CYBERBULLYING

Málaga, Spain – December 4-8, 2023

When we first arrived, our Spanish trainer, Manolo, warmly welcomes us and introduced himself and then asked each participant to briefly introduce himself or herself. Participants’ countries were Poland, Hungary and Croatia. We were introduced with a platform called Padlet where the timetable and the Info Pack were uploaded which we had had received before our mobility to get familiar with what we were going to see and do. Padlet became the location where we needed to do our assignments including writing a paragraph and uploading a photo introducing ourselves, uploading presentations about our schools, reporting each day’s activities including photos, and writing down some notes from the activities we had during the course comparing bullying with cyberbullying. On the second day, the trainer chose to have the outdoor activity instead of the third day which turned out to be a good idea. Although for some reason, the application Action bound for scavenger hunt did not function on his phone, but we had a very nice and informative walk through Malaga including a hike to the hill where the castle remains were there to enjoy the picturesque scenery of Malaga beach and port. Manolo was ready to explain all about the history of the places and tried to answer questions that we had about different things. He helped us to find a local restaurant to experience the cuisine that the locals have. We also tried to get familiar with some basic Spanish. During the trip, we exchanged experiences about Erasmus+ which added value to our outdoor cultural activity. From day 3 and onwards, we had a more thorough examination into the course including practical works, different cyberbullying case scenarios where we worked in pairs, sharing best practices in bullying prevention and response, defining what is bullying and characterizing the bully and the victim. Bullying is hurtful, repetitive, intentional and always happens when there is power imbalance. Cyberbullying is one of the forms which uses the digital technologies to harass, intimidate, or humiliate others. This can be in public or in private. Bystanders’ role was also mentioned to be a very important asset. Detection is the first step where the role of parent-teacher communication was discussed to be of an essence for collaboration. My personal favorite was having anonymous reporting systems in the school. Among the thirteen actions that can be taken, documenting the evidence stood out for me to implement. A highlight was for me when listing the different forms of bullying was that many times it can be as simply as giving silent treatment to a student where classmates choose not to talk or deal with a certain student. Another crucial point which was discussed and worth having a workshop in the sending organization was about school programs and policies in bullying prevention. Several apps and websites, like Rethink app, Anti-bullying measures on Instagram, Anti-Bullying Alliance among others were introduced as resources to further our knowledge and preparedness against cyberbullying. Finally, discussions about future cooperation and follow up activities were made along with exchanging contact information and receiving our certificates.

I took part in this amazing mobility course offered by International training center in Prague between 5^th to 9^th December of 2022. On the first day, we had a very friendly welcome by David Brož, the manager and also by our trainer Denisa Mouchová and then David smoothly finalized our registration for the course and then collected our documents that needed to be signed by ITC. I should mention that they had a very organized and professional approach all through the course. The group was so great that everyone felt like part of a family sharing their experience and being extremely friendly and approachable. The group included 3 teachers from Greece, 4 from Spain, 2 from Reunion island and me from Hungary.

On Day 1, everybody introduced themselves and also presented about the school that they were sent from which made us feel already that we have a lot in common even though there were many differences among our institutions with respect to size, curriculum and enrolled students. We were asked by our trainer to mention something that we really liked or good at in our work place and also something that was a challenge for us. Afterwards, we had a discussion about the challenges of having a class with diverse cultures or mixed ability students. Then, we had to work as a group on a big ladybug drawing on cardboard to find common things among all of us and then to write down things that was unique to each one of us. During the lunchbreak, they recommended us to use the canteen in the center which proved to be a great idea since food was tasty and was very rich with variety with a great price. On this same day, we had our guided city tour which was also extraordinary! The guide was super organized and flexible with everyone and at the end I was surprised how many place we were able to visit during the roughly 3 hours. Most prominent places, like Charles bridge and the amazing castle premises were covered during this tour. On day 2, we started our course in a more serious way discussing what students need and she talked about PERMA which stands for positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning and accomplishment. The training always included an interactive work that we needed to do either with the whole group or in separated groups which made us get close to each other and exchange our thoughts and ideas. Discussion followed about how to differentiate instructions for mixed ability and special needs students and how to develop effective communication skills. All types of special needs students were mentioned and I realized that there was always room to study new things that I did not know about. Focus was made on how giving feedback was important to be specific, accurate, objective, timely, usable, desired by the receiver and checked for understanding. It was very useful the wheel of power shown by our trainer to see how marginalized students due to different reasons can have trouble integrating in a classroom. As a follow up to this, we had to decide what are schools that use integration, exclusion, separation and inclusion, and then we discusses the pros and cons for each. Later, we were introduced to Gardner’s multiple intelligences which was developed by a psychologist in Harvard university that shows the complexity of intelligences that students can have and not simply have an IQ test for being clever. This broadened our perspective to see that a student can be still intelligent in a field even though does not perform well in some certain subjects. On Day 3, the discussion included stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination where we had to find similarities and differences between them and how to overcome each one. Then, we studied valuable steps for decision making like defining the problem, exploring the alternatives, considering the consequences, identifying out values, then deciding and taking the action, and finally evaluating our decision. Throughout this part we were give a huge list of values to choose 10 from, and then we were asked to remove from it until we had to keep only 1! This was a very interesting task and quite self-reflecting. The following last couple of days, we were introduced to Johari window and saw the difference between feedback and debriefing and learned about different assessment methods of student’s skills including summative and formative ones. We were shown how games should be used in classes and how they are useful to overcome multicultural barriers and what are the main components of a game.

