KITE: first newsletter

Newsletter 1 - January 2017

1. Starting the project

2. Setting up work tools

3. First meeting

4. First activity 

5. Going on 

1. Starting the project

The conception of the project started in September 2015, drawing up the finalities and looking for partners. It was finally granted in July 2016 and effectively started in September 2016.

Seven schools from six countries joined together to build and lead the KITE-project. Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Italia, and Slovakia will then cooperate for two years. Our aim is to develop ways how modern technologies can be used in a positive way in lessons, education and creativity. As well as to minimize prejudices and to enhance tolerance with students and teachers within European countries. Here are the school descriptions :

-  Austria - Eisernerz

-  Austria - Trofaiach

-  France

-  Germany

-  Greece

-  Italy

-  Slovakia

2. Setting up work tools

Information Technologies make up the heart of our project. All available IT-tools have been created to optimise communication and collaborative work between partners.

- Social Networks : A mailing list and a Facebook group (called KITE - Keep In Touch, Europe) have been created, so that all partners were able get to know each other better and agree on arrangements concerning the progression of the project:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/1402869796409856.

Another Facebook group (called KITE - Keep In Touch, European youth) has been created especially for pupils, to let them get to know each other before they meet during the mobilities:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/1816770421902641

- Collaboration tools : Google-forms have been elaborated to collect information from each country, especially to plan the mobilities.

A Google-form to collect general information about the highlights of each country and about the specific skills of each partner:   https://docs.google.com/document/d/10KTc9VpDON8KOIPhF4-ox0tKhbFT1Y7AlZIOKx8fRlI/edit

Two Google-forms to collect information in order to prepare the mobility in Greece:  https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dClV-YPennqrPtEXILihZXO_BvB3wCvHeL_NGlOBcik/edit#gid=0 and  https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tKT7hwa54ruXDmwDhqDI-4PnWq5EVtqahFKC3hr0DBg/edit#gid=0

A Google-forms to collect information in order to prepare the mobility in Reunion Island:  https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lcDQJz4NK1SpoQ1joBH_LuVX9tFWyOzAKPtIa_qji6U/edit#gid=0

- Cloud : A Dropbox account has been created to stock and share various information and tools like school presentations, programmes of mobilities and activities…

- E-twinning : A Twin-Space has also been created to present our activities and to share our experience with all e-Twinning users:  https://twinspace.etwinning.net/28143/home

- Websites : An own website has been created to share our experience with all the world. The URL is :  http://www.keepintoucheurope.eu

- Android App : The Android App works. It's available on our website. It allows to install the website on an android-device:  http://www.keepintoucheurope.eu/kite.apk

- Blogs : A blog relating the activities of the KITE-partners has also been created to share our experience:  http://kite-erasmusplus.blogspot.it

3. First meeting

The first meeting, the "kick off meeting", took place in Germany, in Gelsenkirchen, from 26.09.16 to 30.09.16. Two teachers from Austria, from Greece, from Italy and from Slovakia went there and met the German team at the Berufskolleg Königstraße in Gelsenkirchen. Reunion has unfortunately not been able to represent France there, because the grants given for coordinating meetings are too low.

This meeting has been perfectly organized by the German partners and allowed everyone to get to know each other, to work on the project and to discover the sumptuousness / outstanding beauty of the region.

The dates of the mobilities have been fixed as following:

County	Teachers	Students	Date
Greece	11	23	3-7 Apr. 2017
Austria	7	13	15-19 May 2017
Italy	9	20	6-10 Nov. 2017
Reunion	11	0	18-22 Dec.2017
Slovakia	6	12	19-23 Mar. 2018
Austria	?	0	Open (June 2018)

The present partners shared out the work to do as following:

Task	Country	Deadline
Website	Slovakia	Jan. 2017
Mobile app	Slovakia	Jan. 2017
Calendar	Austria Eisenerz	Dec. 2016
Fb group young kite	Eisenerz	Oct. 2016
Photo marathon	All countries	Dec. 15, 2016
2 OER best practice examples	All countries	March 2017
Questionnaire for evaluation of our meetings	Italy	Before and after each meeting
Newsletter	La Reunion	3 times a year
Questionnaire about use of electronic devices	Germany	July 2017
and its impact on users´ health
Etwinning	Greece	Dec. 2016
Netiquette	Eisenerz	June 2017

4.   First activity

The photo-marathon has been the first project's activity introducing the countries involved in the project to the pupils. It has been successfully lead by each country. In a very short time, small groups of pupils had to take pictures to represent each country involved in the project, just using what they could find in the classroom or in the school. This activity was very funny but also instructive for the pupils who had to search for information about each country and had to be very imaginative to produce the best possible pictures.

Each school has then organized a vote to select the best picture representing each country. These pictures were sent to all partners and posted on the twin-space of our project.

Concurrent to that activity, a Facebook group has been created for the pupils who participate in the mobilities, to enable them to communicate together and to get to know each other before they meet.

5. Going on

Every country is now working on its specific task at present and is organizing the soon coming mobility to Greece. Additional to this, each country has to contribute to the forthcoming Kahoot activity by creating a quiz about its own country. These quiz will be made interactive with Kahoot.

Further, each country has to upload to Dropbox two or three best practice lesson using IT. The purpose is to share experience and test new practice in the classroom.