"EDGE" is a two-year project designed to enable people to become more conscious about preserving traditions, historical and cultural heritage through transnational mobilities and learning activities and increase cooperation among five European Schools (SK, CZ, PL, RO, ES). Our group of schools represents European diversity - from rural to urban; from north to south, east to west, former Eastern block and developed West; schools with different economic, social, ethnic and religious background. We will work together to set up a vision for future education and employment needs sharing the ambitions and aspirations of our students and working to prepare for a future in which life-long learning is a central element. This project will bring together wide range of students, teachers, families and local people from participating countries during the mobilty activities and during the planned activities. Teachers from different disciplines (Foreign Languages, Art, History, Geography, Civics, ICT, Religion and Ethics, Literature) and students will work collaboratively to study the topics defined and train the participants on preserving culturral heritage, improving desired basic personal skills e.g. critical thinking, problem solving, reasoning, analysis, interpretation, synthesizing information, research skills and practices, interrogative questioning, creativity, artistry, curiosity, imagination, innovation, personal expression, perseverance, self-direction, planning self-discipline, adaptability, initiative, oral and written communication using discussion, survey, brain storming, drama, group work, seminar, collaborative pair work, out of class activity, exhibition, demonstration, observation trips, project based learning and similar teaching and learning methods maximising the use of multi-disciplinary components within creative processes to allow us to identify some common elements. This is a cross-curricular project working collaboratively to promote intercultural education, to increase the foreign languages learning, the linguistic diversity and to improve the collaborative work, to raise awareness among pupils and other members of the society towards becoming more conscious citizens without any prejudices as this project also aims at building cultural awareness to help us cross barriers and learn to accept different values and cultures. The broad scope of our project enables all pupils including those from different ethnic, economic and social backgrounds, to participate in an active and creative way. We wish to combine raising awareness of European citizenship and cultural heritage with an ideal for preserving our traditional folk crafts and arts for the next generations while focusing on preparing ourselves for a future in which technological and linguistics skills will be essential tools. Furthermore, the project stimulates the capacity for teamwork and self-organized learning through encouraging working groups and workshops. The students will gather information, evaluate it, and integrate it into the project. These are skills which will be useful in many contexts and are also basic principles of lifelong learning. We expect we could increase respect and tolerance towards all kinds of diversities. Students will realize their own qualities and learn to empathize, improve problem-solving skills and prevent the possible conflicts, find remedial solutions for major obstacles in communication. Participants will get to know their own qualities and could find solutions for big problems and will develop and apply personal and corrective studying techniques and increase their academic success at their schools so that they can choose jobs suitable for them. The outcomes or final products such as presentations, videos, working with social media tools will improve ICT skills. For every activity a lesson plan will be prepared in each partner school for each 2-3 month activity period, outcomes will be seen through presentations (PowerPoint, Word, pdf, video, conference) + shared on the blog/Facebook/eTwinning space. Erasmus+ Newsletter will be published following each meeting. This will be in addition to local dissemination through school newsletter, school websites + communication through assemblies and local press/radio/TV. We believe that when the project finishes the students, teachers, parents, local people and authorities, will raise their awareness to the importance of equal opportunities regardless of gender, age, religion, orientation or beliefs, they will learn about new traditions, history and cultures through first hand experience in mobilities. We also expect the pupils to be more interested in reading and writing not only in English but also in their own language or dialect for the future beyond the limits of this project We also hope that the friendships started during the project among the participants will last forever because we have such experience from previous projects.
"EDGE" (Equality, Diversity, Gender, Education) was a three-year project designed to enable participants to become more conscious about equal opportunities, diversity, discrimination of minorities, unemployment, human rights and gender issues by working on various project activities and preserving traditions, historical and cultural heritage through mobilities. Our group of 5 schools represented European diversity - from rural to urban; from north to south, east to west, former Eastern bloc and developed West; schools with different economic, social, ethnic and religious backgrounds. We worked together to set up a vision for future education and employment needs, sharing the ambitions and aspirations of our students and working to prepare for a future in which life-long learning is a central element. This project brought together a wide range of students, teachers, families and local people from participating countries during the mobilities and project activities. Teachers from different disciplines (Foreign Languages, Art, History, Geography, Civics, ICT, Religion and Ethics, Literature) and students worked collaboratively to study the topics defined and trained the participants on preserving cultural heritage, improving desired basic personal skills e.g. critical thinking, problem solving, reasoning, analysis, interpretation, synthesizing information, research skills and practices, oral and written communication using discussion, survey, brainstorming, collaborative group work. The project was divided into several stages starting with the introduction of the teams, partner schools, towns, regions and countries, learning about different languages, traditions and cultural heritage of each partner. Then we focused on the topics of equality, gender issues, role of women now and in the past, discrimination and bullying by working on shared presentations, documents, comics and videos. This was a cross-curricular project working collaboratively to promote intercultural education, to increase the foreign languages learning, the linguistic diversity and to improve the collaborative work, to raise awareness among pupils and other members of the society towards becoming more conscious citizens without any prejudices as this project also aimed at building cultural awareness to help us cross barriers and learn to accept different values and cultures. The broad scope of our project enabled all pupils including those from different ethnic, economic and social backgrounds, to participate in an active and creative way. We wanted to combine raising awareness of European citizenship and cultural heritage with an ideal for preserving our traditional folk crafts and arts for the next generations while focusing on preparing ourselves for a future in which technological and linguistics skills will be essential tools. Furthermore, the project stimulated the capacity for teamwork and self-organized learning through encouraging working groups and workshops. The students gathered information, evaluated it, and integrated it into the project. These are the skills which will be useful in many contexts and are also basic principles of lifelong learning. In this way we increased respect and tolerance towards all kinds of diversities. Students realized their own qualities and learned to empathize, improved problem-solving skills and prevented the possible conflicts, found remedial solutions for major obstacles in communication. Participants got to know their own qualities and could find solutions for big problems and developed and applied personal and corrective studying techniques and increased their academic success at their schools so that they could choose jobs suitable for them. The outcomes or final products such as presentations, videos, working with social media tools improved ICT skills. For every activity a lesson plan was prepared in each partner school for each 2-3 month activity period, outcomes were seen through presentations (PowerPoint, Word, pdf, video, conference) + shared on Twinspace and social media. Newsletters and questionnaires were published following each mobility. This was in addition to local dissemination through school newsletters, school websites + communication through assemblies and local press/radio/TV. At the end of the project we can say that thanks to the project activities and outcomes the students, teachers, parents, local people and authorities, raised their awareness to the importance of equal opportunities regardless of gender, age, religion, orientation or beliefs, they learned about new traditions, history and cultures through first hand experience in mobilities. Pupils were more interested in reading and writing not only in English but also in their own language or dialect, keeping it for the future beyond the limits of this project. We are sure that the friendships started during the project among the participants will last forever because we have such experience from previous projects.