Minutes Meetings
22nd April - 1st May 2011

BERLIN , Spandau. Delegates - 15 delegates worked together during the meetings.   
Poland 4, Austria 1, Scotland 2, Turkey 2, Germany 3, Estonia 2

TRADING TODAY FOR TOMORROW – Year One Uptdate

Progress Update – Key Points:

Trading with Beads-   Germany, Scotland, Turkey, Berlin and Estonia have developed the use of pearl money (trading with beads). This is encouraging the children to behave in a positive way and also developing the idea of building a savings bank of beads.

Scotland has used the pearl money trading as a research vehicle in their infant department. This research is being carried out by L. Loughran, the probationer teacher.

Poster Trading Communites - Discussion around the use of the poster as a visual trading aid was led by Austria. New posters which include the partners with no funding have been completed and distributed.

Trading Identities and storyline progress - Passports – most schools have made passports to create the new identities of their traders. The pupils are responding well to this and a high level of motivation has been evident.

All schools reported high levels of pupil motivation through the use of storyline. Pupils liked the idea of working in a context and using key questions has given a structure which is easy to follow. The teachers reported having to think very carefully about how they were going to develop their language teaching using storyline and admitted that there was a low level of confidence at the start, but all reported that the enthusiasm of the pupils and the growing confidence of the teachers was resulting in very good progress. Generally, pupils seem to be more confident at talking in their new identities and much more willing to 'have a go'.

Ulla ran a training course in Turkey (Dec. 2011) to instruct the Turkish colleagues and key members of staff from the district on how to use our project Storyline. (Werner instructed the same group on how to use Moodle.)

Trading ideas - Some schools have held a trading event which has included products for sale which have been made by the pupils. Every country reported that the pupils loved this exercise. Some schools have set up banks and have actively encouraged financial education as a key area of the exercise (see below).

Austria will hold a trading event in May and Germany plan to open a non-profit shop in May.

Financial Education - Poland led a workshop on financial education and how they invited their local bank into the school to speak to the children. From this exercise, they have set up a bank account with the money raised by the sale. They also held a competition in partnership with the local bank where they encouraged the classes to save towards a goal.

Moodle – ICT and Building a Virtual Trading Centre - Moodle has proved a very complicated package to work in. After exploring the issues we have decided to change to Wikispaces or another medium which is easier to work in. Scotland has already had experience of certain wikispaces projects.

Werner (Germany) will begin to explore developing agreed areas. These areas may include:

  1. An action area with flashmob, presentations, films and items of connection and interest to the project.
  2. A trading space with pictures of the trading communities or the drawings of the families that the pupils have made.
  3. A catalogue for online trading. This will be produced by creating a photoalbum with text where the pupils can see the items being made by each trader or trading community.
  4. An area for anything else – presentations by the pupils with writing or short stories / films about link mobilities.

Website - The project website needs to be updated. From the presentations and materials brought to Berlin, we now have materials to add to the 'story' of the work taking place. All schools have been asked to contribute materials with text so that the work of the group can be evidenced on the website.

Financial Education:

  • Some partners have begun to explore accounting and pricing of products with pupils.
  • The Polish group have created a real bank account.
  • Scotland has produced balance sheets for each product made for their Christmas Fayre.
  • Estonia has made balance / account sheets to work out pricing, profit and loss.
  • Some schools do not wish to formalise the financial side. They will raise awareness of financial education as deemed appropriate in their school.

Trading events - Great success! All countries showed presentations which included, for some, details of their local trading events. The next step is to hold a combined trading event and this has been planned for the Spandau Christmas Market in 2011.

Other Key areas and Action Points

Country working presentations for year one - All countries demonstrated a high level of committment to the work of the project, including the ones who have not received any funding. Presentations have to be added to the ICT formats for viewing.

Communication - A communication time line is to be agreed with dates for regular communication. This is an area in which we need to improve. Everyone is working hard, but communication has been poor. When we meet it is clear that all of the agreed work is being done. We will explore how this can be (simply) corrected.

A communication time line has been suggested.

Training in ICT - Further training and clarification of website content and wikispaces to be given in Scotland at the meeting of the colleagues.

Linking with Video conferencing – as above, and see action points.

