Virtual meeting from 31-5-21 to 02-06-2021

Host country - Greece

Our school

Gymnasio Valtinou is situated near Trikala, Thessaly region, in central Greece. It is just 10 kilometers away from Meteora, UNESCO’s World Heritage Site. Valtino has about 1000 inhabitants. This is a mainly agricultural area. The school has about 100 students. It may be small, but it participates in European and National projects too. The school is fully equipped with interactive boards, a science lab and has a big yard, where students occasionally cultivate their own vegetables. You can see our school video here.

The city of Trikala
Wander around our city here.

The Holy rocks of Meteora
See our students' presentation here.

The virtual meeting

The 5th meeting of the project was meant to take place in Gymnasio Valtinou, Trikala, Greece. The initial plan was the realization of what the students had written and prepared in the previous meetings. To be more precise, the students would perform themselves in the shadow theater, whose script they had written themselves. They would bring their fairy tale to life. They would also make some of the characters they would use behind the sheet. One of the characters that they would have to construct would be, for example, the head of the dragon that was involved in the fairy tale they wrote, and which they would use behind the white sheet stage.

However, due to COVID 19 and the measures that were taken, plans had to be changed, as no mobilities were allowed and most of the participant schools were closed up until the end of April, due to the pandemic. Therefore, the meeting in Greece had to be turned into virtual and the activities had to be altered and adjusted too.

First of all, since the partners were not able to visit the Greek school and the area, during the virtual meeting, they were presented with videos, presentations and historical information of the area.

The first activity performed was a kind of workshop. Since the project’s theme was the shadow theater, the Greek students presented the most traditional and typical shadow theater (Karagiozis) and its characters and then they showed the partners how they could make the figures for the shadow theater. They also presented a typical myth and then a kahoot game on that myth, whose winners received a little something from Greece as a reward.

As for the partners, they also had to adjust to the virtual meeting and they also presented some information about their schools and area, as well as myths, tales or folk stories that could be turned into some kind of theatrical performances, either shadow theater, or some other kind of traditional/folk theater.

In the end there was a questionnaire to evaluate the meeting, even under these difficult circumstances. The evaluation link was given to both teachers and students to answer.

The overall meeting was judged as satisfactory, despite some connection problems or sound problems.