REPORT ABOUT THE MEETING IN PESCARA (ITALY)

2011, December, 13^th - 19^th

PROBLEMS WITH OUR WEBPAGE:

• Some partners complained about the problems they had had with our webpage. Paloma commented that, although she had uploaded some documents a month before, she could not find them on the web page. She didn’t know whether it had been her fault or the webmaster’s. Alexandra added that she could not even see the webpage in her computer.
• Stelian and Liana informed us that there had been some problems with the server. However, all our documents were safe since, as Nicoleta reminded us, Christian, the Romanian student who is the webmaster, has a backup of the page in his computer, so it would be easy to upload all the data again, in case any of the documents were missing.
• As for Alexandra’s problem, Paloma advised her to write the name of the page directly, instead of clicking on favourites, as the webpage had been upgraded (from v2 to v3).

E-TWINNING PAGE

• Paloma told all the partners that her headmaster had given his approval to the opening of the project on the e-twinning page. So, Nicoleta and Paloma suggested that all the partners should use the page and upload the outcomes on e-twinning to have a backup.
• Nicoleta and Paloma showed the e-twinning page to the other partners and reminded them that they had to register in order to be invited to join the project.
• Nicoleta and Paloma promised to learn how e-twinning works, i. e., what we have to do in order to upload our outcomes.

BLOG

• We agreed that all the teachers that have taken part in the project should register and join the blog as users

EVALUATION OF THE STUDENTS’ WORK:

• Nicoleta suggested the possibility of creating a kind of jury to evaluate our students’ presentation in the next meeting in Turkey. She said that in her previous Comenius there had been a jury of teachers who assessed the students’ progress along the year. The students had been given indications of what they were supposed to do, according to the criteria established by the teachers.
• Alexandra commented she wouldn’t like to create differences among the countries because, if there was a jury, there would be winners and losers. Moreover, it seemed to be too late to organize that kind of competition, which should have been started in the first or second meeting.
• She suggested that, if we finally decided to organize that kind of competition, we should give a prize to all the countries.
• We agreed on asking our students to give us two criteria (the ones they consider the most important for them) in order to evaluate their presentation, i. e., fluency, interaction, staging, fun, content…. Thus, we will publish the criteria both on the blog and the forum page in order to let our students know them before the last meeting.
• Alexandra insisted that it ought to be a funny competition with prizes to all the countries.
• We should send the students’ suggestions to Paloma or Nicoleta around the middle of February in order to agree on the final criteria and to upload them before the end of February.

QUESTIONNAIRES

• We agreed that Romania, Italy and Turkey would have to upload their questionnaires on the forum page after Christmas. The deadline is 31^st of January.
• Once more, we spoke about the need to encourage our students to visit the forum and answer the questions.

STUDENTS’ IMPRESSIONS:

• As for the students’ impressions, a good idea would be to tell them to write about different topics related to the meeting: host families, school, free time, trips, presentations, etc, in order to give us a whole view of their experience. They ought to try to be more personal and avoid writing a mere account of the facts.
• The deadline to upload our student’s impressions is the 29^th of February.

ITALIAN WEEK

• Paloma and Loli apologized for not having organised the Polish week yet due to family problems and lack of time. They will organize both the Polish and the Italian week simultaneously after Christmas.
• Rita promised to send all the partners some material in order to help us organize the Italian week: songs and music, films (a comedy), D’Annunzio’s poems, literature, cooking, etc.

THE FINAL REPORT

• Nicoleta reminded us that, at the end of the project, each country will have to do its own report but there are some parts we will have to do in common.
• We agreed on the need of discussing this point in Turkey.
• Anyway, we should check the memory form on our national pages so as to know what we have to fill in.

MEETING IN TURKEY

• The meeting in Turkey was agreed to be be held between the 22^nd and the 28^th of March.
• Taner informed us about different details concerning our trip to Istambul:
• Teachers’ accommodation: our rooms have already been booked in a hotel in the very centre of Istanbul, the Q-inn Hotel (single room, € 60; double room, € 70; and triple room, € 100). It is about an hour from the school by public transport so we will have to take a boat across the Bosporus and then a bus to get to the school. It’s important to confirm both the number of rooms as well as the type of room as soon as possible.
• Students travelling to Istambul: there will be no problems with the number of students since the school has a dormitory, where some of them could be accommodated if necessary. Furthermore, there won’t be any problems to host male students since, although it is a school for girls only, the Turkish families have offered to host boys.
• Project work: He suggested concentrating the work on the project on two days: one day for the presentation and the other for the work meeting. He explained that, as Istanbul is such a big and beautiful city, we were going to need more time to visit it.
• Possible trips: Taner informed us about their intentions to take us to Bursa and stay overnight there. The trip would include a visit to Iznik, an example of chessboard town, Nicaea and Bursa, which is a famous thermal place. As Bursa is about three hours far from Istanbul, Taner recommended us to spend the night in Bursa. The price of the hotel is about 100 euros for a double room. Paloma objected that Istanbul is big enough, but Taner explained that during all the meetings the host countries had organized excursions and they would like to do the same. As everybody agreed on the convenience of taking the students with us to Bursa, Taner promised to find out how much the excursion would cost, including accommodation.
• Practical information:

• There are 2 airports in Istanbul: one in the European and the other one in the Anatolian side.
• We had better take Euros and change them in Turkey.
• Students under 18 need a passport, valid for more than 6 months. We should ask the Turkish Embassy in our countries just in case they need a special permission.