Let's use digital tools to talk about tolerance

1. Context of the project. Project Title: 'Let's use digital tools to talk about tolerance' The project was planned for two years: from September 2018 to August 2020 but because of worldwide pandemic it was prolonged till February 2021. Unfortunately the pandemic sitations was still very bad so all partner schools decided to close the project at the end of February 2021. Last mobility (to Sweden was cancelled) and some of the activities were done online (because of locdowns in almost all countires) or in sanitary regime at schools (where it was difficult to meet in groups) or in some schools it wasn't possible to do them at all. The partnership had been established between 6 schools from Poland, Portugal, Germany, Turkey, Italy and Sweden as we had diagnosed a common problem: young students are facing the danger of living in a virtual reality, passing much of their time connected to their mobile devices using digital tools mostly for fun, without significant improvement of digital and social competences. They seem not to have much reflection about serious issues of real life and they present lack of empathy and understanding for others. We were convinced that in the world full of diversity (social, racial, religious and material etc) it was crucial to develop the essential competences that young people need to have to be able to live and co-exist without hate and violence. The idea of project was to teach our students to use digital tools and virtual world to do something good and valuable for others, to teach them sensitivity and shape positive attitude full of empathy and tolerance. 2. Project objectives. The established goals of the project to achieve were: - to equip and develop in our students competences (skills and knowledge) in good communication in English and other foreign languages. We would like to give the students an opportunity to experience the actual need of communication. We had combined two aspects, one of them was everyday life communication and the other one was communication for a specific purpose, in this case it was computing and programming. Our desire was that the students taking part in the project knew and actually used words and expressions which function in this field. - to develop in the project students high level skills in programming and mastering IT tools to enable them to use the techniques in future tasks. Having these skills the students would have better start in the world of competition. We wanted to make the project students understand the processes they would have to deal with working on the project products to be conscious users of certain programs - to teach our students and all participants of the project to be more tolerant, sensitive and full of understanding for the other people especially for those who are socially excluded (the disadvantaged groups like for example - the elderly, poor people, disabled people) and how to help them if they feel the need to do so. - to give our students the knowledge about EU, its values, traditions, history and also about their countries, culture and national features. 3. The activities that had taken place. In general two kinds of activities had been planned: six partner visits and six sets of workshops/classes in between the visits. Each country had to prepare one visit and had to invite 25 kids and 10 teachers from all project schools.The teachers and the kids stayed at the hotels or with the families. In almost all countires the kids stayed in the hosting families. As to the methodology that was worked on that the project work, in all schools active methods were used: group work, debates, workshops, presentation, discussion, coding, programming, In the project the following groups of participants took part: - students of the partner schools - teachers and other staff of the schools (for example the headteachers) - parents and members of local community, Parents Associations - members of local authorities, organizations and local institutions cooperating with each partner school 4. Project's results and its expected longer-term benefits. As for the results the participants: - are aware of significance of diversities - accept and tolerate human differences and diversities - can create an interactive poster, presentation and comic book, a film, an interview and a 3D print program and use advanced IT tools - communicate much better in English - cooperate in groups and implement the project method into practice - can express and present themselves in the international environment through a common project - know the history of the European Union, its values and traditions as well as gain the knowledge about all project countries The envisaged impact of the project and the potential longer term benefits are: - the partner schools opened to international cooperation - the students felt the desire to communicate with their peers from abroad in English using e-Twinning and immediate communicators. (not only the project students, but also groups of interest supervised by the teachers). - the schools organized and ran regularly extra classes on programming and using IT tools at schools, took part in competitions in programming - the schools involved in fundraising charity events - the schools will continue activities in next school years devoted to the elderly, the handicapped, the poor etc. - the project students are aware of values of European cultural heritage - the students learned how to be a better person in the adult life (more tolerant, sensitive, helpful, sympathetic)