MESI 4.0
Didzdvario gimnazija
Virtual meeting
Due to the COVID19 pandemic, the academic actitivities related to the final project execution planned for the Lituanian short exchange of pupils were done in a virtual environment.
The virtual meeting coordinated by the Didzvario gimnazija took place from the 9 to the 15 of December 2020. During the project meeting participated students, teachers and project coordinators of the four countries:
- Czech republic
- Spain
- Germany
- Lithuania
A total of 51 students and 18 teachers were welcomed by the headmaster of the LT Didzvario gimnazija and the coordinator of the virtual meeting.
Aim
The aim of this virtual meeting was to challenge students to share the information for the final project, discuss about the pros and cons of Industry 4.0 in COVID pandemia times and assess the knowledge acquired on the STEM subjects on Industry 4.0 as a product of the participation in the project.
Activities
In order to achieve this aim, many activities were designed and implemented with different objectives:
Methodology:
In order to achieve the aims presented before, different kinds of methodology were used, such as: presenting the results of the research done by each school, discussion on the scientific methodology pursuit to, creating a quizziz on Industry 4.0, competition within teams, evaluation of the aims of the project and the virtual meeting, official evaluation of the meeting. Seminars on the use of MSTeams and quizziz.
Results:
The results were: methodology and worksheets prepared by teachers for students for the use of the MSTeams, quizziz, evaluations and discussions. PowerPoint presentations of schools in COVID times, PowerPoint presentations of final project related to Chemical Industry, Water treatment and Hydraulic energy, Energy renewable sources-solar and wind, Quizziz on Industry 4.0, Chemical Industry, Water treatment and Hydraulic energy, Energy renewable sources-solar and wind. Evaluation forms and implementation documents of this evaluation on the aims of the project and the virtual meeting. Results of the official evaluation of the virtual meeting.
Benefit for students:
Students benefit from the use of virtual environments for engaging in short exchange of pupils. This benefits them by exploring new technologies and analysing the potentialities of communication between countries. They critically analysed the difficulties of virtual communication that added to the face to face one the development of technological capabilities to the linguistic ones. The use of English during the virtual meeting improved their language skills in scientific and technological vocabulary.
For some of them was the first contact working in international groups with different cultural and educational backgrounds. This fact made them to improve their communication skills using voice, presentations and chat rooms, understanding different and new ways of communication (verbal, oral and written).
Working in international teams made them do their best to fulfill the set of tasks designed by the team of teachers. Those innovative tasks gave students more autonomy to integrate the knowledge on Industry 4.0. Furthermore, they developed critical thinking on the pros and cons of Industry 4.0 in Covid19 pandemia times.
In the words of the students:
Lithuanian student: Pros: You feel comfortable in your environment, you are working with equipment that you are used to. Cons: Sometimes bad internet connection can interrupt your work, no face to face (human) contact so it is more difficult to understand other participants.
I understood the importance of sustainable, renewable energy, understood about the 4.0 industry, why and how we should develop it, so because I understood how important it is, it motivates me to continue studies on it.
We now know what we should improve in our country because we compare ourselves with other countries and did many experiments.
Czech student: Digitalisation and automatisation can result in more human independent factories and therefore cheaper products. On the other hand, this means that more and more people would have nowhere to work as the population numbers are rising fast.
Now I know more about sustainable ways of making energy, therefore I can make better decisions towards greener energy in the future. I've wanted to be involved in the studies on this topic for a long time and now I'm even more motivated.
Our governments can gain a better understanding of the renewable sources of energy, which could result in a larger use of these sustainable methods.
German student: Digital work is very helpful for having Team meetings and online groups with students from different countries. It is way easier to get Information about the themes and to communicate with over 50 People at the same time. But there can be problems with connecting computers or ipads. We also have wifi Problems during the Projekt. The Projekt was very interesting and I learned a lot about renewable energy. But personally I do not want to study STEM subjects or to work on industry 4.0. The project was informative and now we are about 50 Students from 4 different countries who learned something about industry 4.0 and now everyone of us can tell friends and family about it. Through that More and more People will know about it.
Spanish student: The pros are that we have learnt a lot about new virtual programmes, we have had the possibility to talk with and meet people of other countries by electronic media and we have teached other students our projects by virtual presentations.
The cons are that we have got some problems with the wifi connection and we haven't sometimes heard the other students of the other countries because there were some interferences. I´ve learnt a lot about these forms of renewable energies and some skills about contrast information, give my points of view or programmation. Also, I've improved my English level when I talk with science terms, so I want to continue to study science so I can use this information. We can talk about this industry with other people and compare our points of view. We should motivate these people to choose these types of energy and have an open mind to change the world to be less contaminated and more clean.