The Secondary College for Occupations in the Service Industries Management (HLW) in Wolfsberg and Istituto Statale di Istruzione Superiore "Bonaldo Stringher" Udine (Friaul-Julisch Venetien), two vocational colleges focusing on economics and tourism are planning to work on a project entitled "Overcoming borders with the help of ICT." Two neighbouring regions which have a lot in common with regard to economy and culture are to collaborate at school as well as offering students mobilities within those two years. The project focuses on four points – first of all, foreign language skills should be improved and experimented with in authentic situations (host families). Second, the two regions (Carinthia and Friaul) should be inspected from a historic point of view working out opposites and similarities. A further point is making effective use of digital technology. The project is to indicate possibilities on how to use modern media in the foreign language classroom. What is more, company visits should allow students a glimpse into the world of work and arouse their interest in doing a compulsory placement abroad. And last but not least, teachers should get to know new teaching methods and push the use of digital media during lessons. A team of four teachers and a class of 20 students from both countries are part of the project. The students aged between 15 and 16 are in their second year of studying the respective foreign language (Italian/German). Meetings of the students in the respective host countries are in the centre of the project. The aim is to get to know the school systems, the towns/regions and their cultural highlights, exchange of experience with regard to ICT, visits of companies which are of interest to the two schools. Additional activities are to offer further education to staff. The use of etwinning and ICT in connection with learning foreign languages should be in the centre of attention. Job Shadowings are to open new points of view to teachers and increase their motivation and range of teaching methods. The results of this project are the following: Students should collect their personal experiences in a folder. The two partners are to launch a blog or a website, where the progress of the project and finally its results are to be put down. The website contains pictures and videos of the various activities carried out in the course of the project. A short film will be made and folders about the respective regions will be designed. The best folders will be awarded prizes. Presentations about the company visits will be put together to inform students who are about to do a placement. The project ends with big public event. Both schools will benefit from the project through lasting contacts, increasing attractiveness through numerous public presentations and forming a basis for a future corporation and partnership.
The Secondary College for Occupations in the Service Industries Management (HLW) in Wolfsberg and the Istituto Statale di Istruzione Superiore "Bonaldo Stringher" Udine (Friaul-Julisch Venetien), two vocational colleges focusing on economics and tourism, were working on a project entitled "Overcoming borders with the help of ICT" between 2018 and 2020. About 45 Italian and Austrian students aged between 15 and 18, as well as 10 teachers took an active part in the project. The project focused on five points – first of all, improving foreign language skills, second, exploring the two regions involved (Carinthia and Friaul), third, making effective use of digital technology, fourth, gaining insight in the respective world of work by visiting special companies and, finally, collecting new ideas for educational purposes with regard to the new media. All the activities carried out made sure that those aims were reached. The most important activities carried out in the first year were two three-day student mobilities to the respective neighbouring country (C2 and C3). The aims for about 55 participants were to get to know each other, the host families, the host towns, baking and cooking regional specialties together. Furthermore, several project logos were created, out of which one finally got chosen to accompany the project. While preparing for all those activities, a variety of digital tools were used, eg. photos taken and films made which were edited afterwards. That way high-quality short films representing the project's goals came into existence. In the second year, student mobilities were extended to 5 days. This time the focus was on “borders” and getting to know the world of work in the respective countries. In November 2019, Austrian students visited their partners a second time. Visits to numerous companies offered them a better insight into the Italian economy and gave them new ideas with regard to spending placements abroad. In addition to that, the former border between Austria and Italy in Pontebba/Pontafel was focused on during that week. Students were working together on the history, culture and traditions of the border regions; the results were then presented in Pontebba. Unfortunately, the final student exchange in Wolfsberg, which was supposed to mark the end of the project as well, could not be carried out because of COVID 19. Due to the latter, only one out of the two planned job-shadowing activities could be carried out as well. During the first one, two Italian teachers had the chance to exchange experiences with their Austrian colleagues and Austrian students had the chance to talk to native speakers when they participated in Italian classes. At around Christmas 2019, all the participants, teachers and students, met online to exchange information about traditions and to offer greetings. In the course of the second year, the Austrian students created a project pullover, which was supposed to be handed over during the final meeting; instead, they had to be sent to the partner school by mail. The results of the cooperation are mostly to be found in the description of the activities. To sum it up, in the course of the project - padlet pages, project folders, an interactive city guide, an e-twinning page, some short films, power-point presentations and project pullovers came into existence. All those results will contribute to the long-term effects of the project. The materials generated can be used during school events, parents` nights, Erasmus Days etc. On the one hand, they are supposed to add to the attractiveness of our school and on the other hand, they are supposed to encourage others to start Erasmus projects as well.