Monday, 4th of December – meeting in Estonia
On the first project day in Estonia, students started with a guided tour of the premises of Rakvere Vocational School. During the course of the previous months, students had the task of searching for information about their partners on the internet. They researched on social networking sites, etc. In a common learning session, they presented their results and confirmed/ disconfirmed facts. Everyone really enjoyed this session because some funny and fake facts came up. After that, both groups presented their results about the social networks Twitter and Facebook. Students were then commissioned to work on the similarities and differences between these social networks. They prepared presentations, etc. in international teams which were presented at the end of the first day.
Tuesday, 5th of December – meeting in Estonia
Second day of students exchange started by agreeing on common rules for preparing presentations in English. After that, the project unit „Digital Awareness “ was initiated. Team of teachers had prepared several possible topics before the meeting so that the students had a variety from which to choose. International teams agreed on the following topics which they will deal with in the following five months:
· Impact of digital footprint
· Social and ethic responsibility of IT- experts
· Recommendations for creating a digital footprint
· Ethics of Artificial Intelligence
Students are now commissioned to prepare presentations on the respective topics within a stipulated period of time. The results will be presented to the general public during the visit from the Estonian group to Wipperfürth in April 2018. Moreover, students will draw up informative posters about each of the topics during the course of the project year. These posters will be made available to the general public at both colleges.
Wednesday, 6th of December – meeting in Estonia
Early in the morning we caught a coach to Tallinn. Once we arrived we had a look around the E-Estonia showroom and we were given a presentation about technology and found out that unlike in the rest of the world, almost all public services can be carried out in Estonia online by using an electronic ID which every Estonian resident has. After that, we were given more time to look around the showroom. Next, we visited the Estonian company Primend OÜ and were told about different positions available and that the company likes to employ people who have only just finished college despite the fact that it takes time to train them. It was stressed that communication skills and knowledge of the ethics surrounding communication are very important in this field of work and that employees have to repeatedly deal with people who have IT problems. A former student of Rakvere Ametikool told us what his average day is like at the company. After that w ehad atour in Ülemiste Technopolis Campus which was very interesting. Then we quickly bought some food and caught the coach to Tallinn University of Technology where we were given a short talk about the university: particularly about different opportunities of studies and student life. We also looked around the Student’s Union. Then half of us went to do a workshop on creating mobile games and the other half did a workshop on programming microcontrollers with Phyton. Late in the evening, we returned to Rakvere.
Thursday, 7th of December – meeting in Estonia
In the morning students started working on the project unit “Identity Protection in a Digital Environment”. The objective of this project unit is to create a website which informs interested readers / viewers at both colleges about how to protect their digital identity. Therefore, the German group worked on different ideas of how to implement this website. They also prepared suggestions on the content of this website. These results were presented to the Estonian group. On the basis of these presentations, both groups were able to agree on the content of the website. They are going to continue work on this project unit online in international student teams. They will use different communication tools. During today’s work session, they set milestones to make sure that they continuously work on this project unit and complete it on time.
In the afternoon our group took a trip to Sagadi. Sagadi is located in the national park Lahemaa and there is a historic manor house and a museum of forestry there. First students took a guided tour of the premises and were informed about the history of the manor house. Then the students and the teachers played adventure games in international teams. While playing these games the students and the teachers learnt how to measure the height of a tree, and gained an insight into the history of wood processing and hunting in general. In the evening the group enjoyed an authentic Estonian Christmas dinner.
Friday, 8th of December
In the morning students continued work on the project unit “Digital Awareness”. They carried on working on their presentations in international teams and had the chance to make agreements on further cooperation. At the same time, some students tested the computer-based training programme to receive feedback on how to improve certain features of the programme. After lunch, everybody took part in an evaluation session. Students and teachers were asked to fill in feedback forms on different project units and on the visit in general. Last part of the seminar was certification ceremony: certificates of attendance and Europass Mobility certificates were awarded to the students and the teachers involved in the project during this project week.
