OUR PROJECT : BLIPP (Boost Learning throught Innovative Positive Practice) In an increasingly globalized society, teaching-learning processes should be oriented to enable students to become responsible, participative citizens in their communities, both at a local and at international level. The knowledge of foreign languages and the development of collaborative, teamwork skills and abilities are essential aspects to be developed in any project to be carried out in schools. Most commonly, though, students cannot find any link between what they are formally taught and what they might eventually need to develop a career when they complete their studies. Our project arises from the need to link education at school to real-life demands by means of working collaboratively on the topic of sustainable tourism. All the participants in our project share a common view of the purpose of education in a European context. Tourism is an important part of the economic systems of the different partners. With the implementation of this European Project, we aim at changing the stereotyped idea most foreigners have about other countries when visiting them. New technologies will be the tool to achieve our goal. We mean to use updated new technology, with a wide future scope: Augmented Reality and the use of blipps. A blipp is an image associated to a descriptive content, created using Blippar app, Augmented Reality technology (AR) and computer vision. Our project blurs boundaries. We have looked for the support and collaboration of other countries so European Value is added to the project, as the participants are able to get firsthand knowledge of new cultures and different realities. The participants are Finland, Portugal, Latvia and the Coordinating country, Spain. The project is addressed to Secondary Education students aged 15 to 17 and will have a duration of two academic years (September 2017- June 2019). Our priorities are promoting the acquisition of skills and competences, (School Education); open and innovative practices in a digital field and the achievement of relevant and high quality skills and competences. The main objectives we want to attain in this project are: 1. Stimulate students’ learning by practice based on projects and challenges to encourage the continuity of the pupils in the educative system, avoiding early dropout 2. Promote individual work habits and cooperate in team work actively and responsibly showing them techniques to solve everyday problems including scientific, mathematical and linguistic competences 3.Foster entrepreneurship and life skills and acquire autonomous habits and social behaviour through the development of enterprising abilities 4. Improve the effectiveness of the activities to benefit local communities 5. Support the teaching and learning of foreign languages in the European Union, thus creating a favourable environment for all the languages of the member states 6. Contribute to the development of European consciousness through material and educational exchange and the mobility between the different countries 7. Encourage the use of ICT to promote innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship activities Communication and Coordination between the partners will be ensured in English by means of the establishment of systematic meetings as well as the use of different channels, such as emails, videoconferences and cloud-based applications. There will also be Transnational Mobilities and Learning activities. The tasks to develop the project will be designed with the agreement of all the the partners and will be publicly and permanently available on the web. The final product will also be printed as a guidebook. The materials created may be used for touristic purposes by Local Authorities or for educational purposes by other agents. The activities will be around four main topics. During the first year we will deal with Cultural Heritage and Gastronomy and during the second, Landscapes and Routes. The most outstanding product will be the creation of different blipps about these topics, including videos, audios, texts and pictures and will have the purpose of promoting sustainable tourism in our areas. All the blipps will be compiled in the guidebook and uploaded on a website. Both the guidebook and the contents on the website will be created collaboratively amongst the partners. A continuous and thorough assessment will be carried out during the whole process, both for the participant students and teachers, taking into account the indicators commonly agreed on and designed according to the objectives to be achieved. Our project is flexible and can thus be modified at any stage depending on the results of the assessment. Our project is open-ended. As it will be permanently and publicly available on the web, and may be use for tourist promotion or educational purposes, it can be completed, extended, modified, reused and diffused by anyone interested in it.
Nowadays, the importance of knowing other cultures, traditions, ways of thinking and living should be considered of vital importance. Schools must provide students with the necessary tools so that they become active and responsible citizens, not only in their Local Communities but also in a European International framework. European projects are a useful tool to achieve this objective. At the same time, they offer the participants the change to carry out a Teaching-Learning methodology based on the acquisition of Key competences and collaborative skills and strategies. Our project focused on the necessity of giving the students the possibility to improve their acquisition of key competences, most of all digital competence, through the use of new technologies, and linguistic competence, addressed to the efficient use of a foreign language (English) in real contexts. In addition, the project responded to the need to connect the construction of knowledge on the students’ behalf to the reality of their local communities, establishing a true connection school-real life, which avoids early drop-out from school and fosters an active contribution to their communities in the future. Finally, the project met the need to widen the knowledge of other countries in a common European framework, avoiding the stereotypes which are often held about other nationalities. For all these reasons, we chose this topic based on the basic economic activity of our island: tourism. We looked for partner countries interested in working with us. They were able to provide different and enriching points of view regarding a sustainable tourist activity in their own Communities. Thus, we started working in 2017, which was declared by the General Assembly of the United Nations International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development. The teachers participating in the project have been between 5 and 8 in each country, including different areas: Physical Education teachers, Foreign Languages, Mathematics, ICT, Geography, etc. All of us have taken part in Transnational Meetings or Students' Exchanges. Between 18 and 25 students have directly taken part in the project ( 20 of whom have travelled from Spain and 18 in the other countries). Moreover, about 40 students have indirectly contributed to the project: editting videos and pictures, building up posters and credentials for the transnational meetings. They also helped solving technical problems related to the use of the technology needed and built up welcome posters and decorations for our guests during the transnational meetings. Families have also taken an active part in the development of our project, as they have attended all the meetings. They have also collaborated in the Intercultural Dinner, cooking typical dishes, and have been excellent hosts. Finally, the Local Education Authorities (Education Representatives, Inspectors) and Local Authorities (Mayors) have also been informed about the Project and have even attended some of our dissemination events . Our final product has been the creation of Blipps, Augmented Reality sequences dealing with four main topics: Cultural Heritage, Gastronomy, Landscape and Routes. Each country has created between 8 and 12 BLIPPs about these topics related to the region where they live. All these products are publically available through our website (www.blipp-erasmus.eu) We have also created a tourist guide in PDF format where all our Blipps can be seen and tested. This guide includes information and materials from Latvia (Sala), Portugal (Vidigueira), Finland (Kauhajoki) and Spain (Ibiza). We have also printed some pictures with the photos of the main BLIPPS about the four topics from Ibiza. We have shared our first results and experiences with other Secondary schools. We spent a day exchanging experiences, fact that was higly motivating especially for the younger students of our schools. We would like to highlight that we have been received by the Local Authorities in all the Transnational Mobilities and our project has been disseminated by the mass media (press and TV) in every country. We have also participated in a Good Practice Seminar in Palma de Mallorca (Spain), where two of our teachers explained the project and a student shared her experience in the students’ exchange, why she recommends taking part in European projects and what she has learned in the process. Our partners from Sala (Latvia) have also participated in some Seminars disseminating our project. Our project has an endless character, and thus, once finished, its content can be transferred and used by other educational communities, or even by Local Authorities to encourage and promote sustainable tourism.