November 2016, No 4

REDiC Newsletter

Editorial

The 4th meeting in Romania was a pleasant sur-prise! Both teachers and pupils did their best tomake this event an unforgetable experience. I amreally happy that kids that go to this school en-joyed our visit to their school. I wish it were pos-sible for them to attend all other meetings! Also,the teachers of the Romanian school did a splen-did job in organizing this meeting. They designed

many interesting activities for pupils while pupils had also the chance to listen to somevery interesting talks. But a successful meeting is not successful without cultural ac-tivities. We visited some really beautiful buildings, tasted the local cuisine, and walkedaround in the old town.

— Apostolos Syropoulos

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A “family” picture near the hotel.

Dont judge—lend a help-ing hand!

by Renate Wachter

Our meeting in Romania startedwith great hospitality. We werepicked up at the airport one by oneand enjoyed a very warm-hearted or-ganisation right from the beginning.As the Romanian school teaches kidswith special needs we assumed it

would be a problem to work together,but it was not. Thanks to the fantas-tic creativity and anticipated organi-sation by the Romanian team it was apleasure to see all our students work-ing together. It was impressive to seehow it makes them happy to be a hostand have some guests. Beside thesesocial experiences, we had plenty oflectures with professionals who madeus aware of the risks of being addictedto internet and computer games. Stu-

dents who honestly talked about theirpassion helped us to understand thosewho spend too much time in front ofthe computer and a psychologist gaveus the straight tip how to react:

Don’t judge—lend a help-ing hand!

Invite an addicted person for a walk,for a coffee, to the cinema, etc. Lendhim or her a hand to follow you intothe real world again.

Working together during a morning sessions.

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The Extra-Curricular Ac-tivities of the TrainingEvent in Romania

by Aylin Kiriçi Sarıkaya

The third tarining event of ourErasmus+ K2 project “ResponsibleEuropean Digital Citizens” was heldin Bucharest, Romania, October 10–14, 2016. Visiting students and teach-ers attended seminars and workshopsbasically about “Internet Addiction”at the host school Scoala GimnazialaSpeciala Nr. 2 during school time.The afternoons were spent fruitfully.The team visited culturally and his-torically important places of the city.

One of them was Dimitrie GustiNational Village Museum, which isan open-air ethnographic museum lo-cated in the Herăstrău Park. Therewe had the chance to have an idea oftraditional Romanian village life. Itwas nice to learn that the illustrationon 10 Lei bill is a Buzau house. Onecan visit a replica of this house at theDimitrie Gusti National Village Mu-seum.

The Palace of the Parliamentwhich is still used as the Parliamentof Romania is for sure one of the mostbreathtaking monuments in the cityof Bucharest. We attended a guidedtour and could only see just 5% ofthe huge palace in one and a halfhours. The Palace of the Parliamentis 84 m high and has an area of365,000 m2. This makes it the sec-ond largest administrative buildingin the world, after The Pentagon inthe United States. The Palace’s im-pressive crystal chandeliers, elaboratedecorations of the saloons, huge gath-ering areas, large doors and windows,and the carpets were some marks leftin the mind. The Cotroceni NationalMuseum is the old Royal Palace, builtin 1895. It is the official residence ofthe President of Romania. We spenthalf our day there and had an in-sight of Romanian royal life in the20th century. The different rooms ofthe palace were decorated in variousstyles such as French, Tudor, Ger-man and Romanian. Another note-worthy point of this mobility is that

the host school, Scoala GimnazialaSpeciala Nr. 2 is a school offering spe-cial education to students who haveautistic spectrum disorders, develop-mental disabilities, mental health dis-orders or other behavioral challenges.Guest students and host students hadmany chances to get in touch, spendtime together, design and lead thesame work. They talked, discussedand performed presentations aboutthe excessive use of internet and com-puter. I think this was an invaluableoccasion for both groups. They some-how understood each other and in-tegrated quite naturally. Apart fromthe educational contents, this mobil-ity was an unforgettable event as ithelped us be more conscious of thepeople with special needs.

