- This project was first thought of in a context of a generally-felt imminent collapse of the world as we know it. It seemed to us that it was a necessity to have pupils and teachers think positively about the future by looking into the good things already taking place around them and in the outer world. - We have decided to enroll in our project first- and second-year high-school students (aged 15 to 18) from our schools G. Eiffel, France, Reichenbach Gymnasium, Germany, and the IES La Guineueta, Spain with which we have already fruitfully collaborated. This will enable the students to follow through the 2-year project. - Ahead of each mobility, the three schools will select 10 students, meaning 60 students will have had the opportunity to work with their partners abroad by the end of the project. Their work will be supervised by 5 teachers and 2 school directors. - To fulfill our objectives, activities will take place in class and/or during workshop sessions whose results will then be shared on eTwinning as preparation for and follow-up on our transnational meetings. Ice-breaking activities will be posted on the project's Twinspace. - Our objectives are to develop the students' key skills in writing, speaking and reporting, to improve their English and their social skills, to foster creativity and awareness of cultural differences between partners, and to use IT tools in a sensible way. As for teachers, they will gain a fresh perspective on their teaching practices through interdisciplinary activities, by collaborating with teachers from different disciplines and different countries. > During Year 1, a multilingual online magazine set in a Utopian world will be created, featuring articles in four different languages, based on the analysis of existing media. Our purpose is to give our students a better understanding of the news, of how they can shape the future. They will develop an open-minded approach to national, cultural and social differences, and better language and computer skills by working in transnational groups. Students will meet first in Ennepetal (Germany), then in Barcelona (Spain). Preparation activities will focus on: - gathering press vocabulary in English; - deciding on newspaper sections collectively; - meeting professional journalists or students in journalism who will coach the students. - Online games created by the students on their Twinspace will be used to identify common interests among the students. Transnational activities (during mobilities) will include: - field trips to places of interest, interviews of forward-thinking people; - brainstorming and reporting activities (students will confront their impressions and will start laying down the draft of their articles); - writing activities (students will write the magazine articles); - translating activities in different languages - decision-making activities (the students will decide on the general look of the magazine using the know-how of the Gymnasium's newspaper club members). Ennepetal and Barcelona having both to deal with urban development issues, comparisons between these two areas will be used as resource material, as will their visits through the schools to show them the German and Spanish school systems. When they return from these meetings, students will start working on what should appear on the magazine's cover, table of contents and layout, discussing these items via the Twinspace forum. By the end of the school year, the online magazine should be completed and ready to be broadcast and printed with the help of a professional journalist if possible. > During Year 2, they will create video reports, reinvesting previously acquired skills and implementing new ones in multimedia, namely video shooting, editing and subtitling for the multimedia version of our magazine, under the supervision of a professional. Preparation activities will focus on: - analyzing TV news and online media; - working on fake news and fact-checking sites as it will give them insight on their impact on democracies. - suggesting and choosing a list of visits for the mobility in Bordeaux. - gathering information with a view to conducting a master class. Transnational activities (during the mobility to Bordeaux) will include: - field trips to places of interest chosen by students; - derushing and storyboard writing; - video editing; - translating into different languages. By the end of the second school year, the newscast should be completed and shown to an audience. We hope that this project will make students and teachers more open to transnational work, the use of collaborative virtual tools, and to the fact that the future is in their hands. The different visits, meetings and transnational activities are aimed to show the students that open-mindedness, the will to act, and solidarity already exist in the world and it's up to them to make good use of them.
This project hoped to fight an anxiety-provoking environment by inviting participants to imagine a multilingual, collaborative magazine and a utopian newscast set in 2050. Current events have confirmed its usefulness. The three high schools involved in this project are Lycée Gustave Eiffel, Bordeaux, France, Reichenbach Gymnasium, Ennepetal, Germany and IES La Guineueta, Barcelona, Spain. The IISS G. Peano-C. Rosa from Nereto, Italy joined us in the eTwinning project. The number of pupils involved varied. While our colleagues worked with dedicated classes, in Bordeaux we created a club open to all volunteers which welcomed between 14 and 25 pupils. The activities were supervised by two teachers in France and one in each of the partner countries. The mobilities involved 10 to 14 pupils per country, accompanied by 2 or 3 teachers. They all used eTwinning, Google Docs and Madmagz to share their work. The teachers also collaborated via email and video-conferencing to organize the mobilities or virtual meetings. The pandemic imposed many constraints on us. Our objectives (knowledge of the media, mastery of Internet tools for the creation of documents and communication in English) were set in a context of distance learning and the multiplication of fake news on the Internet, legitimizing the work planned on linguistic and digital skills and the interventions of media specialists in Bordeaux, the results (lexical enrichment, editorial skills) being shared on Twinspace. The first mobility took place in Ennepetal in February 2020. The students posted their discoveries, learning and reflections on Twinspace and Google Docs to elaborate together the first articles of the magazine and to include the students not participating in the mobility. Upon our return, the students chose the name and layout of the magazine by polling, but the mobility in Barcelona planned in May had to be postponed and replaced by video conferences. The end of our project was postponed for 6 months. The following year, we finalized the magazine (order of articles, translations, illustrations), as the teaching conditions slowed us down. All the students were able to participate in the ERASMUS Days 2020 which partly replaced the promotion events (meeting of all the local actors and videoconference) cancelled because of the pandemic. The filming of a utopian news program set in 2050, planned at the end of 2020, began in March 2021. The planned program on fake news, news analysis (TV and Internet), and the realization of the newscast thanks to the presentations of speakers (with a videoconference on fake news and face-to-face courses), was followed and shared on Twinspace. A virtual mobility has been collectively decided from May 3 to 7, 2021, according to the Spanish partners' schedule. Video conferences and workshops allowed us to progress in the joint construction of our news channels, despite the sometimes insufficient equipment and connections. Following the mobility, the scripts of the videos and the roles to be played were shared via an extended Drive and the Twinspace forum. In September 2021, teachers and students reviewed what had been done and prepared the ERASMUS Days 2021 with an online Genial.ly gathering videos created by the students, and participations in the various events organized in our respective regions. The planning of the last mobility (Bordeaux, 29/11/2021 - 3/12/2021) had to be deeply reworked following the cancellation of the German partners. Nevertheless, Zoom sessions, sharing of links, documents and comments on Twinspace, and Instagram Live allowed everyone to collaborate for our "TV Channels". The presentation of the project as planned in our application had to be cancelled as well, as the visit of people from outside the high school (parents, mayor of the district, rector, and academic inspector) was discouraged due to the spread of the Omicron variant. The last weeks were dedicated to the finalization of the videos (editing, illustrations, credits, dubbing). We have thus reached the objectives of our application, and our magazine and our utopian channels are now available. The students and their teachers were able to improve their language skills, learn about other school environments, and become familiar with the world of the media and Internet tools. The students have also gained in autonomy and have grasped the benefits and importance of the European ERASMUS+ projects, which everyone is asking for a new occurrence. We hope to have given them the taste and the audacity to go towards others, and to work in collaboration. Our institutions have also seen their links strengthen and are ready to consider new collaborations.