It was extremely intriguing when we had to put in order the different roles we take while working with learners, from expert, teacher, mentor, trainer, facilitator and a coach. Overall, my experience was thrilling and made valuable connections with teachers from Spain, Greece and Reunion island and I am looking forward to have future collaborations with at least some of them.

This mobility was funded by the European Commission.

The information presented here does not necessarily reflect the views of the European Commission.

Between ^15th to ^20thof August 2022, I participated in a training course offered by Europass Teacher Academy in Barcelona, ​​Spain supported by Erasmus+. On the first day, we met each other along with our Irish trainer, Matt Johnston, and every participant had the chance to present about themselves, their school and country in any format that they had prepared. The participants were from different countries including Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, Germany and Hungary adding up to 12 individuals altogether which was the maximum number of a group to have. We were reminded about a tour that was included in our mobility experience offered by the institution which was going to be on Wednesday and also we were given a list of tourist sites which we were entitled to pick one and receive a voucher for our choice. As the title of the course makes it clear, Matt made sure that every one of us likes to play games or at least had played in his lifetime, so he asked us to list what digital games we had played up until now. He introduced to us Plickers and demonstrated how it can be used for in class activities which I found quite cool. On the second day, he introduced us to some games that I am not sure if they can be useful in a class atmosphere like Osmos, This was of mine, Life after, Alice is missing; however, Minecraft was more focused on being a more useful game for teaching since it also includes some subject specific lesson plans. On day 3, we tried another game called Spaceteam where you need to order things and at the same time you have to listen to others. It was quite challenging to play this game since it requires you to be a good listener and also to have a leading personality. He explained the difference between gamification, which we did all our lives consciously or unconsciously, and game-based learning. Alternate reality games were later introduced, like World without oil, I love bees, Perplex city, Cloverfield and De profundis where students are given tasks to write a letter to another person which is happening in a specific time in history. Micro bit was another tech gadget that we experimented with which allows someone to start programming even with no knowledge in that field what so ever. This can be useful in IT classes or students who are involved in robotics. Many other resources were shared with us like, Sheppard software, PBS Kids Games, National Geographic Kids, Funbrain and others. The most interesting day for me was definitely the 4th which we did all our lives consciously or unconsciously, and game-based learning. Alternate reality games were later introduced, like World without oil, I love bees, Perplex city, Cloverfield and De profundis where students are given tasks to write a letter to another person which is happening in a specific time in history. Micro bit was another tech gadget that we experimented with which allows someone to start programming even with no knowledge in that field what so ever. This can be useful in IT classes or students who are involved in robotics. Many other resources were shared with us like, Sheppard software, PBS Kids Games, National Geographic Kids, Funbrain and others. The most interesting day for me was definitely the 4th which we did all our lives consciously or unconsciously, and game-based learning. Alternate reality games were later introduced, like World without oil, I love bees, Perplex city, Cloverfield and De profundis where students are given tasks to write a letter to another person which is happening in a specific time in history. Micro bit was another tech gadget that we experimented with which allows someone to start programming even with no knowledge in that field what so ever. This can be useful in IT classes or students who are involved in robotics. Many other resources were shared with us like, Sheppard software, PBS Kids Games, National Geographic Kids, Funbrain and others. The most interesting day for me was definitely the 4th I love bees, Perplex city, Cloverfield and De profundis where students are given tasks to write a letter to another person which is happening in a specific time in history. Micro bit was another tech gadget that we experimented with which allows someone to start programming even with no knowledge in that field what so ever. This can be useful in IT classes or students who are involved in robotics. Many other resources were shared with us like, Sheppard software, PBS Kids Games, National Geographic Kids, Funbrain and others. The most interesting day for me was definitely the 4th I love bees, Perplex city, Cloverfield and De profundis where students are given tasks to write a letter to another person which is happening in a specific time in history. Micro bit was another tech gadget that we experimented with which allows someone to start programming even with no knowledge in that field what so ever. This can be useful in IT classes or students who are involved in robotics. Many other resources were shared with us like, Sheppard software, PBS Kids Games, National Geographic Kids, Funbrain and others. The most interesting day for me was definitely the 4th Micro bit was another tech gadget that we experimented with which allows someone to start programming even with no knowledge in that field what so ever. This can be useful in IT classes or students who are involved in robotics. Many other resources were shared with us like, Sheppard software, PBS Kids Games, National Geographic Kids, Funbrain and others. The most interesting day for me was definitely the 4th Micro bit was another tech gadget that we experimented with which allows someone to start programming even with no knowledge in that field what so ever. This can be useful in IT classes or students who are involved in robotics. Many other resources were shared with us like, Sheppard software, PBS Kids Games, National Geographic Kids, Funbrain and others. The most interesting day for me was definitely the 4th^th one since we got the chance to try VR goggles and were also introduced to AR. This part I found quite beneficial for my teaching since this technology allows students to have fun and at the same time study without realizing. However, the cost of such gadgets are quite high if you want to get the high quality ones. The last day, we were shown how 3D scanning apps work like Merge and Object viewer which can make the learning process more enjoyable for students. We were given a task also on this day to prepare a presentation showing how we plan to use what we learned in our classrooms. Finally, we received our well-deserved certificates and took a group photo as a nice memory. I thank all who made this experience possible.

