European Schools Project

Results of the 3. ESP Meeting

Gymnasium Großburgwedel

Friday, Oct. 27,1989

The main result of the first day was the clarification of terms. All participants accepted the idea of the Teletrip as a first step towards a Distributed European Schools Conference (DESC). It was seen that setting up the DESC is necessary in order to provide the critical mass for an arousal of interest by all; teachers, pupils and schools. The term critical mass was introduced by Prof. Gorny, resulting from his experience in the PLUTO Network (the “Sister Network” of ESP at university level) and accurately describes what hinders the beginnings of communication, beyond chatting. The theme oriented communication between learning groups is limited by a lot of factors: the presence of committed teachers, age structure, time slots, theme overlap, curriculum, etc. The probability of finding a matching partner for communication is therefore very low. This fact can only be overcome by allowing for a selection of partners from a very large audience, which usually cannot be found within one school. In the DESC, we need a national node in each country, which serves as a centralizing node, creating an update of all incoming messages into a local host’s electronic conference. That local host is obtainable at little to no charge by every interested school. Teachers with their learning groups can then join existing conferences, adding comments, making original contributions, looking for the focus of discussion, their comments and original contributions are then distributed to all other national nodes, which will be added by them into their conferences on the responding local host. So we will have a Distributed European Schools Conference, offering all schools in countries with national ESP nodes access to the same Information. GG will set up its conferences in three local hosts: CosmoNet, Oekoline and Telebox; the last is accessible free of charge at all German schools. Furthermore, there are links to the British Microlink system. The other partners are asked to evaluate chances for finding local hosts. If sponsoring could be arranged successfully, there are chances of buying a ready-to-run Distributed Conferencing System (CAUCUS), which runs on a variety of host computer brands.

We have updated the schools, participating in the ESP to five schools. The French one has expressed strong interest, but time has been too short to validate membership. Lone Hagen expressed her interest, but is to have a discussion with Prof. Malmberg (INFA, DK), to decide which school from DK will finally become involved.

Country	School	Responsible
D	Gymnasium Großburgwedel (GG)	Karl Sarnow
DK	Baunebjergskole (BS)	Lone Hagen
F	College Louis Pasteur (CL)	Luc Leconte
GB	Swadelands School (SS)	Vic Young
NL	Augustinus College (AC)	Hugo deFauwe

Saturday, Oct. 28.1989

The experiences with the last triangle came up on Friday, in the course of the discussion about critical mass. It was accepted by all partners present, that the Teletrips we are starting are transferable into the local hosts of the national nodes of the DESC. This gives foreign schools, which are presently not partners in the ESP the chance of both, active and passive contribution to the discussions in the several groups. The pedagogical concept of integrating ESP Teletrips into the lessons of learning groups requires existing conferences, which will reduce the difficulty of finding partners with a common set of interests. It was furthermore accepted by all present partners, that a Teletrip should end with a mutual visit of learning groups, enhancing the motivation of pupils to take an active role in the ESP. As a fixed rule, partners accepted, that an Incoming messages MUST be answered. Even if the contents of a message should not be found quite acceptable, this will give the pupils an entry for discussions which can lead to a deeper understanding of foreign culture or enable a pupil to make a further attempt to join in the subject of discussion. This cannot be achieved by learning from a book. So mistakes can indeed lead to a positive result, which a teacher cannot achieve by simply correcting.

It was seen that there are different faculties at Augustinus and Großburgwedel, which are very interested in the ESP: At Augustinus these are languages and Geography, at Großburgwedel these are the natural sciences, which actually have not found a partner. It Is hoped, that installing the DESC will solve this problem. We actually found three groups, starting with Teletrips from February 1990 to May 1990. It turned out that personal meetings are of immense importance, as only personal contacts will enable Teletrips to be set up, as long as the critical mass of enthusiasm is not present, or is not overlapping with respect to the themes. The partners therefore have fixed a date, when they want to meet again for discussion of the project to be carried out and to plan the next one. The proposal was a meeting in JUNE 11. - 12., 1989 in Denmark. It is hoped, that a first account of installing the DESC can be given at that time. All partners, able and interested in programming should put their heads together, to find a solution to the updating problem in distributed conferencing. All partners will try to publish the ideas of the ESP and DESC in the appropriate literature.

The following three groups will carry out Teletrips within the fixed time interval:

English
Participants: Hugo DeFauwe (AC) and Philip Stokes (GG).

Preparations are made on a grammatical and a cultural subject. In spring 1990 a possible meeting of pupils is considered. Groups age: 13-14, Level: Gymnasium.

Geography
Participants: Toon Claasen (AC) and Dr. Reinhardt Evers (GG).

Two projects are considered, both within a group of age 13-14.

1) Weather and climate.
Pupils do their own observations. Weather reports from Newspaper are collected, recorded on Video from TV. Own weather observations are made on Video. The collection is made within a time slot of a month. After the collection period, an exchange of material will be done and the material will be interpreted and compared. After that a mutual visit is planned.

2) Holiday project.
Pupils from Gbw work out a holiday project to do in Amsterdam. Pupils from Amsterdam work out a holiday project to do In Gbw. Final mutual visits are planned.

German
Participants: Thomas Peters (AC), Lone Hagen (BS) and Dr. Ivan Soldo (GG). Age within the group: 13-16.

Das Bild des Anderen.
Due to the fact, that for Lone and Thomas German is a foreign language, they will start their project In January, while Ivan is adding his contribution in February. By the end of April 1990, the essays will be exchanged. After interpretation, a reaction is sent back. End of the project is the end of May 1990. Optional: exchange of Phots and Videos. A final meeting is considered.

For more intensive contacts, a list of the private addresses of all participants is compiled:

Lone Hagen Humlebaek Denmark	Thomas Peters Amsterdam The Netherlands	Peter Fricke Burgwedel Germany
Friedrich Wilhelm Meyer Burgwedel Germany	Toon Claassen Diemen The Netherlands	Dr. Ivan Soldo Isernhagen Germany
Hugo DeFauwe Amsterdam The Netherlands	Dr. Karl Sarnow Hannover Germany	Philip Stokes Burgwedel Germany