Activity: C1 project kick-off training meeting

The teachers participating in this project had a great opportunity to receive an Introduction to Object-oriented Programming, between 5 - 12 Oct. 2019, that took place in Munich Germany.

This key mobility for the start of the project, was of the type “short-term joint staff training” and it was exceptionally delivered by this project’s leading organisation, the Luitpold Gymnasium Munchen.

The Luitpold Gymnasium hosting School even has its own honey bee colony in its courtyard and as our German host and project coordinator, Mr Peter Kirchhoff explained to us, it involves not only honey but also interesting smart projects with sensors.

Photo: Riding a bike to the School - bicycles at the School's courtyard

The German School accepted all project participants from Italy, Portugal and Greece and workshops took place in Java programming with LEGO EV3 Mindstorms robots using the IDE software Eclipse with leJOS.

This training in the object-oriented programming language was from an external partner: Mrs Beate Jost (Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems IAIS) of the Fraunhofer Institute (known for its Roberta Initiative – Learning with robots) providing a valuable insight on these robotics topics.

From Greece 3 teachers attained this stuff meeting: two IT teachers namely Ms. Irini Chatziaggelou and Mr. Vasileios Barekos and one Technology specialist teacher Mr. Efthimios Evangelou.

Watch a short video from the seminar: 

Our German partners offered us a very warm welcome in their modern and well equipped School’s Computer Lab. There, the Java workshops were in cooperation with the Fraunhofer Institute that are experts in the field and active in educational robotics under the Roberta initiative.

We, the teachers from all participating countries, collaborated together and explored by trial and error, some of the great potential of object-oriented programming for robotics. 

Additionaly we attended a presentation of the eTwinning platform that was to be used throughout this project.

Also we took part to day trips and happenings learning by first-hand the German and Bavarian heritage.

See a short video here of The Rathaus-Glockenspiel clock in Marienplatz Munich. It dates from 1908. Every day at 11 a.m. and 12 p.m. (as well as 5 p.m. in the summer) it chimes and re-enacts two stories from the 16th century. It consists of 43 bells and 32 life-sized figures. The top half of the Glockenspiel tells the story of the marriage of the local Duke Wilhelm V to Renata of Lorraine. Knights representing Bavaria (in white and blue) vs Lothringen (in red and white), with the Bavarian knight that wins every time.

For example we visited the Bavarian Prealps in Schliersbergalm (1061m above sea level), where we all took a small cable car to climb up 230m for the project kick-off.

We also experienced Bavarian folklore dances at the Oktoberfest 2019 together with more than 6.3 million guests from many other countries.

See a short video here:

In this way this workshop was valuable and inspired us (both technically, pedagogically and culturally) for our next classroom activities (on our return) with our students in Greece.