AVITAE: “A Virtual Intertextual Tour across Ancient Entrepreneurship” aims to increase students’ awareness of our common European roots, with a particular focus on the birth and development of the European entrepreneurial spirit. The seven partner schools are both secondary (6) and vocational (1) schools, spread across Europe: they are located in Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Denmark, Slovakia, Finland, and Spain (Canarias). The students taking part in AVITAE are aged 15-18. They will be involved in a variety of activities: they will seek, select, read and analyse old texts, exploit other kinds of sources, such as maps and pictures, interview historians, attend lectures, visit workshops, museums and ancient sites, always following a teamwork modality to share research results with their partners; they will produce texts, presentations, short films, animations, games, interactive maps and plans, they will run art competitions, and finally they will translate into action what they have learnt from their “tour across ancient entrepreneurship”, trying to build their own business inspired by ancient civilizations. Six short-term exchanges will take place to let students work side by side, exchange ideas, share and discuss the results of their work and acquire a better and more direct knowledge of their partners’ heritage and history of enterprise culture. The AVITAE website will be created, first as a virtual meeting place for students and teachers, and then as the project’s main tool for sharing and discussing ideas, choices and outcomes; the website will also host and publish both transitional and ultimate materials to encourage dissemination. AVITAE aims to promote an innovative approach to Europe’s classical heritage, and to enhance cooperative learning and enterprise culture in the young in order to make them more aware of their common roots, and more communicative and better employable individuals in the labor market.
AVITAE was born out of our shared need to provide teachers and students with an entrepreneurial mindset, which means: an ability to tackle challenges in life, learning to focus and to work in team; to plan, risk, have a vision, to measure risks/benefits, to be creative and motivating, to use digital tools, to take on managerial roles and pursue professional success. This mindset is a way of being in life, an attitude to one’s “job”, mission and commitments, and not a tool-box for entrepreneurs exclusively. To achieve this aim, we have undergone a deep study of our common European roots, with a particular focus on the birth and development of the European entrepreneurial spirit; to enhance the project’s vision, we have organised the AVITAE team like the staff of a real company. The seven partner schools are both secondary (6) and vocational (1) schools, spread across Europe: they are located in Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Denmark, Slovakia, Finland, and Spain (Canarias). The students taking part in AVITAE were aged 15-18. Following team-work modality, they have been involved in a variety of activities; here are the highlights: creation of the project brand (layout and graphics of the newspaper, project logo and mascot, AVITAE posters, leaflets and ads); creation of a 14-issue high-quality newspaper, in both digital and traditional format (a collected volume has been created too); the realization of a digital coin database expressing the strategic role money has played in the development of European entrepreneurship; the creation of 3-D models of ancient ships, inventions and buildings connected with trading; the organization of an international market, an “agorà” of the future, made of virtual markets, futuristic market prototypes and models, a table game on the trading history of the seven partner countries; an e-cooking book on revisited and newly branded ancient recipes; videos and animations on the life of famous entrepreneurs from the seven countries, of past and present times; last but not least, the creation of real mini-companies making real profits. Six short-term exchanges have taken place to let students work side by side, exchange ideas, share and discuss the results of their work, practise their English, and acquire a better and more direct knowledge of their partners’ heritage and history of enterprise culture. The AVITAE Twinspace and Website have also been created to work as virtual meeting places for students and teachers, and as the project’s main disseminating tool. AVITAE has managed to promote an innovative approach to Europe’s classical and non classical trading heritage, and to teaching and learning models at large; focusing on the entrepreneurial mindset, it has enhanced cooperative, team-based learning and enterprise culture in the young, in order to make them more aware of their common roots, and more communicative and competitive individuals in the job market.