Immerse in Poland

17-28 May 2021

Our fourth international meeting was implemented with the leadership of Poland. Due to the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus we organized a virtual mobility. As preparation the students did online research on Polish culture and published their findings in a Google Slide presentation.

We organized the programmes on five separate days between 17^th and 28^th May. On the first day we started with an opening ceremony, and then walked around each school virtually. In the second part of the programme we learnt about the history and legends of Poland and depicted the national symbols using glass painting. It is a traditional technique in Poland to decorate windows. On the next day our topic was Polish cuisine. After a presentation we made a simple vegetable salad that is often prepared in Poland. The programme continued with learning about the Polish folk dances and costumes and we danced Polonaise. On the third day we attended a folksong performance held by the Polish children. After that we participated in a craft workshop and made a Polish rag doll and crepe paper flowers. A methodology workshop on formative assessment was also involved in the program. The Polish trainer combined a presentation with practical exercises, interactive elements, and teamwork making the activity enjoyable. On the last day we closed the meeting and organized a farewell party. As evaluation we put an exercise into practice that was introduced in the teachers' workshop. It's called the "Method of lights". Here the students used the colours of the traffic lights to give feedback to the teacher. We revised the things we learnt playing a Kahoot quiz. Finally, each country presented a cultural talent show representing its culture.

During this period, we arranged exhibitions of our products and shared them virtually. All partner schools knitted the four national flags and joined them together as a scarf symbolising our friendship and European identity. We created a video where we sing a song together about friendship titled "You've got a Friend in me".

As a final product we edited the fourth volume of our online magazine. We put together photos, videos, articles, and the students' impressions to summarize the learning outputs.

The biggest advantage of the virtual mobility that we could involve more students at local level. To implement a successful meeting, we needed the contribution of several teachers with different subjects, such as music, art, folk dance, or ICT. We were sad, that we couldn’t meet and make friends but we could create a sparkling and inspiring atmosphere and brought off our project effectively.