Virtual Short-Term Exchange for groups of pupils in Portugal | 7-8-9 June 2021
Summary
The academic school term of 2020-2021 was particularly challenging. Every country involved in the project moved from a situation of classroom classes to online classes, from total lockdowns to combat covid-19 resurgences to school re-openings. Due to the pandemic situation, partners and their Erasmus teams were unable to meet in Portugal for the last exchange meeting. In spite of this, partners actively participated in the development of the activities planned in the project. The constraits imposed by the pandemic obliged the portuguese team to set up a virtual short-term exchange, with the duration of 12 hours spread over three days. This unprecedented transnational online event required a great effort to prepare the numerous activities, quizzes, History lessons, lectures, presentations, small videos, virtual study visits, songs and the culmination of a Cultural Soirée - Farewell Party on the fourth day. This way, we realized a virtual mobility with great success from 7th to 9th June 2021. The Topic was : Heroes and legends.
Program
Trailer - Warm-up - Teaser
This trailer was created to motivate the international participants for the Portuguese mobility. This way, it was sent to partners some time before the meeting.
Day One| 7th June
The portuguese Team welcomed the international delegations with a short emotional speech and the presence of the deputy director of the school. After that, partners were welcomed to know a bit about Portugal: geographical position in Europe and in the world, some history and cultural heritage. This was followed by a quizz elaborated in Quizizz which students much appreciatted.
It was impossible not to talk about Covid-19 once it totally changed our lives and our plans for the end of the project. Therefore each country prepared a presentation to share how was life in covid times in their countries, so we shared ideas, experiences, feelings, emotions, obstacles and lessons learnt.
This was followed by the presentations on Legends and Heroes. Each country presented this topic in a very creative way and the quizzes done after the activities had a massive, lively and happy participation of the students. Here's the Portuguese presentation as an example.
Day Two| 8th June
The day started with a virtual school visit: Let's Go to Porto! The international delegations had the chance to know some interesting facts, history, cultural heritage about this beautiful portuguese city. The students happily participated in the quiz that followed the videos on Porto.
Portugal was responsible for the History Lesson, so the portuguese team, specially the History teacher, talked about the legendary first king of Portugal, D. Afonso Henriques, and the creation of the first kingdom of Portugal in Guimarães. History lesson was created with an innovative digital method.
The History Lesson lead us to virtually visit the lovely. medieval town of Guimarães. We saw images of the castle, Paço dos Duques, the typical houses that conserve the architecture of centuries ago, the cobbled streets of the historic centre. Then the song "Tantos Beijos por Dar", composed and sung by a huge group of artists from Guimarães was presented.
Day Three| 9th june
This day started with a warm-up video on Portugal and it was followed by a lecture entitled We Are the Legend. The lecturer, Professor Neil Mason, specialist in mentoring, coaching and Psychology, talked about the fact that human beings are unique, so he inspired students not to look from a hero outside themselves. It is better to be authentic than to be a cheap copy of something or someone we are not. We all have talents to explore, we all can inspire other people to be our and their best versions.
After the lecture an incredibly lively debate took place. Students and teachers asked Neil mason many questions and presented their perspectives on the subject.
Finally, students worked in mixed group in last the activity to create, describe and draw international hero with the marks of all partner countries. The results were remarkable, you can see them in photo. We spent great time together, students improved their English and ICT technology and get useful experiences how to work in a team.
Picture Summary of the Virtual Exchange
The Erasmus team created a page in Instagram for the Portuguese mobility erasmusvirtualshortexchange. There we posted videos and pictures of the event. The portuguese students had the chance to meet other students from the countries involved, exchanged messages, perspectives and views.
Day Four| Cultural Soirée and Farewell Party
The Portuguese virtual mobility ended with a farewell party in the local beautiful theatre, a building of the ninetenth century. This party was broacasted live from the local tv to the world and it was also posted in youtube and reached more than 10.000 views.
It was a beautiful and emotional party totally presented in English by the Erasmus students and the Portuguese team. The headmaster and elements from the city hall attended the party and made a brief speech.
Of great importance, once it was one of the objectives of the project, was the moment when the Erasmus students that took part in the mobilities to Greece, Italy, lithuania and Slovakia gave their amazing testimony and perspectives.
Talented students that articulate their academic studies at school with the music academy gave a beautiful guitar and trompet show.
The Portuguese team invited a famous local singer, Celina Tavares, to sing an original song and a song from a Portuguese iconic voice MARIZA.
Images from fafe were shown in a video.
One of the most emotional moments was the video of the best time spent together as partners: a summary of all mobilities and activities done together.
The party ended with a farewell/ see you soon speech from the Portuguese team and a choreography of the music The Best by Tina Turner. It was an amazing party.
Message From the Coordinator of the Project Helena Repaská - Slovakia
Final program - farewell party was unique.
Thank you Teresa, Eduardo, Fernando, Portuguese team and students for great time we spent together during these three days and watching the final program. You reminded us all those great meetings in Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Slovakia and also virtually in Portugal. We all realized how important our cooperation is for teachers, students and schools and what benefits this project was for us.
Thanks to all coordinators, teams, teachers and students we are finishing our project successfully achieving all goals by the plan.
