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Late night project - Teachers only!
After
having a delicious dinner at Achill Cliff House the teachers felt ready
for a "late night meeting" to discuss a long list of important
topics. Firstly we welcomed our two guests from Achill Tourism, then we
planned our schedule and agenda thoroughly, however, we had lost control
over time already when talking about the first topic. We had a debate
on whether e-portfolios should be only in online form or (partly) in printed
form as well. The former solution was preferred by the vast majority of
the teachers moreover the importance of privacy and an effective teacher-student
online communication got emphasized. Afterwards - according to our agenda
- the second year of the IP ( Intensive Program) should have been planned,
which was originally decided to take place in Leon, but for our great
surprise after rethinking all pros and contras we decided to come back
to Achill island in 2008 and 2009 as well. Finally, focusing on the future,
we had a brainstorming on possible new projects and courses. A long list
of great ideas come up such as "Informal learning", a virtual
"Second life", online "Career counselling", online
intercultural training for teachers and employees of international offices,
"Culture through language" (this would basically mean identifying
pieces of languages such as proverbs, strange rules of grammar or the
language of politeness which point out the differences or uniqueness in
cultures) and "Memory lane online" (which would bring together
old people, who have precious stories, memories and the young generation
which has got the modernist technology to preserve those "treasures".
Knowing that our time and possibilities are restricted we democratically
voted for the latter two ideas but keeping in mind that the others are
to be remembered for the next year's "late night meeting".
(Hungarian group)
Gorgian Architecture vs. modern styles in Dublin
On the first day of our last workshop (Irish Architecture)
in the program (Borrowed Identities) didn't take place in Achill Island,
but in the capitol, Dublin. In this workshop, our aim was to study the
architecture and discover the 
most
famous landmarks of the city and also to compare it with other cultures.
In order to achieve our goal, firstly we had a theoretical lesson, where
we analysed German, Hungarian, Swedish and Spanish landmarks. We compared
edifices of different age and different style, so that everyone got an
impression of the foreign sights and symbols. We also studied numerous
pictures of foreign landmarks. Later everyone could compare those with
Dublin and recognise otherwise hidden details.
After the lessons we split in small groups and scattered around the city
with a map and a list containing several guidelines which we had to find
in the city. The list didn't contain exact names or addresses, it was
only describing the actual place. So the people had to interact with Irish
inhabitants e.g. to ask them for the exact name of the explained landmark,
or find them in guidebooks or on the internet. This helped people learn
about the history of the place, instead of just visiting it, checking
it on the list, and going by. So we visited amusing sights such as The
Spire, several statues and the Trinity College for example. What a pity
that the old and famous Guinness factory wasn't on the list. But maybe
we will have the chance to learn more about the working process of brewery
next time! After the walk-around we gathered together to discuss our experiences
and to analyse the photos we taken during the day. We also compared the
landmarks with architecture of other countries in Europe. In this process
we could find out a lot of differences and similarities between Ireland
and foreign countries.
The list we were given what we should visit (the actual names in brackets):
1. This is 120m tall (The Spire)
2. This is a statue of the author of 'Ulysses' (Statue of James Joyce)
3. The Easter Rising began here with the reading of the Proclamation of
the Irish Republic in 1916 (Post Office at the O'Connel Street).
4. This street is named after the Liberator who won the Catholic emancipation
in 1829 (O'Connel Street)
5. This is the most magnificent building in Dublin with a graceful copper
dome (Customs Office beside the river Liffey)
6. The former name of this bridge was Carlisle Bridge (O'Connel Bridge)
7. This is a college founded in the 16th Century. (Trinity College)
8. This is the statue of a young lady at Graffon Street. (Statue of Molly
Malone)
9. This is the statue of the author of 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' (Statue
of Oscar Wilde)
10. This is one of Dublin's Gregorian Squares. House number 29 (at Lower
Fitzwilliam St.) is a Museum of dubliner home life and Gregorian architecture.
(Gregorian Museum at no. 29)
11. This building was built in 1204 as part of the city's defensive system
(Castle in the inner city)
12. This is a cathedral originally built by wood in 1038 (Cathedral close
the Castle)
13. This is a cost-iron bridge for pedestrians (Ha'Penny Bridge)
Adrián Bödör
(Hungarian group)
Documentation Manager
When
I first heard of the possibility to apply for a job on Achill Island I
was very interested. But because of my internship in a software company
I was not able to do much preparation in advance. So finally I decided
to write an application for the documentation manager - and I got the
job! After our arrival in Dublin my work directly started by asking the
other students who wants to join our "Media workshop", which
was linked to my manager job. It was easy to form a international group
of six ambitious students (Elin from Sweden, Berit and me from Germany,
Anda from Spain, Agnes from Hungary, Guigui from France), we couldn't
wait to start working. After our arrival on Achill we had to take the
decision what kind of documentation we wanted to produce. The most important
and well-known form was the travelogue, which had been written also in
the years before. But what else could we do? The idea of creating an audio-report
came up and finally we decided to make a podcast, which could include
different voices of participants as well as the inhabitants of Achill.
In the end of this first meeting we agreed to write the travelogue - a
report of every day with different articles, small photos to be published
on the internet, the podcast - a summary of voices and opinions of different
people and finally a photo album where the best photos can be stored online,
available for everyone. So there was a lot to do - we had no time to loose.
In my position as documentation manager it was my job to think about which
topics we want to report and in which order these articles for the following
week will be presented. I also wanted to make sure that every student
will be involved and responsible for at least one article. So I started
to think about how our travelogue 2007 will look like. I preferred to
create a clear structure on each day and so we decided in our group that
it would be nice to focus on one special workshop, one lunch time lecture
and one of the student managers every day. So the schedule for the week
was quickly made. Suddenly we realized that our report should contain
also some experiences of the social evening activities and we decided
to put also articles of the evenings, experiences or poems in our report.
After one week of hard work with my workshop I made lots of new experiences.
So the first thing I had to learn was to split the work and give pieces
to everybody. So I had to find out which special qualities every member
of our team had and which work can be done alone. We found students who
had already experiences with programs like Photoshop, Dreamweaver and
Audacity. Something else I realised after a few days was how little time
we all had left for these articles. So all the other managers, especially
the social and language manager gave also a lot of exercises to all the
students. So they had to write our reports late in the evening or early
in the morning. But fortunately they all handed in their texts before
the deadline. Another lecture for me was so see how difficult it sometimes
can be to get the right numer of articles on eacht day. So sometimes there
were many special activities on one day, so that I could have published
six or seven good articles, someday there were only two. I think we all
learned to work as a team, to concentrate on a project to get it finished
and we have produced a great documentation of our excursion!
Thank you for all your support and for giving me the chance to get this
helpful experiences as a manager.
Julia Maas
(German group)