What Happened AllThese Days

by Corina Ionescu and SorinaPerinaru

The fourth meeting of the Eras-mus+ Programme – Strategic Part-nership Project “Responsible Euro-pean Digital Citizen” took place inBucharest, Romania between 10thand 14th of October, 2016. SecondarySpecial School No. 2, from Bucharest,was the host for teams from Austria(Simone Charvat, Lisa Hinterhofer,Carolin Kramer, Sofia Nagl - pupils,Renathe Wachter and Marion Hansal-Pangratz - teachers), Greece (Asime-nia Florokapi, Dimitra Tsanaktsoglou– pupils, Apostolos Syropoulos andProdromos Ntaoutidis - teachers),Lithuania (Vita Pavasarytė, GabrielėBautronytė – pupils, Lilija Dailidaitėand Asta Abromaitienė - teachers),Portugal (Bernardo Rodrigues, JoãoMiraldo – pupils, Esmeralda Cruzand Gracinda Alfafar - teachers)and Turkey (Ali Öztürk, Miraç Rüz-gar Akpinar – pupils, Aylin Kir-işçi Sarıkaya and Gülseren Akman -teachers). This was the third shortterm exchange of groups of pupils,and the theme of the meeting was “In-ternet Addiction“.

On the first day, after the “Wel-

come ceremony”, and a brief presen-tation of the host school, the pupilspresented their work about Internetor Game Addiction theme. The Aus-trian team had a presentation enti-tled “Dangers of the Internet Skill-fully Mastered—What has happenedin our school” and a presentationabout the Pokemon Go game. Wefound out about the activities per-formed in the Austrian school, thelessons held by teachers, workshopsand the presentation of the resultsof the questionnaires from Moodleabout Internet Addiction and Poke-mon Go game. The Greek team hada presentation entitled “Internet Ad-diction” and Apostolos Syropoulospresented the results of the “Study ofInternet Addiction in Five EuropeanSchools”, which used the Internet Ad-diction Test (IAT). The Lithuanianteam had a presentation about “Ad-diction to the Internet”, also basedon results of the previous stady. ThePortuguese team had a presentationentitled “Internet Addiction” provid-ing us information about statisticaldata and also about online gaming—advantages, disadvantages, addiction.The Turkish team had a presentationentotled “Internet Safety”, which in-cluded a video with interviews theytook at their school.

On the second day, the Roma-nian team had a presentation enti-tled “Internet Addiction”. This pro-vided some statistical data about theusage of Internet and signs of Inter-net Addiction. Our special guest wasMrs. Raluca Ionescu, a medical doc-tor specialized in paedo-psychiatry,who talked to us about the “Inter-net impact on child and adolescentbrain”. The talk revealed the impactand consequences of using the Inter-net and playing computer games inchildren development. The symptomsof addiction to video games and theInternet were discussed followed by adiscussion about how to stop onlineaddiction. Pupils were divided in twogroups and had a debate about theadvantages and disadvantages of us-ing the Internet. They had to work onfinding an “Internet shield” to protectthemselves from addiction, and also

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to establish a list of 10 rules that canbe used to avoid Internet addiction. Anice activity was held with the pupilsby Mr. Alexandru Preda, a clinicianpsychologist, about the net, some re-laxation techniques, things that canhelp us when we have to usea a com-puter and/or the internet for a longtime, ending with a questions andanswers session. At the end of theday pupils had to write a short es-say about the Internet Addiction—advantages and disadvantages. Dur-ing the day a staff meeting was held.Renate Wachter, the project coor-dinator, presented the Interim Re-port of the project, the materialsposted on the project Moodle plat-form, the result of the question-naires applied. Lilija Dailidaitė pre-sented the e-Twinning project plat-form and the materials posted onit. The project staff members dis-cussed about the activities done inthe project and the activities thathas to be done in the second yearof the project. Apostolos Syropoulospresented the project’s web site withthe materials posted on the site. Alsowe agreed on the dates for the 5th and6th meetings of the project.

