Monday
On the first two days of the Estonian students’ visit to Germany, we focused on the project unit "intercultural studies."
Firstly German first-year students delivered their presentations about different topics, such as traditions and customs, the political and educational system, traditional food, family life in Germany and German celebrities.
At the end of each presentation, students were asked to talk about the topics further. They entered into a discussion about similarities and differences with regard to their home countries. In this way, both German and Estonian students could learn more about their own culture and the culture of their counterparts.
All students of the vocational school had been invited to participate in a meeting in the afternoon. First, Estonian students presented their videos about their home town, Rakvere, their college and Estonia. Many German students were really impressed by the Estonian school. Students also reported how they had recorded the videos by explaining the equipment they had used as well as scripts, etc. German second-year students had also prepared some videos for their Estonian visitors. These videos were watched together and students discussed differences and similarities.
Tuesday
On Tuesday students started working on the project unit “internet crime.” The aim of this project unit is to prepare presentations on internet crime and security measures, which will be delivered to all interested students at both colleges over the course of the next visits. They will also program a computer-based training module on this topic, which will be used by both colleges.
This was quite an exciting day for the German group, as they had prepared this day for quite a long period of time. They had prepared a kick-off meeting for the project unit "internet crime" during their lessons and in their free time.
The German students had written and sent an invitation and agenda to their fellow students in Estonia two weeks before the Estonians actually visited Germany. They had discussed the topic "How to chair an international meeting" and learned more about chairing a meeting in English. Two students actually acted as chairs on this day.
During the meeting, students agreed on topics they would like to deal with in their presentations and computer-based training. They also built international teams and started working on the topics in these teams.
The entire group was then able to take part in an intercultural workshop in the open-air museum in Lindlar.
They worked on a quiz about German history and culture and exchanged information about traditional German and Estonian food and Christmas traditions in their groups.
Wednesday
This was a really challenging day for the group, as they had to work on two different IT-related project units.
In the morning, students continued working on the project unit “internet crime.” They first drew up a table of contents for their presentations, which was discussed and assessed by the entire group in a feedback session. After that, all international teams set up a schedule as well as a project plan for this project unit. Students decided that they would use different communication tools to stay in touch with their Estonian counterparts online. They also agreed on milestones.
After lunch, students started working on the project unit “identity protection in a digital environment.” They engaged in a brainstorming session concerning the term “digital identity.” At the end of this brainstorming session, they had agreed on the issues they would like to focus on in this project unit. Students will create a digital website on this topic which can be accessible to all students at both colleges.
Thursday
During one of our first Skype sessions, the Estonian group asked if it would be possible to learn some German during their visit to Germany. This is why German students arranged a German lesson, which they prepared together with one of our German language teachers. The teacher also supervised this lesson, which took place on Tuesday as part of our project unit “intercultural studies.” All German students involved in this project attended a lesson on Estonian languages and cultures, which was prepared and supervised by the Estonian teachers who visited Germany. Everyone was truly impressed by these lessons.
Later in the day, all students visited an exhibition about sustainable consumer behavior which is financed by the EU in Cologne. This visit had two objectives: 1. Students learned more about sustainable usage of technology and 2. Students had to engage in a discussion about the positive impact their project results can have on themselves as well as on the wider public. The discussion was intended to increase students’ motivation to reach better results that could be used by the wider public.
Friday
Friday morning, all Estonian visitors as well as all IT students from the vocational school in Wipperfürth had the opportunity to attend a lecture by two external experts. Representatives from the company Voss talked about internet crime and security measures. They focused in particular on the threats a company could be faced with. This lecture was really informative and interesting, and students can use this information for their own project work as well. Following the lecture, students could enter into a discussion with the external experts.
After the lecture students also had time to think about their own projects again, and they revised their table of contents, adding information they learned from the lecture.
All students who had visited the exhibition in Cologne the day before were then asked to collect ideas on the impact of EU projects on the participants and the wider public. We drew up a list.
After lunch, all participants of the transnational meeting evaluated it online, so that we could talk about the results of the evaluation right away and put forth suggestions for improvement for the next meeting.
In the afternoon we had an award ceremony in which all attendees of the meeting received certificates.