This mobility was funded by the European Commission.

The information presented here does not necessarily reflect the views of the European Commission.

Here you can find our ever-expanding Erasmus page on our Avicenna website:  https://avicenna.hu/erasmus/.

Mobility Experience

Harout Parseghian

Boost Your ICT Skills – Technology for the Classroom

Executive Training Institute, Malta

11-15 October 2021

Upon arrival, we were warmly welcomed by the school’s directors and informed of the location where we needed to gather to be introduced with our trainers. Group sizes varied from only one student per trainer to about 10 trainees per trainer. Our names were registered with the administration where Ms. Sandra stood out with her great leadership skills. We were also asked to fill in the General Information Form and given handouts of our course program timetable; as well as a nicely prepared flyer about the social activities that we could choose including a cultural guided tour to Valletta, Mdina, and also a Saturday option for visiting the sister island of Malta, Gozo. We were asked to meet again the same place at the end of the first day’s course to have our pictures taken for issuing our students cards which we received the following day. An emphasis was made for submitting any documents as soon as possible that we need to be signed by ETI such as the Mobility Europass, the Erasmus+ Learning Agreements…

We had a great kick start with our trainer, Mario Cordina, who proved to be an amazing skilled trainer with his patience and ability to follow every trainee. He explained the importance for every student of ours to have a personalized email address created by the school, so that the student separates his personal life from the academic life. We were introduced to SAMR model which stands for Substitution, Augmentation, Modification and Redefinition, which is a planning tool that helps to design better learning activities for students where technology is a must to be used in a classroom. We learned about Webquests and their learning potential especially during online or blended teaching which we experienced during the pandemic. We covered the course of designing a webquest and were given a group project to work on to be submitted on the last day.

I personally liked the idea of scaffolding in teaching, where instead of giving the information to the students, as in old-school teaching, we only prepare scaffolding for the students to build their knowledge either individually or as a community. Another important wake-up note for me was to consider the whiteboard the property of students and not ours.

During the following days, we got introduced to a huge wave of free softwares and tools that help integrate technology in our classrooms. These included anything from online dictionaries, visual thesauruses to designing crosswords and quizzes. English language development was always a focus during each course. We also found out about many online Interactive Whiteboards that are available and learned how to create IWB activities. A very new and exciting part of the course for me was designing a WIKI which we learned how they work and finally decided with my group to have the project done on a WIKI page. During the last couple of days, we learned more about online resources for sharing and organizing, as well as editing images to create info-graphics because pictures talk more than words. Additionally, a great way to teach for English teachers was the StoryBird, where we were introduced to softwares that make story building a very easy, enjoyable and beneficial for education.

Overall, the experience was splendid with the craving to participate in further training events that would also teach how to create websites and blogs which is included in the 2-week program. We were happy to receive our certificates on the last day of the training and built connection with the community of learners who were there from different European countries.