Today we put a lot of effort in finishing all the work we started last week and tying up loose ends. So we split up into several groups. Karsten went to the IT-Course at St. Colemans with the SilverSurfers to help them introduce the platform. Daniela and Sebastian wrote the manuals for the platform. One for the user and one for the administrator view. Petter, Marie and Thomas finished our presentation for the farewell party. Later Sebastian and Thomas went to the IT-Center once again to update the online version of the Achill community. All the editing throughout the whole week, like changing the forum, creating some gallery categories and loading up the first photos, including our new mission statement and the welcome text in English and Gaelic on the startpage are now changed in the online version too and we feel very pleased with what we achieved during our stay on Achill.

By Sebastian Jandrey

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once again we gathered this afternoon after our lunch break in order to put all the pieces together which will later be uploaded and finally be the official travelogue of this year’s Achill project. The ‘Travelogue’ is an online diary which documents our experiences on Achill Island. In order to make our work a little bit easier, we decided in our first meeting to subdivide our group into three task forces. The ‘delegation group’ organizes the work. Every day, the group members appoint three participants to write about their workshops, lunch time lectures, or other activities that have been going on during the day. By the end of this project, every participant should have written at least one article. This way we are trying to make sure that the travelogue provides a comprehensive overview about the project. As the name implies, the members of the ‘picture group’ decide which pictures should be selected to be shown online. The ‘correction group’ is responsible for correcting major grammatical mistakes and revising the articles which have been written by the appointees.

 

Tonight was the moment of truth: we presented the results of all the workshops and activities.
It was a huge success and a surprise for each and every one of us, as we, too, saw the results for the first time.
It all started off with a traditional Irish Dance performed by Sara and Marie which was followed by a film and a performance done by the “Borrowed Identities” workshop.
The “Stones”- activity surprised us with stunning photographs and a hand-made mosaic with pebbles from the beach. The work shop on “Emigration” started with a poem by Mark Chaddock and continued with a “virtual train ride” through Ireland based on photos that had been made by the group. The Traces of Emigration activity allowed us insights into the deserted village and helped us imagine what life must have been like at the time when people moved out of this village to settle nearer the sea.

 

The Europe Meets Gaelic work shop presented real life conversations in Irish and two school children performed a traditional dance for us. The Silver Surfers and & Grandma Goes Online workshop had been the most successful in getting islanders interested in our project. They visited homes for the elderly had talked to senior citizens about how to use the new media to keep in touch. “Get in touch, keep in touch” was also the motto of the Virtual Community workshop. This workshop had already started their work in October, creating a virtual community where emigrants from Achill, people on Achill and people who have spent their holidays on Achill can meet in chats and forums, all integrated into an interactive website. This virtual community was conceived as a present to the island.

 

The travelogue workshop presented their results – the first five days of the travelogue.
The lottery in the end was a great success. Most prizes were national delicacies such as Swedish cloudberry jam, German Pumpernickel (black bread) and Pfeffersalami, Queso de Valdeón (blue smelly cheese from Spain), and chocolates from Belgium.
In the end the project coordinator distributed the certificates for the students. These were signed by representatives of all the universities involved in the project.

By Laurence Borgmann