Many cultures, one technology. Robotics as a platform to exchange experience during the common action.

Project Location

Country: 
Italy
City: 
Gorgonzola

Organization

Organization Name: 
ITIS Marconi
Organization Type: 
School

Website

www.6cultures1tech.eu

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Project Type

Education up to 18 years

Project Description

Description Frase (max. 500 characters): 

The project brings several cultures together through similar students and teachers interest which is robotics. Thanks to our project we want to demonstrate that technology becomes a common language spoken worldwide.

Project Summary (max. 2000 characters): 

The immediate need for starting the international cooperation and writing the project was one of the objectives of the Comenius Programme, such as development of young people of our schools in different areas of education, the desire to understand other cultures and establish new friendships based on common interests. The project should discover in young people the need to absorb knowledge from different domains. It means that technicians should create a community not limited to technical-oriented subjects but have good general knowledge on European countries, their traditions, history, politics.
We are convinced that thanks to technology it is possible to make students of different ages, education and backgrounds work together. It means that thanks to the project students will broaden their educational horizons, focus not only on technology and science (robotics, physics, mathematics, mechanics, programming, multimedia production, website creation, etc.) but also acquire additional knowledge which are the humanities (foreign languages, history, culture, arts, civics, geography and even theology and sociology). It also means they will have a chance to become broadly educated and to create a society of technical intelligence.
All those goals will be accomplished through common action, e.g. building a website, preparing documentation and works (on robotics, European culture, traditions, etc. ), communication between partners, mobilities, visiting interesting places. Teachers of different subjects (technical and general) are engaged. Students of technical schools teach their colleagues the principles of robotics. There are six partners involved in the project (Poland, Italy, Portugal, Estonia, Lithuania, Spain), the language of communication is English.
The project assumes evaluation on students and teachers level and also dissemination of the results.

How long has your project been running?

2012-08-30 22:00:00

Objectives and Innovative Aspects

Objectives of partnership and subjects to address:
-promoting the spirit of widely-educated society (technicians with good knowledge of the humanities, general-educated graduates with bases of tech. knowledge)-workshops, visits;
-tech. and scientific education through innovative approaches taken from robotics at any level of educational system (build robots, program, make measurements, use ICT in everyday life)
-workshops, projects;
-cultural exchange (by learning history, traditions, habits, civics, geography of partner countries, tech. development)
-visits, discussions, workshops, projects;
-language learning and linguistic diversity (project held in English, CLIL, on-line tech. dictionary-apx. 100 terms) and breaking the language barriers (work in internat. groups), achieving level B2, teachers improve their language holding lessons in English;
-promoting cooperation, creativity, personal fulfillment and growth of an entrepreneurial spirit through common creation of work and documentation;
-supporting the development and using of ICT-based contents through Open Source tools (creating website, videoconferences, text, image and video edition, cloud computing)-workshops, projects;
-paying attention to timeless matters (role of religion, God, cloning, euthanasia, advanced medicine, biology, physics, artificial intelligence and its danger, replacing humans by robots, human endurance and organism efficiency in sport, doping, life without computers and new tech.)-discussions, projects, creating articles as a documentation;
-achieving an increased awareness of students (learning abroad, new perspectives for future careers, quality of life) and teachers (comparing teaching methods and curriculum) about the importance of European cooperation, sharing information.

Results

Describe the results achieved by your project How do you measure (parameters) these. (max. 2000 characters): 
• Teachers and students met each other in Italy, Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, Spain, Portugal. • Teachers and students knew each others cultures and traditions. • Students wrote articles about the meetings and uploaded them on the school website. • Creation of a website for the project – http://www.6cultures1tech.eu/. • Making of a video about Christmas, describing habits and traditions. Upload of the video on the project website. • Upload a describing school video on the project website. • Students developed a logo for the project. • Students attended lessons of English. • Students attended lessons of Robotics. • Students worked in age-mixed groups, building and programming robots using only touch sensor. • Students worked in age-mixed groups, building and programming robots using only light sensor. • Students worked in age-mixed groups, building and programming robots using only sound sensor. • Teachers and students discussed about science and ethics; the role of religion; cloning and advanced medicine. • Students worked in age-mixed groups, building and programming robots using all the sensors that have analysed. • Teachers and students discussed about IT development and its future. • Teachers and students discussed a World of Robots. • Frequent contact between all the participants on the facebook group during the project. • Compiling and sharing photos of all activities on the website. Evaluation during the project: 1. Monitoring of deadlines-Evaluation of degree of tasks implementation resulting from the schedule-led by the coordinator. 2. Online questionnaires and diaries-Each meeting; 3. Internet teachers forum (see F.2.-Communication); 4. Students involvement; 5. Monitoring of carried out tasks or results; 6. Students improved their general knowledge in robotics and the humanities
How many users interact with your project monthly and what are the preferred forms of interaction? (max. 500 characters): 

There were groups of students (any school 50 students and 5 teachers in two years) in the project that had specific tasks to do. Their work was supervised by the coordinators. Communication was ensured through modern means of transmission, video conferencing, email, instant messaging and website. Cooperation was also accomplished by frequent access to the website itself, where students and teachers virtually met and worked together.
During the meetings dominated Interactive communication techniques, teamwork, brainstorming and debates.

Sustainability

What is the full duration of your project (from beginning to end)?: 
From 1 to 3 years
What is the approximate total budget for your project (in Euro)?: 
From 75.001 to 500.000 Euro
What is the source of funding for your project?: 
Grants
Specify: 
Istituto Tecnico Industriale
Is your project economically self sufficient now?: 
Yes
Since when?: 
2012-08-30 22:00:00

Transferability

Has your project been replicated/adapted elsewhere?: 
No
What lessons can others learn from your project? (max. 1500 characters): 

Who has access to the project site will realize how rewarding it was working on a project that involved six cultures, quite distinct from each other, and used robotics as a common language. It will also be obvious to realize that it is worth associating with other people that develops common interest and works on European scale.

Are you available to help others to start or work on similar projects?: 
Yes

Background Information

Future plans and wish list (max. 750 characters): 
Some of the products that were created to promote the project, such as the projects of different robots or documentation created to this purpose are available on the project site (www.6cultures1tech.eu). These products can also serve as an example and perhaps inspiration for others.