Evaluation Results

Assoc.Prof. Ali Gunay gave a presentation to explain the findings from the project research. The differences between the answers of the pupils from the various countries showed that attitudes varied widely between the schools. This was most interesting and the starting point of the pupils regarding their understanding, show that there is potential for change and improvement within the project time. The repeating of the evaluation at the end of year two will let us know if positive change has taken place.

Website Updates - We looked at the Website and listed how the information needs to be updated. The website could be used to house certain key areas of information. This will be explored further by the German group. We want a simple solution between housing information about our work and developing a virtual trading centre which may take the form of a catalogue with pictures and text about our products.

Comenius Conference in Turkey 2012 - The Turkish partners have invited the project schools to attend a conference in Turkey to explore other Comenius ideas and Culture related to European development in the Izmir area. This would also give the chance to visit the two Turkish partner schools. Although these schools have not received funding, the colleagues have supported the project and attended the meetings to remain involved. This would seem to be appropriate according to the project guidance, but would not count as mobilities.   Dates to be confirmed.

Belarus Partners - Our associated partners in Kobrin are taking part in the teaching of the storyline in German and they will produce products for the Spandau Christmas Market.

Trading Event & Spandau Christmas Markets – A stall has been booked for December 2011. Scotland, Poland, Austrian, Estonia, Bellarus and German will be available to help with the stall, organising the creative dancing event and Turkey will send some items for sale.   Event co-ordination of staff and pupils will take place during the week beginning 28th November.  All items for sale, or examples of items for sale, should be sent to Berlin prior to this week if possible.

Planning for the Scottish Pupil Visit to Berlin in May 2011 - This took place between the German and Scottish partners.

Dates were agreed for...

School Visit mobilities for 2011 / 12

A key dates Calendar for communication in 2011 / 12  (Year Two)

Action Points:

  • Lesley to type minutes and distribute to all colleagues.
  • Lesley to distribute an agreed calendar of mobilities to all partners.
  • Ulla to produce a power-point presentation to summarise the progress being made by all groups. This will be added to the Internet sites (Website and Wikki)
  • Poland to organise a dancing group to come to Spandau Christmas Market to dance and advertise the Comenius stall.
  • All partners to make products to sell at the Christmas stall in Spandau.
  • All partners to try to upload product details onto 6umbrella wikispaces (or agreed project space).
  • Turkish partners to send further details about the Conference in Spring 2012.
  • All partners to explore IPnumbers and suitability / connectivity for Video Conferencing.
  • Austria and Scotland will try to meet via video conferencing before the summer. This will be explored and demonstrated in Scotland in August/September 2011.
  • All partners to check dates back in their schools to ensure that the mobility dates are recorded.
  • Various ideas have been noted for developing a Trading Centre. These ideas will be tried and discussed in Scotland. Further exploration of free website as links to our Comenius website may be the answer.
  • Invitations should be made to partners interested in joining our project group for a 2013 – 2015 project.   Any interested colleagues could be encouraged to request preparatory funding for the Nov/Dec meeting in Berlin.

 

FORWARD PLANNING DATES FOR MOBILITIES FOR YEAR TWO

WHOLE GROUP METING IN SCOTLAND - 2011

Arrival date – Tuesday 30th August
Departure Date – either Saturday 3rd or Sunday 4th September

TRADING EVENT / PREPARATORY MEETING – BERLIN 2011

European Trading Event & Creative Musical Production
Preparatory Meeting for propspective new partners – New Project Planning
Date - End of November / Start of December
Chrstimas Market Stall Date: Saturday 3rd December

TURKISH CONFERENCE IN SPRING

Early April Suggested week - 2nd - 6th April 2012

WHOLE GROUP MEETING IN ESTONIA

Arrival date – Saturday 5th May 2012
Meetings – week of 7th May

FINAL CELEBRATION IN AUSTRIA

Week of 2nd - 6th July 2012
Staff and Pupils – to be confirmed.

 

VARIOUS INDIVIDUAL SCHOOL MOBILITIES
to be arranged between the schools as appropriate.

Germany to Scotland with pupils in February 2012
Germany to Estonia with pupils in May 2012

grafik · realisierung · hosting – Volker Siebert, Berlin 2013 – mediafactum.