The project is called “Find Your Balance” and has been brought to life by a group of four schools from Skopje (Macedonia), Loxstedt (Germany), Tartu (Estonia) and Mysiadło (Poland). Its main context results from the observation that young learners nowadays use smartphones in almost every aspect of their life, including social and learning circumstances. This noticeable problem of teenagers being too attached to their mobile phones is quite a new matter. We don’t know the consequences on their physical and mental health nor the educational ways to handle this phenomenon. Schools all over Europe try to tackle it with different approaches, mostly by forbidding the students to use their smartphones at schools or by not doing anything about it. We would like to work out methods for our schools and their students which would enable them to keep the balance between their physical and intellectual development by using the smartphones but also by learning how to abstain from a constant usage of them. We have the same needs in this area and similar experience in using ICT in classrooms. We obtain three key aims in our project: 1) Spreading awareness of consequences of excessive smartphone usage, legal bases and cyber bullying. The students will learn what symptoms phonoholism might have and how to deal with the urge of using smartphones excessively. At schools lectures, workshops and other activities will be organized on this topic. 2) Possibilities of spending free time without smartphones, e.g. outdoor activities, sports, health care. These kinds of activities would aim at the activation of students, mainly by showing them the potential of the surroundings within their community. Many interesting, beautiful and challenging ways of spending free time can be found in the immediate neighbourhood. The nature, non-profit organisations, sport and cultural facilities have a lot to offer. Exploring it is a perfect answer to the need of having more to do than playing a next computer game or an application. 3) Using smartphones in an effective and healthy way. For this purpose, students would use the applications as a means in projects with students in order to present their cultural background and improve their English in the course of the project. These key aims correspond to the first three periods of work. The fourth period of work is about the overall results of the project. 4) Working on the overall results of the project, e.g. guidebook. During the preparation phase of the project a survey on 100 students at all four schools was conducted. The target group will be the future participants of the project, they are learners of 11-13 years of age. The survey focused on smartphone usage habits among them. The findings helped the team to elicit the aims of the project and design the proper activities in order to achieve the aims. The methodology of the project will consist of activities done throughout the two years at schools with project groups as well as of short-term students’ visits. In both cases students will learn how to use new applications in order to improve English, present their accomplishment, move around a city, etc. Workshops conducted on phonoholism will give the students a hands-on experience. Outdoors activities and exploring of the surroundings will create a nice balance and offer alternative ways of spending free time for students. The results and outcomes of the project will be published and spread as a guidebook with lesson plans, workshops and content elaborated during its run. The actual stand of the project as well as the whole documentation will be posted on the project’s page on Twinspace and project’s own webpage. The results of the project will be implemented in the curricula and school programmes of the participating schools. The impact of the project will include not only the target group of the students, their parents and collaborating teachers but also a whole range of partners in the immediate neighbourhood of the schools: the local community centres, doctors’ offices, other teachers in the county and its authorities, a senior centre. The project “Find Your Balance” will offer a wide range of skills and experience which will reflect on the rest of the students’ lives. Not only will they develop key competencies like digital skills, foreign language acquisition, or intercultural and social competences, but also they will learn how to view the world from others’ perspectives. Smartphones and applications will move them closer to their peers scattered across Europe, so together they will figure out, how to use them for their own benefit.
Project Find Your Balance was created in cooperation with partner schools from Germany, Poland, Macedonia and Estonia. Scheduled for 2017-2019, it aimed to: 1) Increasing the digital competences of participants in the field of applications for learning, self-presentation and obtaining information; 2) Spreading awareness about the dangers of excessive use of cell phones; 3) Showing participants development opportunities in the field of sport and artistic activities in the local environment; 4) Increasing language and social competence as well as cultural sensitivity of participants. The project creators intended to create a kind of balance in the lives of project participants. On the one hand, enriching the knowledge of their students with examples useful for learning applications, on the other, giving opportunities for social, health and cultural development without the use of technology. Examples of good practices and working methods in the project were collected and published in Find Your Balance - the Guidebook, a guidebook published on the project's website and printed in hundreds of copies. Among the intangible results, the most important seems to be the fact that students established relationships with peers during mobilities, not only improved English, but gained knowledge about other countries and experience of being in an international group that will shape them throughout their lives. The objectives were achieved through a wide range of activities which took place in partner schools and during activities related to learning, teaching and training, which had the following schedule: 1) November 2017 - Skopje, Macedonia, Krste Misirkov Primary School, 2) April 2018 - Tartu, Macedonia, Tartu Veeriku Kool Primary School, 3) October 2018 - Mysiadło, Poland, Primary School in Mysiadło, 4) May 2019 - Loxstedt, Germany, Gymnasium Loxstedt. 69 students aged 12-14 were participants of the project. During mobility and work in schools, students got to know many applications, participated in lectures on creating computer games, robotics and fake news workshops, visited the cities of Warsaw, Skopje, Tartu, and Bremen, met with representatives of local authorities, took part in sports and culinary activities. They were active creators of presentations and performances exhibited in the project. The implementation of the project went smoothly, inter alia thanks to the well-used opportunities that were brought by the International Project Meetings for coordinators, which took place in: 1) September 2017 - Mysiadło / Poland, 2) September 2018 - Loxstedt / Germany, 3) June 2019 - Skopje / Macedonia. Because the cooperation among the partners took place in a very friendly, constructive atmosphere, and the subject still offers many opportunities for its implementation, the proposal of the new APPic Learning project was written and received funding in Germany. Thus, partners for the next two years will create further development opportunities for students of their schools and teachers.