2ND MEETING 7 – 14 MAY,2011 - KAVALA, GREECE

REPORT: COORDINATOR SCHOOL

 EUROPEAN   PROJECT   COMENIUS

“WATER: AN IMPORTANT RESOURCE IN THE LIFE OF EUROPEAN CITIZENS”

SECOND INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

7 – 14  MAY,2011  -  KAVALA, GREECE 

 Participating schools,countries and coordinators:

-HS/RS Heiligenkreuz am Waasen, Graz, Austria.(AT)   Brigitte Slavec 

-2 Epal Kavalas, Kavala,Greece. (GR)  Aggeliki Karanasiou

-Ist.Second.di Primo Grad“Piero Calamandrei”,Torino,Italy.(IT) Elena Zanon

-IES Las Huesas, Telde - Gran Canaria, Spain.(SP)   Leonor González

The visited school: 2 Epal Kavalas – Kavala, Greece.

 Coordinators from all the partner institutions,   and several teachers   met in Kavala , Greece on the same period, arriving on May 8^th  and leaving Greece on 15^th even though Spanish and Austrian teams were in Thessaloniki before and they had the opportunity to visit several museums, the city centre and the Greek Coordinator did a great job and showed us a lot of interesting places.

 The Greek hostess institution planned and organized the meeting and before the meeting, they sent to the partners, provisional and final Planning,  useful information and prepared all about logistics: accomodation,  all participants  stayed at the same hotel,  meals, activities... At the same time the coordinator institution asked from the participating schools to prepare a presentation with their work/activities they had done for the project from our first meeting till now so each country prepared a ppt in English which is the language of communication.

On Monday 9th May our work in this meeting started in 2 EPAL KAVALAS, where the students welcomed us with very nice traditional songs and dances in a music celebration even unfortunately was the last day in school year for students so that we could not visit lessons and talk to the students except in the evening with all participants in the welcome party at school. There we met the headmaster and some teachers. Then we had a tour to the old city, we visited the Imaret, where we stopped for a coffee and then had a guided tour,  Mehmet Alli’s House with a guide and the Lighthouse. We had lunch invited by school and shared with other teachers.

In the afternoon the participants had the first work session, the Greek Coordinator introduced us and each school introduced briefly the activities we had been carrying out in our schools since our first meeting in Gran Canaria. Some students were there to listen to our presentations and asked some questions and finally we exchanges some presents .After that some students, which are also musicians, played for us while others brought some homemade food to welcome us.

The second day we visited Thassos in an all day cultural trip. We went to Keramoti in order to take the boat to Thassos Island where we visited the wonderful Limenas’s beach and the archaeological museum with a guided tour. We were received by the Major who was very interested in join Thassos with Gran Canaria as islands. After lunch, in the afternoon we visited Monastery Archangels and others wonderful places of the Island. When we went back to Kavala we were kindly invited to spend the night at the Coordinator’s House and we were joined by some teachers.

On Wednesday morning, we had a guided tour to the archeological area of Philippi and the area of Lidia (first Christian woman), the mud baths and the traditional village Moustheni before being received by the Major who was so kind to offer us a gorgeous lunch in the countryside. In the afternoon we had our second work session. At the beginning, the Greek Coordinator had invited a primary school teacher to introduce us with the opportunities offered by the use of E-Twinning so interesting in our project and we follow with the presentations from the participating schools.

In this session each school showed its own products. Everyone had done a perfect work at their school and it was also fantastic that we could share all our experiences through ppt and discussion. Greek partner started its presentation where students worked in the topic, WATER in different ways, mainly with Activities Project Diary so they found out and brought information about recycling, save, ect., participated in photos competition, poems, performances, songs and expressions is related with water, made exhibitions and of course celebrated the Water Day. The Spanish partner, Coordinator School, underlined the importance of the logo in each work that we made. In that school students have been working in different subjects with all students and teachers and they produced videos, power points, panels about water and health, save, recycling,… songs, creative artistic works, leaflets, water sports, exhibitions, models, poems and expressions, water mill, ect. and all material that they used were exchange so we can use them in partner schools in different subjects. Spanish coordinator gave us flags and models with our logo so we can use them too.  Austrian partner showed us its products in a ppt celebrating World Water Day, they made different projects about water and in the assessment said that was very interesting and fun. Panels, built indoors fountains and solar fountains, creative draws, poems, water and health, ect.  Finally the Italian partner with video and ppt had the opportunity to share with the rest of participants its work in the European Project. Very successful was the song, they invent the words and the music that is related with water and they work in different projects with students and teachers too. They divided by groups the activities so they worked in poems, natural disasters, health and water, performaces, panels, exhibitions at school, ect.

