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- ME
TOO transnational meetings
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- Florence
February/March 1999
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- Following
is a short report on the meeting in Florence of 4-6 March 1999
with Ubel van Dijk (ABC Amsterdam), Jorma Sarsama and Arto
Joutsimäki (the City of Vantaa in Finland) and Ana Maria Cotrim (Secretariado
Entrecultura of Lisbon). Two weeks earlier,
from the 20-22 February 1999, we met one of our Belgian
partners, Ruud van de Rakt from Efecot (Brussels), in Florence.
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- The
function of these meetings was to exchange information on the
progress of the project, to discuss significant international
experiences and to define the role of the partners in the project
ME TOO.
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- EFECOT
has a lot of experience in the education of children of
occupational travellers and gypsies. Van de Rakt discussed along
with the project co-ordination the confining areas between this
target group and the ME TOO target group. He showed examples of
distance learning using new technology. The exchange of ideas on
methodological and cultural implications for distance learning was
extremely fruitful.
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- On
the afternoon of Thursday the 4th of March, the
partners present took part in the presentation of teaching
materials so far produced in the MEET 2 and ME TOO project to a
large number of teachers and other school operators from the
Province of Florence. The meeting was chaired by Fiorella Alunni
of the Campi Bisenzio city council. In her opening speech
Annamaria Attanasio of the Ministry of Education in Rome expressed
her positive evaluation of the entire project and especially of
the materials produced so far. She underlined the peculiarity of
the situation in the area between Florence and Prato with the
large numbers of Chinese pupils present in schools. This
particular context and the fact that a large part of the materials
are developed within the schools might be a problem for their
transferability as didactic tools, but not as testimonies of
processes and approaches. The second speech of the afternoon, by
Mr. Ubel van Dijk of ABC Amsterdam, dealt with the topic of the
multimedia teaching tools in pluri-lingual classes in the
Netherlands and world-wide. Among the very interesting
observations he made, we note his analysis of future developments:
the changing educational policies (more (inter)active approaches,
from teaching to learning) will be sustained by technological
developments (Internet, distance learning by way of satellite) and
the other way around.
- Maria
Omodeo and Mara Ruzza presented the CD-Rom Xiaolong, the ME TOO
web site, the Italian-Chinese image dictionary and the linguistic
games made by the ME TOO staff.
- After the coffee break the group split up
in different sub groups to discuss the various aspects of
multimedia in multi-ethnic classrooms.
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- On the Friday and Saturday mornings, the
group of international and national partners started to discuss
the theme of the meeting: Multimedia technologies and the teaching
of Language 1 and 2 to migrant children in a perspective of
intercultural education. Friday was dedicated to the exchange of
information and experiences as well as to the debate on the
relationship between language, culture and education. Saturday
morning was dedicated to the opportunities of further
collaboration among the partners within the project.
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- The main topics discussed during the meetings were:
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The potential and
possibilities of new multimedia technology in language learning,
in particular in responding to the needs of linguistically and
geographically isolated learners (CDRom, Internet, Satellite
connections, and combinations of these new media).
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Related developments
in the field of education that partly reinforce the possibilities
of the application of multimedia technology in teaching and partly
are the result of the availability of these technologies (shift
from teaching to learning, open learning environments and the
changing role of the teacher in the classroom/the teacher as a
mediator of knowledge).
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New problems created
by the application of modern technology in the classrooms (the
need for financial and human resources, security items, the
protection of pupils against Internet messages, the
responsibilities of the school when pupils use the Internet).
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The transferability
of didactic materials from one context to another with particular
reference to the culturally determined dimension of first and
second language learning. And if the product is not transferable,
the didactic principles underlying it might be.
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- The meeting indicated some areas of
special interest for the whole project as well:
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the importance of
intercultural pre-school education;
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the connection with
the teaching practise (avoiding too much academic discussion)
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the aim that the
project should close the gap between pupils from different ethnic
minority groups rather than widen it.
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- Evert-Jan
Hoogerwerf
