step 1: "Let's learn to know Europe!"

introducing the students to the project

step 2: "Where may our partners come from?"

learning to know the partners via riddle activities ("treasure box" or / and "mystery skype"),

adding the places of the partners on a map

among the partner schools:

• each school with at least two partner schools

step 3: "What would I like to see in our partners' towns?"

studying about the countries, regions and towns of the partners

in class:

• students study the map
• partner / group work: students collect information about the towns of the partners
• they discuss which places in the town their group is working on they would like to see
• they decide about three or four places and give a reason why they chose precisely these places; they tell their decision and the reason in a  "wall" (tool: "padlet" or "tricider") on TwinSpace

step 4: "Show me your town!"

asking the partners to take pictures of places in their region and town, we would like to learn to know

among the partner schools:

• each school asks each partner (see above: using a "wall"on TwinSpace; tool: "padlet" or "tricider")

step 5: "Showing you my town"

taking pictures,

electing pictures for the TwinSpace,

arranging them in pages on the TwinSpace (one page for each town)
 

in class:

• students read the messages of their partners in the forum

• they take pictures of the places their partners would like to see, but:

• their pictures shall not be "picture postcard" pictures but show the places in a personal way (e.g. not a panorama picture of the famous old marked place like the pictures you could find in the internet as well, but the view out of a café / diner at the market place where students like to meet; or: the students or their school logo are on the picture as well; or... ); just try to find out how you could make something original and personal out of an often shown monument!

step 6: "Visiting your town"

commenting on the pictures of the partners
 

among the partner classes:

students give feed-back to their partners writing commments on the pages of the TwinSpace (under the pictures)

in class:

• students look at the pictures their partners took for them

• they compare their expectations to the picture from "reality"

• they work in detail: e.g. the weather, the type of houses, the shops, the age of persons to be seen on the picture, ... etc.

• they write down their results in a forum

• they reflect: Did I realize some stereotypes or clichées I met at any time of the working process (e.g. did I have a preference for a special town when I started working; do I have an increased interest in other towns as well now?; did I expect a special life style / weather; did this opinion change a bit?)

step 8: "Uniting our towns"

collaborative creation of a calendar

among the partner schools:

• 12 international groups (at least one student of every school in each group)

• each month: collage of pictures, taken by different schools (each month a new topic, e.g. "bridges", "in the park", "our school yard", "green", "blue", ...)

• in each group: two students (from different countries) responsible for choosing the pictures and arranging them into a collage (students discuss via chat or email)

• in each group: two students (from different countries) responsible for "national holidays" and "religious holidays"

• in each group: two students (from different counties) responsible for other days which should be marked in the calendar (e.g. "European language day", "day of clean water", ...)

• (each of the "responsible" students can work with a "national" team, but he / she is the speaker and leads the discussion with the partner from abroad with whom he / she shares the responsibility on his / her special task)

• via QR code we could include audio files (or other files) into the calendar: e.g. description of the monuments which can be seen on the pictures or / and "sound track", taken at the place which can be seen on the picture; information about a national holiday which is mentioned in the calendar sheet

• the calendar will be published on our TwinSpace; each school can decide whether they would like to make a printed version as well for the classroom or the staff room or ...)

step 9: "Saying farewell"   or "Going on"

among the partner schools:

• "farewell activity" (padlet or online farewell party) or "planning further activities together " (padlet or online meeting)
   

may 2017

(optional)

step 10 (optional):

"What else would I like to know about you (about your daily life)?" / "What else would I like to show you?"

working on further activities and how to carry them out

in class:

• students decide what they would like to ask their partners / what they would like to share with their partners

may 2017

(optional)

step 11 (optional):

"Nice to meet again!"

realizing the new activities, e.g. "question time" (online interviews), "sound track of my day", ...

among the partner schools:

• students who are interested to continue the partnership plan together some new activities; e.g.:

• "sound track" of a special place of their region (e.g. a national park, their school, ...); the partners have to guess (with yes-/no-questions) which place it is or:

• breakfast: students take pictures of their typical breakfast at home; the partners try to find out which breakfast matches which country/town/students: is their a typical Ucrainian / Spanish / Finnish / Portuguese / German / ... breakfast? DO our students eat breakfast? or:

• school yard or...

step 12: "Thank you, dear partners!"

evaluating the project, saying good bye to the partners