Manuel Mora has prepared a video presention of the mobility:
Report: Lithuania 6-10 Dec 2021
PROJECT MEETING IN LITHUANIA_report (1).docx
C1 PROJECT MEETING IN Bubiai, Šiauliai district, Lithuania
6th DECEMBER - 10th DECEMBER, 2021
The ERASMUS + European program entitled " We are Ready for Digital world" was held successfully in Bubiai, Šiauliai district from 6th December – 10th December 2021.Short-term joint staff training events included teachers from Greece, Turkey, Lithuania and the coordinators of the project, teachers from Spain.
The program concerns IT integration into the core curriculum and usage of digital tools. The main methodology of the program – project-based learning, learning by doing, training workshops, theoretical and practical training.
On the part of Šiauliai r. Dubysos aukštupio school, the visit was coordinated and organized by the local project manager Mrs Vida Šarauskienė, the Vice Principals and a teacher of the English Language, the Headmaster Mr Vaidas Bacys, and Mrs Ausma Šereivienė, a teacher of the English Language and the ERASMUS + project group consisting of 6 teachers. Particular emphasis should also be placed on the participation of the students of the ERASMUS project group in the activities of the program at school.
Partner school teams arrived in Šiauliai on Sunday, 5th December and settled at different hotels of Šiauliai,
On the first day, Monday 6th December, a welcome meeting was held with the students and teachers of Šiauliai r. Dubysos aukštupio school. Guests were introduced to the main subjects of the meeting and the theme of it. Partner countries had a great opportunity to visit all three departments (Aukštelkė, Bubiai, Kurtuvėnai) of the school. Mrs Vida Šarauskienė gave presentation “How Lithuanian schools survive COVID-19 situation: between challenges and new opportunities” and Mrs Ausma Šereivienė presented Web2 tools we use in our educational process.
After the warm welcome all the teachers of the partner countries had a walk around the school premises. Afterwards there was a short visit to Kurtuvėnai manor and the educational centre. Work and discussions of the results of the questionnaires and presentations of the materials produced by each partner followed during the work session.
On the second day, Tuesday 7th December, the guests had the opportunity to visit the capital of Lithuania – Vilnius. They visited the Old Town of Vilnius. In 1994 the Vilnius Old Town was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List (No. 541) in recognition of its universal value and originality. The definition of "historic center" itself has a broader meaning than the Old Town, formerly encircled with defensive walls. It embraces the valuable historical suburbs of Vilnius, such as Užupis, which historically used to be outside the city boundaries. Therefore Užupis is often considered a part of the Old Town of Vilnius. In the afternoon, the teams visited another UNESCO World Heritage Site of Lithuania – Trakai Historical National Park.
On Wednesday, 8th December, partner teams together with the 4thformers of Šiaulių r. Dubysos aukštupis school had a workshop of Minecraft Euducation which was conducted by teachers Mrs Almutė Šarlauskienė and Mrs Jūratė Ščeponavičienė. Then the guests had an opportunity to participate in the IT workshops conducted by partner teams together with the 6thformers of Šiaulių r. Dubysos aukštupis school had a great opportunity to participate in the IT workshops conducted by Art teacher Mrs Raimonda Valančienė and Science teacher Ms Lina Kaveckytė. Guests tried different methodologies of integrating of Web 2 tools into the curriculum.
In the afternoon, the partner teams had a sledging activity in Bubiai then they visited the unique place – Hill of Crosses. It is the most important place of interest in the north of Šiauliai. Visited both by pilgrims and irreligious tourists this place is a remarkable symbol of Lithuanian peaceful resistance to the Soviet occupation. People used to bring crosses to a hill once crowned by a medieval castle. The atheist Soviet government used to tear all the crosses down and persecute the pilgrims, but very soon the crosses would spring up again, restoring the number to hundreds and thousands. The Lithuanian art of cross-crafting is inscribed into the UNESCO list of immaterial world heritage.
On the fourth day, Thursday, 9th December, project teams visited Šiauliai Young Technicians Center. After a short excursion, teachers participated in the IT workshops. Participants of the workshops had “Ozobots” coding activity.
After the training session guests visited Balts’ culture promotion centre and then went sightseeing around Šiauliai. They visited St Peter and Paul’s cathedral, the statue of the Golden Boy, Talkša lake with its famous iron fox.
In the afternoon partners were taken to the Confectionary Factory “Rūta”. They explored the exposition, listened to the history of the chocolate and the factory itself. The history of this place is very long and the name “Rūta” is an inseparable part of the town Šiauliai. After the excursion partners and local teachers had a time of their life at the chocolate workshop.
In the evening all the partners and the teachers of the school were invited to the restaurant „Black Bar“ to pay tribute to the partners‘ visit to Lithuania.
