While most of northern Europe was seeing the temperatures drop, we were fortunate enough to have our third team project meeting for Fit4DigiLine in beautiful southern Spain, in Malaga, where it still seemed like summer, especially for our partners based out of Austria and Finland!
First all, this meeting was a chance for us to not only reflect on the progress we have made up to this point, but also to evaluate two years of hard work on the Fit4DigiLine project, as well as hone in on what still needs to be done before the project’s end.
When evaluating our collective work over the past two years we unanimously came to the conclusion that the forte of this group is not only our ability to communicate with each other effectively but also to stay motivated and organized in order to keep to the given deadlines and complete the different tasks necessary for developing an intricate and what we hope to be practical course to help teachers learn how to teach online. The communicative success we have had so far is due to each and every partner as well as particularly the leadership of Bit Schulungscenter.
Although the course we have been developing for this project is focused on online teaching, and most of our communication has been online since its conception and throughout Fit4DigiLine’s development, being able to meet face-to-face for a third time has been an invaluable exchange of both ideas and cultures.
On the one hand, from the practicality/efficiency point of view, as advanced as we may be nowadays, with a myriad of manners to communicate and work online, there is nothing like a meeting in person where issues can be resolved and ideas can be exchanged instantaneously and humanistically, leaving less room for misinterpretation and time delays which often occur when developing a project online.
On the other hand, the professional and personal enrichment which are gained through team project meetings allow its partner members to not only develop new and interesting projects and ideas for all Europeans but also give each of its participating members the chance to exchange their language, culture and customs. All of which lead to more comprehension between different European nations and the fostering of a united community.
To be specific, throughout the two days we spent together in Malaga working on this project we were able to not only focus on the Fit4DigiLine project, ensuring that its development was on track and that there was a general consensus of the next steps to take, but also, out of the working space we were able to learn about each member and its participants as individuals of the whole.
That is to say, in our coffee breaks, the meals we shared together and the cultural visit around Malaga, we were able to reflect on the work we were doing and its importance outside of the traditional meeting setting, doing so by exchanging ideas from our personal and culturally bound experiences and points of view.
Now, our next target for Fit4Digiline is the creation of a MOOC to accompany the online course we have already developed. We hope the MOOC will engage learners and motivate them to continue with the course. In this meeting we were able to fine tune the details of this task together and the challenges which may occur in the upcoming six months before the end of the project.
It goes without saying, this TPM has been a success and we are looking forward to seeing the outcome of the MOOC as well as our next TPM in Finland at the beginning of next year!
