The main aim of our online magazine UNITING FUTURE ONLINE (UFO) is to react to challenges due to immigration as well as the connected EU crisis in values. This project will focus on education, which is the key to common understanding and solidarity, European consciousness, democracy. We are going to give possibilities for exchanging best practice examples in teaching, comparing teaching methods from different countries and school systems. Initiatives like cooperative open learning, individualized teaching and self-responsible learning have been partly put into practice, we will enable discussion and exchange of best practice examples both for students and teachers on an innovative concept of an online magazine. The teachers' contributions will be administrated by one representative of each school.Students will form editorial staffs (4 students) at their schools responsible for the contents and articles. Among other things, they will report about daily lives and school life, trying to make the magazine appealing to their age group. Apart from that, the youth magazine will focus on the following topics: spirit of Europe, solidarity, integration and inclusion of migrants, uniting future, diversity, democracy. Five European partner schools from Austria, Croatia, Netherlands, Slovenia and Sweden experienced in project cooperation for years are willing to create a sustainable internet media for the exchange of information, views, ideas, skills and experiences and a platform for discussion and expression of opinion as well.Each project partner will deal with one topic chosen according to their strengths and experiences and will share their expertise. The following topics will be allocated to the following partners:The Austrian will deal with immigration and the reality of integration. The Croatian school will focus on chances and benefits of European values and attitudes; European institutions will be presented, companies will present the economic relevance of the EU for Croatia. The Dutch school will make use of their expertise in debating clubs, dealing with democracy and citizenship. The Slovenian school, being experienced in organizing cultural events, will perform a musical and will deal with interconfessional aspects.The Swedish school will be responsible for the issues ICT and communication skills.The discussion platform will enable ongoing discussions and the spread of thoughts on Europe, fighting nationalism and promoting European solidarity. Obviously, IT skills must be improved to be able to produce an online magazine and to be able to use its potential to the full. Partners and activities:Approximately 100 students from each school will in some way participate in the project, aged 16 to 18.In the exchanges students will change from meeting to meeting, thus 30 from each school will take part in exchanges. Among these, there will be migrants. There will be activities like writing articles for the magazine, web design and layout, participation in online discussions, reporting and investigating on topics, workshops on journalistic skills, dealing with contents on the internet, excursions. These activities will take place during the exchanges but also steadily at the partnering schools. The two short term joint staff training events will serve for the coordination of activities, project management and evaluation of results and their sustainable further use. The short term exchanges of groups of pupils will serve the purpose of getting to know each other, common learning in workshops, practising foreign language skills and investigation in issues allocated to these events for further writing tasks. Results will be the exchange of the best practice samples (accessible for teachers and students) on a sustainable onlione magazine which will be maintained even after the project end. Schools beyond the participating ones will be invited to make use of this magazine, schools from Serbia and Kosovo will, as an added value, contribute articles and ideas and profit from the material provided. Without the need of travelling themselves, they will be able to share our aims and become members in the school network like many others to come.
The idea of of the online magazine UNITING FUTURE ONLINE (UFO, www.unitingfuture.com) was to deal with challenges in education, with problems due to immigration and the connected EU values. During meetings, innovations such as cooperative open learning, individualized teaching and self-responsible learning were partly put into practice by all the participants and as a consequence it enabled discussions and exchanges of best practice examples both for students and teachers also in the innovative way in our online magazine. Students at each partner school formed editorial staffs and were responsible for the articles. The main topics of the online magazine were: spirit of Europe, solidarity, integration and inclusion of migrants, uniting future, diversity and democracy. Five partners from Ybbs/Austria (technical college HTL Ybbs), Zagreb/Croatia (Vladimir Prelog Science School)high school), Venlo/the Netherlands (Valuascollege), Maribor/Slovenia (Zavod Antona Martina Slomska) and Vänersborg/Sweden (Fridagymnasiet), dealt with one specialised topic each, Five short term exchanges, hosted by the partner schools, contained common learning in workshops, practising foreign language skills and investigation of issues for further writing. There were also activities like writing articles for the magazine, web design and layout, participation in online discussions, reporting and doing research on topics, workshops on journalistic skills, dealing with contents on the internet, source criticism and local excursions in connection to the theme. These activities took place during the exchanges but also steadily at the partner schools. Among other things, students wrote articles and reports about their daily lives and school lives, in order to make the magazine more appealing to their age group. Schools benefited from increased quality of teaching activities (writing, speaking in a foreign language) because of the more practical way of writing for a realistic situation and real audience. Due to contact with other schools, teaching institutions experienced alternative teaching concepts (COOL, individualized learning...). Students acquired skills in web design and layout; apart from that, they gained experience in taking photographs and in dealing with online contents. Contributors developed journalistic skills and learned to develop their own opinion and to speak their mind They developped an understanding for journalistic work, the importance of facts for reporting and democratic ideas. Long term benefits of this project range from future use of the website for EU project to sustainable change of attitudes of participating students concerning the matters covered. In some schools, debating clubs turned into an ongoing instrument. .