The present project was inspired by an already existing objet d’art called „Kulturkiosk“ The main task in this work is the training of skills that are essential for individual and reflected lifelong learning. In our project we are focussing on two main approaches: Firstly, we concentrate on the equal use of analogue as well as digital means in school tuition. Whereas teachers frequently tend to undervalue the offers of digital gadgetry, students often use it for communication and for playing only. Our project will show both of them that much more is possible within the educational system. Secondly, we try to combine modern professional education of Art and Science with the aims of language tuition. The fact that young people often show a reserved attitude towards museums, even though efforts have been made to attract students, has led to the idea of intensifying an activity-oriented approach in museum work. Analogue conventional means of education will be carried out as well as classic means of museum work. We equally try to find out to what extent our youth may benefit from the use of existing digital means during the visit of a museum. Preferably, an „Individual Museum“ could emerge from this project. The study group, consisting of seven advanced (resp.intermediate) schools from Italy(Naples), Finland(Helsinki), Greece(Patras), Poland(Gdansk), Hungary(Budapest) and Austria(Rein), are coordinated by a music-oriented school from Berlin With the support of an external expert we have planned to publish our conventional learning results side by side with an interactive, free (school) book in which all the results of the project are documented and which even-handedly invites the students to participate and to continue work. It is a free-use international museum guide, multilingual, and will be available for museums as well as for schools. It can, moreover, be used to organize or realize youth trips. We directly make use of specific partners‘ existing experience and skills for the process of the project. The work with students is preceded by sensibly structured advanced vocational training for teachers. After working in their home countries the students are expected to realize concrete ideas (which they are interested in) in the museums together with their project partners. During work in museums we demand a high degree of participation in decision - making of our students. They choose the museums and decide on the emphasis of lessons within predetermined quality characteristics. Thus we hope to succeed in offering an approach to our work also in students with learning difficulties and social disadvantage. In addition, long term stays, offered to our students, will be motivating. This kind of team work is totally new for several participating schools and is meant to be integrated into the project work in a profitable way. The teacher training serves as a platform to exchange experiences, to find out about the different existing functions of work in participating countries and to learn something new. We plan these events with the help of the schools as well as their teachers’experiences. According to the example of the coordinating school we have planned to present the actually working cooperation between school and museum and to work out quality- criteria for such consortia, which should then be used for developing the results of our project. At the Greek partner school a Europe-wide expert on the implementation of Web 2.0 tools is teaching the method in her lessons. She is going to provide an insight into this form of modern education together with her students and we will have the opportunity to test whether the use of this method is useful in the classroom or not. Subsequently, students are expected to organize an online conference to present these tools to their fellow students. Advanced teacher training in Finland actually prepares the use of digital means in museums. The teachers will discuss the possible chances of realization together with the museum experts. The Finnish school will offer visits to lessons and prepare workshops in order to show how learning has changed since the introduction of tablets in school. It will be of special interest for us to compare the experiences of Finland and Austria ( who have a different equipment approach –BYOD) The teachers will explore their new skills and competences during the mutual project meetings on site and try to integrate them later on in their own teaching. The teachers will also act as mediators for colleagues of their departments.
The eponym of the project -“Kulturkiosk”- is a red wooden hut with foldable walls, one of which seems to vanish in the ground. It has been an inspiration for many artists from different parts of the world. They filled this “Kiosk” with their work, integrating it in interactive artistic actions and placed it in the centre of their involvement with society. It found its way through Europe ending up in a schoolyard in Berlin. Beside the artistic use by students the “Kulturkiosk” thus became the central motif of our project. Our work mainly focussed on the development of structural competence, which is inevitable for individual as well as reflective lifelong learning. We concentrated on two main approaches: The first one emphasized the equal use of analogue and digital means in the lessons, whereas the second focus was concentrated on the combination of modern education in art and natural sciences with the goals of language learning. Although efforts have been made to intensify offers for young people in museums we have experienced reservation among youngsters towards these institutions. This again has motivated us to look for activity-oriented approaches in museum work. We followed the concept of combining classical analogue means of teaching with classical museum work. We equally tried to find out whether the use of digital means available would enrich students during visits to museums. The project group consisted of seven grammar (resp.secondary) schools from Italy (Naples), Finland (Helsinki), Greece( Patra), Poland (Gdansk), Hungary (Budapest) and Austria (Rein), coordinated by a school with artistic emphasis from Berlin. With the support of an external expert an interactive museum guide (IMG) was created. Furthermore, the results of the project are documented on the website www.interactive-museum.guide (sponsored by sicher-im-inter.net). As for ebooks it is a disposable international museum guide that can be read on any device. The work with students was preceded by sensibly structured advanced teacher training. After the work in their home country the students were expected to carry out specific ideas (those that students were interested in) in the museums together with their project partners. During museum work we focussed on co-determination of our students. They chose the museums and predominantly decided on the contents of the lessons according to given quality features. Moreover, students suffering from learning difficulties and social disadvantages were also interested in the work and could take part in it. The new skills and competences were explored and tested by the teachers during their project meetings on site. Results can be found in the fact that newly acquired methods have been integrated in lessons by the teachers and handed over to their colleagues. To sum up, it can be claimed that students that took part in the “Kulturkiosk” project have achieved a very high level of competence in using digital techniques referring to educational content. Furthermore, we increasingly notice much discipline in using digital media during lessons, which we would not expect to such an extent. Close cooperative work has also resulted in the possibility to offer long-term stays at partner schools to students. We therefore could have recourse to long-term experience of the Austrian and the Finnish schools.