Activity - OLYMPIC GAMES
The second day of the meeting ended with the activity “Olympic Games”. Since the Olympic Games originated in Greece, we thought it would be suited to include them in our program. It consisted of two parts: a presentation where we briefly talked about the history of the Games and then watched a couple of videos, as well as some more interactive Scratch games.
In order to prepare for the presentation we had to research information online about the history of the Olympic Games up until the modern times and also pick out the videos that were shown. Even though we faced some technical difficulties, it all worked out great in the end! For the second part of the “Olympic Games” activity, the Scratch games, students of our school had to program the games themselves, make them (quite literally!) from scratch! Unfortunately, due to the pandemic we weren’t able to all play physical games together as we had originally planned, however, with the help of our talented students and teachers we managed to play some anyway, even if it was virtual.
Activity - Cyberhelpers
The second activity of the third and final day was called "Cyberhelpers" and it was presented by our students Stelios and Asimenia . It consisted of three parts. During the first part, a powerpoint presentation about cyberbullying was presented. It contained information such as what cyberbullying is, where it mostly occurs, when should someone take action against cyberbullying and last but not least what should be done in order to minimize the cases of this phenomenon.
As for the second part, the participants watched a video about cyberbullying which was created(scenario, filming, editing,music) by some students of our school. Finally, for the last part, the participants were seperated into 6 different groups (breakout sessions) and were given some questions related to the video that they had just watched. The fun part was that every group had to discuss with its members in order to answer the questions together as a team.
As a result, not only did the students improve their communication and cooperation skills, but at the same time they had the chance to get to know each other better. As the presenters of the day told us (that switched from group to group in order to help the students with the questions if it was needed), after every group was finished answering the questionnaire, they would talk to each other about other things, which is probably the most important part when it comes to an Erasmus project because that's what Erasmus is about; having fun while getting to know people from different countries. Learning about each other's morals, hobbies and culture. These are the moments that will be engraved in our memories.
Activity – The seeds of Europe
Initially, the students presented the biodiversity of Crete, emphasizing that Crete is recognized as a Global Centre of Plant Diversity. Then they presented the most important endemic plants and their uses such as greek sage and diktamo. They also showed photos from the school garden with the herbs planted by the environmental team.
Then they presented MAICh, the center we would visit if the meeting was live. They highlighted το Τhe Mediterranean Plant Conservation Unit of MAICh and the seed bank of the center as well as the botanical Garden of Threatened Plants and the Herbarium of Cretan/Mediterranean Flora.
Activity – Stereotypes
On the third day, the first activity was about stereotypes. A group of students had been working on this project for a long time. During the creation of the presentation and the kahoot polling, we searched a lot on the internet to gather information, as well as we talked and commented a lot, because stereotypes are kind of subjective, so many different opinions were heard. Huge support was our sociology teacher, because rather than just helping us organize, he provided us with a lot of information and he gave us his opinion on different topics. So during the final day, two students of Chania, Elpida and Lefteris, showed the students a PowerPoint presentation, which was about stereotypes and prejudices. After that, a kahoot polling followed, in which, students had to match each country ( 16 in total ) with one stereotype. The activity closed with our sociology Mr Solanakis teacher commenting the polling results.
Activity – Eurotravellers in time
In this activity we tried to demonstrate the history of Crete starting from the stone age and reaching up to II World War. The students were separated into groups an each one got involved with a specific historical period. The video that was produced includes images from each historical period along with narration from the students.
The video also contains subtitles so as the students can have a better understanding of the content. Moreover contains songs and a traditional local dance , all performed at the school from our students.
At the end of the activity there was a puzzle game where each participants had to solve 2 puzzles with images contained in the video.
Activity – Tourist Guides in our town
This activity would normally be a guided tour (from students) separating the participants into groups and having a 2 hour walking tour in the old town of Chania. In it’s virtual form turned out to be a presentation of the top 10 sides of the old town along with a Kahoot game to make it fun and to make everyone pay attention! The activity was presented by Lydia and Elpida.
Immediately after the activity we showed two videos that were produced by the Municipality of Chania for the touristic promotion of the city. These videos make someone feel like being there.
Activity – Museum Gymkhana
In this activity we decided to demonstrate the Museum_residence of Eleftherios Venizelos. The purpose of this activity was to offer to the participants a virtual tour a long with some historical information. The activity consisted of a three part presentation (power point, timeline, virtual tour of his house) brought by Argiro, Stelios and Olga.
With the information gained from this first activity, students were then challenged to complete a 10 question kahoot game, the winner of which earned a prize
The 3 students engaged with the presentation of the activity were also responsible for the preparation of the activity. They came into contact with the museum and were informed about the sources to be used.
The first part included the biography of Eleftherios Venizelos, the second a timeline of his career and the third part a virtual tour with images from the museum that intended to create the feeling of being there.
Cultural heritage
Regarding the cultural heritage event we selected the projection of several videos that have to do with the history, the traditions, the hospitality and the senses of Crete and Cretan life.
These videos were produced by professionals on behalf of the Municipality of Chania and the Region of Crete in order to promote Crete.
In communication with our Municipality we had the permission to show these video to all participants of the meeting so as to provide them a better understanding of life in Crete. Our purpose was to make them feel that they were here, conveying to them images and sounds integrated with various scenarios in short videos.
Preparation for the meeting
Most of the activities were prepared a year ago because normally the meeting would have been realized in 2020. The Covid-19 didn’t allow us to have the meeting physically, so we decided to realize it virtually in April 2021. The questions raised in this case was “how to transfer all the activities on the computer screens or mobiles and how to engage participants to have an active role”. So the preparation for the virtual meeting started 3 months before the meeting with the participation of 11 students and 4 teachers. We decided not to include only two of the activities(Mindfulness and charity march) since the meeting would last only 3 days and would be difficult to realize especially the charity march!
The activities that were designed from the beginning were “the Olympic games” and “Museum Gymkhana”. The Olympic Games originally were designed as physical activities separating students into groups. In the virtual meeting we thought to talk about the history of the games and then to offer some mind games to the participants to play individually.
Regarding the “Museum Gymkhana” activity we had initially scheduled a visit to the Museum of Eleftherna, a new museum which contains all the findings of ancient Minoan city called Eleftherna. There, the students would have done a group work , answering to some questions immediately after the guided tour in the museum. Unfortunately this couldn’t be done virtually so we changed our plans and focused on the Museum-residence of Eleftherios Venizelos using mainly the material from the Foundation of Eleftherios Venizelos.
We made our preparation meetings during the weekends using the web platform so as all participants will get used with it! We designed the schedule , we assigned 2-3 students to each activity and also find 3 presenters-coordinator, one for each day. We also had the choice of an alternative platform just in case it was needed.
We provided laptops and headset to the presenters so as they have good connection and communication with the participants.
Our students had the idea of preparing a video that will include images from all the meetings since that was the last one and it would be nice to close reminding everyone the unique moments of this project. The video was named “Erasmus is moments”.
Of course as always happens the meeting’s last event would be that of the closing ceremony. Beyond our preparation for this, we asked from the other country participants to prepare some happenings (songs, dances) so as to make this ceremony unforgettable for everyone!