to get access for publishing. Log in with this link, change the password. How to publish a post see manual from Matthias (mail 21.4.)

Assessment and Evaluation
Digital Questionaire for all subjects with only a few questions, Students should fill in the form after work but before summer holiday

 

Follow up

Impact: What has been the project’s impact so far on the participants, participating organisations, target groups and other relevant stakeholders?

The Digital Bridge project is a combination between student exchange and teacher training which becomes possible by the use of mobile devices. The partners should work together both digitally and by meeting each other. The topics for the transnational projects emanate from the subjects so that the results strengthen the regular learning process of the involved students, their classmates and their teachers.

English is the working language in this project. Students will be training their English in the transnational discourse during these two years. This will be in the form of both verbal and written expression. It is self-evident that this is going to be a challenge for the participants but also an opportunity for significant advances in their ability to master this international language of science, culture and business.