The context of the ARRA project is defined by its priorities - open education and innovative practices in a digital era, promoting quality youth work, social and educational value of European cultural heritage, creativity, cultural heritage and regional dimension and cooperation. The cultural objective of ARRA is to study, map and describe the highlights of the cultural heritage in our towns in a way that attracts the youth of the 21st century, which means both modern information technologies and techniques based on the natural character of young people. The educational objective will be reached throughout the entire project implementation and means studying resources, personal experience with the exploration of museums, exhibits and sights. It also includes improving language and IT skills. The project will have strong socioeconomic impact on the development of tourism in our towns as their cultural heritage will be promoted and become more attractive both for tourists and local people. Our students will become partners and collaborators of local authorities and that way they will be able to identify with them as they will feel their personal contribution to the community. The planned number of the participants, aged 15 – 18, is 24 (minimum) from each of the participating schools. The LTTAs will always be attended by 12 students and 2 teachers from the partner school and by a higher number of hosting students and staff. All the travelling participants will be working on the preparation of the project and its implementation voluntarily and will be chosen for the LTTAs on the grounds of their previous activities, achievements and stamina. The activities can be divided into two divisions – preparatory phases carried out by the participants in their home schools, and LTTAs, where they will be collaborating on common tasks in mixed teams. The first year will mean doing research and preparation of activities for the first two LTTAs. The objective of the preparatory phase is to map the status quo of our museums and similar institutions, both modern and traditional ones. The LTTAs themselves will be organized as "treasure hunts“, "escape games“ etc. The LTTAs will also include field trips and exploration of attractive museums and institutions of our regions. The second year will offer the students creative workshops in which they will create quality video material of interactive quizzes and sketches. This work will include creative writing, creating script and setting, role-play and dubbing, shooting videos and editing them. The results of the project are all the materials created by the participating students for the local communities - the research on interactive exhibitions, worksheets for interactive sightseeing tours of our towns, hands-on activities for local museums, and video sketches and quizzes for tourist centres etc. The methodology used in the implementation of the ARRA project will be based on CLIL methods, outdoor teaching and experiential learning, hands-on teaching, and STEP method (Situation, Theory, Explanation and Post-Review). The project is expected to produce innovative materials, which we are ready to share both in the communities of our schools, towns and regions, but also through eTwinning platform to present examples of good practice. The expected impact on the participants and their schools will be broader horizons of our students, boosted interest in the European cultural heritage, improved language and IT skills, stronger desire to produce quality work that represents both the school and each individual author, and higher identification of our students with the community. The project is going to influence the community, local institutions and tourism in particular. It has the potential to make the towns more attractive and inspire young visitors to be active and enjoy the fruit of interactivity, which does not have to be financial burden of the local budget and still impress and encourage people. We suppose the authorities and institutions will consider our project an innovative concept of the presentation and promotion of our towns.
Project ARRA was planned for years 2018-20, later prolonged by one year, unfortunately despite an extra year it managed to organize only 2 LTTAs, which meant conceptual changes in the second (in fact third) year. ARRA´s priorities were open education and innovative practices in a digital era, promoting quality youth work, social and educational value of European cultural heritage, creativity, regional dimension and cooperation. The cultural objective of ARRA was to study and describe the heritage in our towns in a way that attracts the youth of the 21st century, using modern IT and techniques based on the natural character of young people. The educational objective was reached throughout the project implementation, studying resources, personal experience with the exploration of museums and sights. It also improved language and IT skills. Our priorities and objectives did not change, what changed was schedules and the level of elaboration of our results. The outcomes in general are research on interactive exhibitions, worksheets for interactive sightseeing of our towns, hands-on activities for local museums, video sketches and quizzes for tourist centres etc. The project has strong socioeconomic impact on the development of tourism in our towns, their cultural heritage has been promoted and become more attractive both for tourists and local people. High proportion of our students are commuters, who do not know much about Zdar or Lodève respectively, so the cooperation with local authorities enabled students to identify with their towns more and they feel they have contributed to the community. The first year focused on research and preparation of activities for the first two LTTAs. The objective of the preparatory phase was to map the status quo of our museums and similar institutions, both modern and traditional ones. We had workshops on the history of our towns and on the creation of a logo. We organized several field trips (Prague – National Museum, Museum of Film, Musee Lodève and Halle Dardé in Lodève , New Generation Museum in Zdar nad Sazavou, sightseeing in Montpellier and Zdar). The LTTAs themselves were organized as "treasure hunts“ code breaking, etc. They also included field trips and exploration of attractive museums and institutions of our regions – Prague, Zdar, Lodève and Montpellier, Litomysl (UNESCO), Toulovcovy Mastale and Grotte de Clamouse. In the first year there were two LTTAs (as planned) with a group of 13 Czech students (chosen according to their achievements in the preparatory phase, and age) and 13 French students (chosen according to their achievements in the preparatory phase in the European class). In total, there were 24 travellers plus app. 30 local students. During the LTTAs the participants collaborated on common tasks in mixed teams. The outcomes were 3 activities for the Musee Lodève , prepared as activities and presented in short videos, 9 sets of quizzes (for children, teenagers and adults in EN, FR and CZ) for NGM in Zdar, treasure hunts for the centre of Zdar and Lodève (in these languages). The second year offered the students creative workshops in which they filmed quizzes and sketches (history of Zdar) and videos showing outdoor sights (Lodève ). This work included creative writing, creating script and setting, role-play, shooting videos, editing and subtitles. In Lodève they organized workshops with a professional film maker to learn basic rules useful for a quality product. Unfortunately, we had to work independently due to Covid-19 epidemic. Not only did the epidemic ruin the planned LTTAs, but it also meant working under pressure at the end of the project without the opportunity to exchange the videos for dubbing. However, we managed to translate all the texts into EN / FR /CZ respectively and provide subtitles. Altogether, we created 9 scripts and 6 videos, 3 scripts remained only written. The methodology used in the implementation of the ARRA project was based on CLIL, outdoor and experiential learning, hands-on teaching, and STEP method. The project produced innovative materials, which we have shared both in the communities of our schools, towns and regions, also through eTwinning platform to present examples of good practice. The expected impact was broader horizons of our students, boosted interest in the cultural heritage, improved language and IT skills, stronger desire to produce quality work, and higher identification of our students with the community (based on Feedback Forms, debates). The project is going to influence the community, local institutions and tourism, it has the potential to inspire visitors to enjoy the fruit of interactivity, which does not have to be financial burden of the local budget. The authorities and institutions consider our project an innovative concept of promotion of our towns. Sadly, the project has not been used in real life yet, due to the situation in our schools, the institutions and tourism in general.