The main subject of the activi-ties of the third day was the effectsof computer/video games on people.Ilona Chiriac presented a descrip-tion of off-line and on-line games andtheir positive and negative effects onpeople. Cristina Dobre talked aboutthe effects of using computers, play-ing computer games, and the role ofcomputer games in education. AlinaChiracu talked to pupils about “Sleepdeprivation on teens”, focusing on theeffect of sleep deprivation on learn-ing and school performance and giv-ing tips to pupils on how to get moresleep. Pupils had to work after thaton making their daily program, tak-ing some minutes (or hours) off whatthey “Want to do” and increase inthat way the amount of time spent forwhat they “Have to do”. At the end ofthe day pupils played an on-line gamecalled “Safety Land” (a game aboutInternet Safety for kids), and all ofthem received at the end of the gamethe Official Internet Town Superhero

Certificate.The theme of the fourth day was

“The impact of excessive use of theInternet on human health”. Dr. An-dreea Voinea Iacobini, Ph.D., madea presentation based on a personalresearch on students. She showed topupils the correct posture when sit-ting in front of a computer, the pos-ture they have to avoid, and somestretching exercises. Marian Cojo-caru, a school kinetotherapist, pre-sented to pupils some exercises thatthey have to do for relaxing the neck,back, arms and legs. Pupils practicedsome exercises, and also they tooksome exercises à la Charlie Chaplinaccompanied with Charleston DanceMusic. At the end of the day pupilsparticipated in a speech therapy ac-tivity where they learned how touse computer educational games inlessons, in a Geography lesson abouthow to use the Internet to obtain in-formation for school work, a Guidedcounseling activity about the Internetaddiction, but also a practical activ-ity about what they can do insteadof using a computer, laptop, tablet orsmartphone: painting wooden spoonsor clay plates (a traditional Roma-nian activity).

In the last day of the meetinga special guest from the RomanianAssociation Save the Children, Mrs.Georgiana Roșculeț, made an inter-active session with pupils on Inter-net Addiction. They worked in smallgroups and drew the Internet Ad-diction Tree. This tree consists ofbranches depicting the causes, the ef-fects and also solutions for avoidingaddiction. She also presented the website

www.betterinternetforkids.eu.

After that, pupils and teachers fromeach country worked in teams andmade a collage presenting their ownhome country. Also, they replied to ameeting feed-back questionnaire, andalso drew on a flipchart sheet the Ithink, I feel, I kick task. This was aninteresting feed-back about the meet-ing: what they learned, what theyliked and what they didn’t like. Thefinal day ended with a farewell cere-

mony where pupils and teachers re-ceived project certificates and also aGood Practice Bag. This bag con-tained among others the 10 rules foravoiding Internet addiction. A specialmoment was offered by Elena Sima,special education teacher and also apopular singer, and all the partici-pants joined in a Romanian tradi-tional dance “Hora”.

A Joyful Project Meetingby Daniel Niculae, th grade

student

In the second week of Octobercame to our school guests from fivecountries, teachers and pupils, [par-ticipating] in an Erasmus+ project.

I was very happy to meet childrenfrom other countries, talk to themand participate in various activitieswith them. The topic of these activi-ties was Internet Addiction.

We found out how to protect our-selves when we communicate on Face-book, because some people can bedangerous and can confuse us andcan make use of our personal data.We learned that Internet has advan-tages, but also disadvantages, that itis better to keep to a daily scheduleas to have a healthy life. It is bet-ter to do something else with our freetime, other activities that can makeus happy, not only to stay in front ofa computer and play.

We painted wooden spoons anddecorated clay pots with our friendsand they loved doing it. We alsodanced together.

Children from each country pre-sented a collage that showed thewealth and beauty of their country.I was glad that I could talked aboutmy country and I learned a lot abouttheir countries.

I found that they like to play com-puter games and make friends. Theywere very nice to us. We took manypictures together.

I liked this project very much, andI ask my teacher when it is going tobe the next time when they will comeagain. Miss you all.

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