The fourth day we visited in an all day trip the village Ouranoupolis Halkidiki and Monasteries in Athos Mountain . This trip was by boat because women are not allowed to visited the Mount and men can only do it after having asked a previous permission. It was very interesting and we knew a lot about history and Greek traditions. 

In our last work session we had the opportunity to visit the school. We could visit laboratories where they study to become cosmeticians, mechanics… because our Greek partner is a vocational school too while Italian, Spanish and Austrian are only High Schools. We saw some the products made by students during school year. After that we spoke about Middle Term Report and the changes we had to decide in our first meeting in Gran Canaria, changes due to the fact that two of the six schools which should have taken part to the project unfortunately couldn’t have the approval of their National Agencies. One of the school had to be the Coordinator, so the new Coordinator is the Spanish School. That reality made forced us to change also some of the originals outcomes, to adapt our work programme and to make modifications in our mobilities, for example we decided don’t work on a theatre performance as a final products. At the end we decided to fix a death line to send the report for the second meeting in order to have the final report in the first week of June and with the two final reports (1^st and 2^nd meetings) it will be easier to complete the middle report which shouldn’t to be submit till we compare by the coordinator all so all of them, have the same message. Then we started to discuss about which materials must to be uploaded into the EST and we decided that we are going to do it next year when really it’s compulsory.  

After The Greek Coordinator told us about Greek Educational System and knowing that things are changing  at the moment and she will be able to give us more details soon, we made an assessment and feed back of our work in the project and we exchange the students questionnaire prepared by Spanish School because could be very interesting for the assessment. In other hand, when we reviewed the materials that we uploaded in each web site school, we had decided in our first meeting to up in a special place for our European Project in our school web site, at least two ppt or videos from our partners (Austria in this meeting asked us to change its school presentation because now the presentation is improved and Spain gave us in this meeting its school presentation because we hadn’t a properly presentation)  we could realize that not all our web sites are working properly, non problems in Italian and Austrian ones but Spain did it through a platform but it doesn’t work and Greece is using a Blog in this situation we knew that problems with powerpoint are solved change them into flash. We  exchanged our photos and  all materials of our activities in the project, the Spanish Coordinator shared with us some activities that their English teachers created, this could be really useful material we could work on before next meeting even in the next we are going to talk about these experiences. Finally, we decided agreements, discussed goals and decided about dates for the next mobility and defined the work need to be done between the participants in the project for the next school year.

Agreements from now till third transnational meeting.

        

We agreed on the goals of our next meeting:

1.- We will establish contacts among students in English, Spanish, French and German, which are the languages students can use to comunicate, in order to become familiar with foreign students. Through coordinators  we put in contact by mail teachers who teach these languages in our schools.

2.- We decided that students will have to keep a diary in order to record their work in progress in the project till the end of the Project. It should be compulsory in students who are going to do any mobility so they can show to others.

3.- The pluviometer will be ready for the Water Day Celebration, during the fourth meeting in Italy, March 2012. We will start comparing the rainfall in each country in September so in November students can explain how much water there was in their area and they can compare.

4.- The glossary, ten words related to water which were worked by Spanish partner in English, German and French languages  and we decided to use the same words , they will be ready for the meeting in Austria, November 2011.  We will do the glossary and we need all the translations into the languages that are learned in schools or spoken by our partners (German, Spanish, Italian, English, French and
Greek). The Coordinator will send us the list.

5.- We talked about the importance of assessment, through a questionnaire to the students asking them about their experiences in the activities in this school year and asking them suggestions for next school year, (coordinator school gave us a model)  which will be discussed, the results, with in our next meeting in Austria. We must carry to Austria also some ideas to do the assessment of all Project.

6.- We confirm the dates for our Austria meeting , the third, which were decided in Gran Canaria from 7th of November to 11th, Monday to Friday, and we talked about the number of students and teachers mobilities, from each country.  Mobilities to Austria:
- Spain: 3 students, coordinator and 2 teachers
- Italy: 5-6 students, coordinator and 1 to 2 teachers
- Greece: 7 students, coordinator and 2 teachers

7.- We discuss about the final products to be uploaded on the EST and we decided that we are going to do it next year when really it’s compulsory so in Italy we will decide what and when.

8.- BLOG. (I need somebody explain this, please in my notes I’ve got: web site: no videos in the web
platform for Greece and Gran Canaria
password for the BLOG, Aggeliki will write an e-mail
- presentation of all schools: we exchanged all the presentations
- BLOG - we will put all our work in it
problem with powerpoint - change it into flash