TRIVENTO , LTTA 4  Event Italy  25th-29th March 2019.

Attendees: 42 students, 12 teachers and the host school Head Teacher

Executive overview: the LTTA4 of My Smart School was hosted by Istituto Omnicomprensivo “N. Scarano”, Trivento, Italy, from 25th to 29th of March 2019. The partners involved in the project are: Italy(coordinator), Portugal, Poland Macedonia and Turkey.

Exchange - Goals and Organization

The goals of the Exchange were:

• Involvement of the students in their own learning with a view to attaining better results and becoming more motivated;
• Development of students’ transversal skills-computer literacy, critical and creative thinking, personal and social capability;
• Development of intercultural understanding and acceptance;
• Development of communication skills in English;
• Promotion of European values and development of cohesion among European citizens.

The Exchange consisted of three parts:

1. Welcoming ceremony and team building
2. Topic related activities: Religious Studies lessons with ICT tools
3. Discovery of the area and the country: it was appointed for sightseeing, visiting cultural and historical monuments and tourists attractions of the host country as a part of the intercultural understanding and acceptance process of the Exchange.

Meeting activities - Goals and Organization

The topics covered in these lessons and the way they were developed had the aim to show how traditional lessons can be integrated and enriched through the use of new technologies, in order to involve students and make the teaching and learning process more effective; but, above all, the goal was to arouse students' interest and curiosity.

The purpose of the team games was to entertain students and encourage them to communicate with each other and socialize. Students were divided into small groups with representatives from each of the partner countries. Twenty students from the host school were involved with different tasks in the meeting activities. Four of them, Felice, Michela, Cristina and Beatrice, held a lesson, a small group was a support team who gave a help when needed, the remaining part were involved in the heterogeneous groups who worked on the topic subject.

DETAILED MEETING MINUTES

March 24th 2019 : Meeting with the Polish, Portuguese and Turkish teams in Rome. Sightseeing tour of Rome: Colosseum, Trevi Fountain, Campidoglio (Rome’s town Hall)), Piazza di Spagna, Piazza Navona. Macedonian team arrived in Trivento in the late evening.

First working day March 25th 2019

• Welcoming Ceremony and Ice-breaking activities
• Topic-related activities: Lesson 1
• Sightseeing Tour of Trivento

Welcoming Ceremony

The Welcoming Ceremony was opened by Junior High school choir that sang a traditional song of the area: “Rosa bella”. Soon after the Head Teacher of Istituto Omnicomprensivo “N. Scarano” of Trivento, Mr. Francesco Paolo Marra, gave the guests a warm welcome and went on with his speech with a brief description of the project “My Smart School”, its main aims, and LTTA4 activities in agenda, involving students in Religious Studies.

As a special guest of the ceremony, the Archbishop of Trivento had his welcoming discourse, reminding that My Smart school project is an extraordinary experience that lets young and grown up people build bridges among countries.

The Mayor of Trivento in his welcoming address to the partners underlined that all the people from Trivento were honoured and proud of being host families of the partner countries. He underlined that Erasmus+ project is an extraordinary experience because it was born as a cooperation among schools, the place where tomorrow citizens start growing. Therefore, they will  feel proud to be European citizens in the future.

The Ceremony kept on with the host partners’ presentations of their own schools, countries and cities. At the end, a traditional dance was performed by the pupils from the Junior High School and all foreign students were invited to dance “Quadriglia” on the stage. Many host parents and citizens attended the ceremony as the meeting had been previously and widely advertised in the town and it was going to give all the citizenship an international breath.

Ice-breaking activities

After a mid-morning snack, all the students attended the ice-breaking activities, like “Throw and catch the ball”, “Follow the wool thread”. The most favourite one was “Guess my name”, the activity that let them identify the new foreign friends, those already met in the previous meetings and even those who had been friends with on Whatsapp or Messenger groups for a long or short time.

Afternoon- Presentations about wedding ceremonies

The topic of the meeting were the Religious Studies. As host country, the Erasmus+ team of the Italian school chose to explore the anthropological side of religions so that to share the different traditions connected with one of the main event in life: the wedding ceremony. The partners had previously been asked to prepare two presentations about the selected subject and the first lesson was dedicated to the discovery of such interesting traditions.  The Italian students opened the working session by introducing a presentation on Google Slides of the traditional wedding ceremony of the area, especially focusing on the official moments, like the engagement, the delivery of the dowry, and the religious rite, providing evidences with their grandparents wedding ceremony old pics. A homage to the second religion in Italy was offered with an Adobe Spark presentation of the Jewish wedding ceremony. Two students coming from Morocco and India were also very glad to show an outline of the wedding tradition of their countries.

The Portuguese team showed two Powtoon videos on their traditional wedding ceremonies, emphasizing the value of the religious rite, the original St Anthony wedding ceremony in Lisbon involving many new couples and the enchanting Minho dark blue wedding dress, typical of a northern region of Portugal.

As for Turkey, students showed their rich tradition about food and the events that precede the wedding ceremony, like “The henna night ritual”, a women party, where the brides’ friends and family members gather to eat, dance and sing before the bride leaves her mother’s home crying. It is called “henna night” because they put henna on their hands.

Animoto was used by the Polish students to make their presentation concerning the engagement, the proposal, the bachelor and bachelorette parties; for the wedding day they provided images of some traditional wedding dress from different regions of Poland and modern fashion as well. As for the ceremony, the video highlighted some important rituals like the typical wedding toasts to wish the couple long life and good health and the old tradition when wedding ceremonies used to take place only during the “Good luck months”, the ones containing the letter R in their Polish names.

A Powtoon video from Macedonia provided a detailed schedule of Galichka Svadba, a traditional two-day wedding ceremony, celebrated in July and lasting from the late Saturday afternoon to the end of the Sunday morning, with its very ancient and rich symbolic rituals, involving women wearing old costumes, music and dances. One more interesting presentation of a traditional Macedonian wedding ceremony was offered with a video made lively and rich by the use of very original Powtoon animations.

Lesson 1 – Google Images and Unsplash.com a Sightseeing Tour of Trivento

Students, organized in international and mixed groups worked with Google Images and Unsplash.com to learn how to find and download high resolution images in order to create paintings on one of the following topic: Religion, diversity and friendship. Felice and Beatrice introduced the DeepArt.io site, but unluckily students couldn’t work on it as Unsplash.com    turned out to be unavailable. The working day ended at 5.00 p.m.

Soon after students and teachers were given a guided tour of Trivento, its historical flight of steps, its Cathedral with the ancient Crypt and then a view on the top of the hill, supported by an Italian and an English guide. 

Second working day: March 26th

Ice-breaking activities  

The opening activity of the second day were some lively table-games that asked students to apply to identify their partners or famous people by their physical descriptions or their roles. Such games proved to be very successful as student showed a great acquaintance of their partners, cooperated as teams and hold their communication in English.

Lesson 2 – Canva.com

The second lesson started with Beatrice and Felice introducing Canva.com, an online platform useful to create presentations. So students, organized in small mixed groups worked to create short presentations on religious holidays and traditional food connected to a religious festival. They made works representing some typical food linked with the religious tradition of a country different from their own or made a comparison between two countries and how they celebrate the same tradition. At the end of the lesson, each group showed its final product.

Lesson 3 – MyPaint, Autodesk Sketchbook, Dafont.com

During lesson 3, students were asked to complete the task assigned the afternoon before. i.e. creating paintings on one of the following topics: religion, diversity and friendship. Teacher Carlucci held a workshop on the use of some drawing tools, like MyPaint and Autodesk Sketchbook.and introduced the students the site Dafont.com to help them search for and import new fonts. After that, students, divided in small groups, had enough time to create their own posters on the above mentioned topics. All of them applied with curiosity and interest and each of them displayed his/her own creativity and originality. The majority of students made a poster on friendship with nice images and quotations, some highlighted the special value of diversity, some other made a nice presentation of religion emphasising the value of acceptance.

Third working day: March 27th

Sightseeing Tour in Rome: Vatican Museum

The agenda of the third day covered a visit to the Vatican Museums with its astonishing rooms full of frescos and paintings, like “The School of Athens” by Raffaello, representing Ancient Greek Philosophy. The visit ended in The Sistine Chapel, one of the greatest treasures of the Vatican City, of Rome, the temple in which Popes are chosen and crowned. What grabbed the attention in the Sistine Chapel were the frescoes that completely cover the walls and the ceiling, painted by Michelangelo, like The Creation of Adam and “The final Judgment”. A quick tour in St Peter’s Basilica completed the discovery of the artistic beauties of the Christian main reference point.

Fourth working day: March 28th

Ice-breaking activities and lesson 4- Adobe Spark

The day started with the students taking part in a Volleyball match at the gym of the Junior High School under the guide of P.E. teacher Giuseppe Colavecchio; a short performance of “Street Dance” made by some Italian students followed up; it ended with the involvement of teachers and students in the funny and merry atmosphere of free dances. Break time came after.

Lesson 4- Adobe Spark

Adobe Spark, an integrated suite of storytelling applications was presented by Felice and it was used to let students create a video on their trip to Italy, their new friends and the activities carried out during the mobility.

While students were busy with their task, all teachers were offered a tour of the Junior High School and the Italian Headmaster was glad to show the new technological equipment of the school; He then signed and sealed the Europass. Teachers confirmed the date of the TM2 in Turkey and agreed on updating by emails about the necessary further steps required for the oncoming final meeting in Istanbul.
 

Visit to the archeological site of Altilia and Campobasso

The afternoon covered the visit to the historical site of “Altilia”, the ruins of the Roman city of Saepinum. With the help of an archaeologist the teams discovered the city gates, three of which with the arch, some public buildings, such as the Curia, the Capitolium and the Basilica opening on a rectangular forum, and the theatre consisting of the stage and the stalls both in carved local stone, capable of holding about 3,000 seats. In the late evening the teams were given a quick tour of the high street in Campobasso, the largest city of the area.

Fifth working day: March 29th

Visit to a dairy

The first activity proposed on the fifth day was a visit to a local dairy. Felice Molinaro, one of the Italian students, was happy and proud to show all partners the dairy run by his parents. He provided his guide in English of the dairy with its premises, its equipment and showed how mozzarella cheese is made.  According to the plan students were in charge to finish their Adobe Spark work, but owing to lack of time, it was stated by the Italian coordinator that the students could accomplish their presentation as a kind of workshop in their own schools. A new and exciting activity was about to come as, soon after, students and teachers were involved in an archery training session, with the help of the archery teacher Luigi Fierro. 

Afternoon

An aerial picture of all students and teachers taken by a drone crowned the morning. In the afternoon all the partners were given the Certificates of Attendance by the Italian Headmaster, together with some gadgets as a memory of Erasmus experience in Italy.

A farewell party ended the working session of the meeting at a restaurant with some typical food and a nice cake with the project logo as topping. Everyone enjoyed the nice evening of dances and songs.

Departure  day

On the next day, in the early morning, the Turkish, Portuguese, Macedonian and Polish teams left Trivento. The LTTA4 hosted by Istituto Omnicomprensivo “N. Scarano”, in Trivento, Italy, was successfully and effectively completed. Grateful thanks to all partners were expressed by the Mayor, the municipality and families of the town for having offered them an unforgettable experience.