Human interpersonal relationships based on the effective communication have always been the core of any successful activity. Nowadays young people more often turn to social media and acquaintances there than build real-life, long-lasting friendship with their peers. Relationships on the Internet are of rather shallow, random nature, hence, the idea of drawing young people's attention to the importance of the former relationships became our aim in writing this project titled 'Face to Face - How to Build Long-lasting Interpersonal Relationships Effectively in the Era of the Internet and Social Networks'. The project involves cooperation of five secondary schools (Poland, Turkey, Serbia, Italy and Romania) and the participants coming from these schools will form groups of teachers and students (aged 16-19) performing the tasks and taking part in mobilities. The language of the project will be English. The main objectives of the project are based on: - providing young people with necessary tools to build real-life relationships, - improving their interpersonal communication skills - improving their self-esteem - improving skills needed to plan, manage and evaluate the activities (creating tools, data analysis, drawing conclusions) - improving language skills by interaction with peers from other European schools - suggesting ways to organise free time actively and in a creative manner In order to achieve these aims, students will be provided with many workshops and meetings with professionals on the topics covering the aspects of body language; voice and gestures, tempers, character, social and cultural differences. Additionally, they will take part in many artistic and cultural activities broadening their minds on other cultures, religions, traditions and improving communication and cooperation skills. They will also produce their own pieces of art which will be presented in a form of an international exhibition. These workshops and activities will be included in the program of five visits to the schools and the inter-mobility tasks as Erasmus+ project will be supported by an eTwinning project of the same title, where all the materials such as photos, films, survey results, workshop plans are uploaded. ETwinning platform will be also used to meet the partners during online meetings between the mobilities, supporting the relationship, sharing opinions, exchanging experiences. The expected results will be reflected in the improvement of the key competencies such as socialization, foreign language development; also boosting students' self-esteem as well as language, time-management, communicative skills development, and finally introducing aspects of critical thinking. The project will have the impact not only on participants, changing their views, attitudes and lifestyle into more interpersonal-oriented, improving the quality of their relationships but also parents, teachers, school institutions by implementing the aspects of workshops/seminars/presentations into their general framewok and local community through the volountary work; promoting the project through an intended website (or blog); on the international Erasmus+ forums, eTwinning platform and in the local media, press, forums.
The development of the project "Face to face - how to effectively build interpersonal relationships in the era of the Internet and social media" resulted from the need to draw the attention of young people to the importance of building and maintaining personal relationships in connection with the deepening disturbing behaviors observed with our students. These behaviors mainly concerned the increasing amount of time spent in the virtual world and the creation of short, shallow relationships with peers using popular social networks. (The survey conducted at the beginning of the project only confirmed this sad reality.) Therefore, the goals of the project became: - providing young people with the necessary tools to build personal relationships and improve interpersonal communication - improving the skills of planning activities, assigning tasks in accordance with skills and predispositions, responsibility for organizing events - improving participants’ self-esteem - improving the skills needed to plan, manage and evaluate activities (creating tools, data analysis, drawing conclusions) - raising the level of language competences through interaction with peers from other European schools (particularly in English as the adopted language of the project) - presenting ways to actively and creatively organize free time To achieve these goals, students took part in workshops and meetings with professionals on topics related to interpersonal communication, including body language, voice and gestures management, temperaments, character, social and cultural differences. Moreover, various integration, artistic and cultural activities took place which broadened their knowledge about other cultures, religions, traditions and improved their communication and teamwork skills. Much emphasis was placed on promoting various ways of spending time in direct contact with other people, conducive to creating and nurturing interpersonal relationships. The results of these activities were presented in the form of international exhibitions (both in traditional and virtual form). The activities in question took place during and between scheduled school visits. Due to the pandemic, the visit to the Turkish school had to take place in a virtual form, the rest were in a blended form. The Erasmus + project was supported by the project of the same title placed on the eTwinning platform, where the results of the project (e.g. students' work, lesson plans), photos, videos, and a description of activities in individual schools were posted on an ongoing basis. Virtual meetings of the project participants planned between the mobilities, used to share opinions and evaluate activities, took place on the GoogleMeet platform due to the easy accessibility and the possibility of participation of all students and teachers. The expected results of the project were reflected in the improvement of key competences such as socialization, development of a foreign language; increasing students' self-esteem, as well as effective time management, development of communication skills and critical thinking. The project had an impact not only on students, changing their views, attitudes and lifestyle to be more focused on the other person, improving the quality of their relationships, but also parents, teachers, and local communities by promoting the project activities in local media, on websites. , social media, a dedicated website, and a platform for disseminating the results of the Erasmus + project.