On the fifth day, Friday, 10th December, participants had an online lecture “Use of academic tools during Covid period” which was held by Evaldas Stalioraitis Microsoft academic segment manager, Cloud Sale representative of Public sector. After the lecture, the last project meeting followed. The final arrangements on the dissemination of the project, the filling of the form in Mobility Tool were made, evaluation of the meeting was carried out and the certificates of attendance were awarded.
On Saturday, 25th September, all teams of the visiting partner schools left for their countries.
Teaching/ learning activities:
• Before anything else. How Lithuanian students survived the Covid-19 pandemic and web 2.0.
Lecture given by the Microsoft representative in Lithuania.
During the pandemic, Microsoft offered specific software for academic use rather than for devices in general. This was so due to the rapid growth of the pandemic. They worked closely with the Lithuanian Ministry of Education to provide them with the type of tool that was required, but tailored to the specific needs that were raised.
At the beginning of the pandemic, they contacted the ministry because they did not have the tools to remotely attend to the needs of distance learning in the country.
With the necessary information, they created an ID for all students and teachers so that they could connect and use these tools freely.
Secondly, the necessary training for the use of the tools had to be provided to teachers using their local language.
These tools, which were in Lithuanian and Russian, had to be adapted, but they had to be adapted to Lithuanian since not all teachers were fluent in Russian.
In addition, its use had to be extended in a generalized way since the Microsoft solution was only used by 5% of the population. Others used other tools like Zoom, Google Meet or other solutions.
In November 2020, 60% of the population used the Microsoft solution, but with a more communicative material than anything else, it was used to share the material and make videoconferences. All of this was offered free of charge, although the ministry opted to purchase the more expensive Office suite.
Finally, it was decided to use Teams, which also allowed the use of other external tools such as Moodle or Prezzi. You can use the Moodle plugin called mConnect to use Teams in Moodle.
Another need that has arisen is the possibility of incorporating own material already developed, which can be done with Onedrive, although Dropbox or Google drive can also be used.
The version of Teams is a specific version developed for education with specific adaptations for the educational environment, they were not only limited to using the version of Teams that already existed.
They use tools such as Class Notebook to have everything related to class management connected and even allow individualized contact with students. There is also a personal space not shared with the students to accommodate whatever you want.
This material was very flexible and allowed, for example, to add personalized correction rubrics.
These tools provide a great teaching experience for teachers without the need to make live remote connections, although these can also be done.
Personal note: “Basically it's the same as Moodle, but using Microsoft products, with which future users of said tools are achieved and the use of Microsoft products is naturally extended. I guess that's why they offer it for free."
Power can be used to automate many tasks using templates. We can also create our own YouTube system with the class videos and make them available to the entire community.
In summary, this version of Teams provides all the necessary tools for teaching both in person and remotely.
• Minecraft Education Workshop
We participated in a workshop with a free educational version of Minecraft called Educraft. The task to be developed was to build a town with the materials, wood, clay and other elements that could be found in Lithuanian lands, as a way of getting to know all those native construction elements. All this was done collaboratively.
Subsequently, a search was made for wild elements such as berries and mushrooms, identifying which of them were edible and which were not. A silicone material was used as an implement of the elements mentioned to show them in class. The objective of the game is, basically, to fix those theoretical explanations that had previously been explained. The age of the participants was around 10-11 years.
In general, there were two teachers in such a way that one of them was in charge of technical issues and the other gave support to children with doubts or difficulties.
Microsoft provided support through a postgraduate. At school they welcomed those Microsoft projects that interested them.
• Merge Education Platform
On this occasion, work was done integrating several subjects, such as English, natural sciences and plastic arts. The teacher gave the explanations in Lithuanian and the children translated it into English. The work consisted of focusing a cube (merge) with a tablet or mobile phone, with a QR code and a three-dimensional image of an insect was shown. Subsequently, they had to fill in a card with questions about the image they were observing, a butterfly, a dragonfly, a ladybug, etc., depending on the group in question, since it was a collaborative work in groups of four. In the end, with a colour tangram and other materials such as markers or coloured pencils, they had to build a semi-free design of the image they observed on the Tablet through augmented reality.
• Workshops at Siauliai Young Technicians Centre
Participated in coding activities of "Ozobots", small intelligent robots for children aimed at learning STEM projects. These robots are programmable to follow lines. The goal is for students to practice and make them aware that they themselves can easily configure its operation. They are robots capable of reading coloured lines drawn on paper. It is a small sphere about two and a half centimetres in diameter that moves by means of tiny wheels located at its base. Also at the base are some colour sensors that will allow it to "read" the colour codes that it is going to find.
• Questionnaires
The final steps were taken on the dissemination of the project, the filling of the form in Mobility Tool, the evaluation of the meeting was carried out.
After this mobility, we'll start to implement what we learnt in Lithuania and also participate in workshops to share our experience with the rest of our partner teachers: