The aim of our first project meeting in Prague was clear – understand better what our project is about. What does it mean “virtual”, how do we live it, where are its limits and what if we merge these two worlds? We met specialists, learned and played, showed our ideas about the topic, clarified some doubts and met new problems to resolve…

All the groups arrived SUNDAY 14th of October in the afternoon and evening, so we could start the next day with our project activities that were scheduled for four days full of discovering.
MONDAY 15th of October, we met in the school and did the first activity in two ways – using some paper, space movement and using the internet and tablets… Everybody prefered the first way, what a surprise. The worksheet for the activity can be found in the PRODUCTS section.
After this first activity, we travelled to our first expert partner – Smíchovská stredni prumyslova skola. Students and teachers of this school showed us what are the possibilities of VR, AR or MR as well as the dangers of a unprotected behaviour in the IT world.After these 3 hours of intense experiences, we spend the rest of the day in the downtown of Prague.

TUESDAY 16th of October, we tried to choose our new project logo. As many of our ideas and creations were a perfect reflection of our insight in the topic of our project, the project coordinator decider to merge 4 most voted logos in a final one. We will see the result in the weeks to come.

After the logo competition, we travelled to the MAKERS LAB in Prague 7 to learn how to use THINKERCAD and see how some virtual idea from a PC can materialise in a 3D printer. Everybody made its first 3D printed object and the teachers saw the potential of such technology. 

WEDNESDAY, 17th of October, we went on a day trip to IQLANDIA in the city of Liberec. Pupils and teachers could live the virtual science and experience the difference or similitudes between the two worlds. It was fun but also a good lesson of a good use of the virtual.

(photo credits: IQLANDIA.cz)

And finaly, THURSDAY, 18th of October, we closed our first week by a large variety of workshops that helped us to evaluate if we understand the difference and have some more precise idea about the virtual and real. We created our working definitions of those two notions and get through 8 workshops prepared by our teachers. We were asked to describe our feelings about a virtual and real gift that we received and gave before our meeting, we tried to resume our experience with virtual from Liberec, we created again some virtual objects in Tinkercad and could compare our creations in real and virtual LEGO. We get more beautiful in real life using the mascara and tried the same using the PortraitPro software… We also learned about the history of “virtualisation” in the past and could compare the real and virtual games.

The final evaluation of our week was more than positive – we learned, we get some key information and we end our stay in Prague with a clearer idea about our project topic. And we made also some good friends... Some of the students stayed in the school even during the FRIDAY, which was a travel day for the hosted students and teachers.