ACT – Act it! Film it! Share it! – Esprominho in Europe

It’s a two-year project which brings together schools from Bulgaria, Poland, Portugal, the Republic of North Macedonia and Denmark.

We aim at celebrating our diverse cultural heritage, theatre in particular, across Europe and implementing digital media and web tools in teaching and learning through performing arts. Our schools support the intent of the European Commission and local cultural institutions to encourage more people to discover and engage with Europe’s cultural heritage, and to reinforce a sense of belonging to a common European space and thus contribute to sustainability of 2018 European Year of Cultural Heritage. We promote eSafety and the use of eTwinning opportinities to share ideas and disseminate our outcomes. Thus the strategic partnership will develop a paralel eTwinning project to benefit from all e-tools it provides for communication, joint activities, assessment of project progress and dissemination.

The project leaders have designed various national and international project activities. The participant students and teachers will learn together and from each other but they will also learn from local professionals and benefit from their competences and expertise. We will develop our project around two main pillars: theatre and ICT. Our project participants (students aged 13-19, staff, parents and wider community) will learn about national and international cultural heritage and use ICT to elaborate products. They will collaborate on topics like history of theatre and types of world theatre, writing joint scenarios, putting up plays, making masks and costumes, filming and livestreaming performances, use of online apps to edit voice and images, add sound effects, making film trailers conveying meaningful messages on moral values and tolerance. Students who participate in national activities and international Learning/Training activities such as workshops, interactive games, festivals, will bring gained knowledge and competences back to their own school communities and act as trainers to peers and younger learners from other educational institutions. Through the Professional Development element teachers involved will gain plenty of ideas for using drama techniques and implementation of digital media and online tools in making and editing products. Through our planned activities our partnership will guarantee a more modern, dynamic, committed and professional environment inside our schools involving teachers who are ready to integrate good practices and new methods into daily teaching activities. All our participant schools are united around the idea of building bridges among our nations, promoting understanding of different cultures (both European and migrants’) and interacting with peers from other countries. We strongly believe that in a world of globalisation we should teach adolescents how to value national cultural heritage. We think that working on projects on an international basis adds value to their concrete results and outcomes and provide participants with new chances to share and compare knowledge and skills with peers whom they are normally not able to communicate with.

– Introduction of national cultural heritage through theatrical arts

– Involvement of adolescents in drama-based activities, development of their aesthetic taste

– Effective integration of digital technologies in teaching through drama

– Introduction of eSafety and digital literacy, incorporation of meaningful messages in digital project products – Development of participants’ soft skills through use of theatre and ICT

– Professional Development of staff

– Exchange of materials, support of young teachers, especially those unexperienced in international cooperation and project management. We will develop final products such as eBook “Cultural heritage through Erasmus +

– Drama in the partner countries”, Professional Development Portfolio with a collection of drama techniques, DVDs with drama performances, calendars, collages and albums, trailers with meaningful messages on tolerance, multiculturality, etc.

The partnership will benefit from each other schools’ capacity and experience gained during themed Erasmus + KA1 in-service training courses on ICT and Drama, eTwinning seminar on eSafety at the Future Classroom Lab, Brussels, and relevant Erasmus + KA2 strategic partnerships, so as cooperation with the Royal Shakespeare Company on a previous LLP project. Our strategic partnerships will also involve associated partners from the public or private sector who will contribute to the sustainability of our cooperative project.