Our Project Manager, Nicolò Angelo, had announced it for the first year of “Playing 4 Soft Skills” and it finally happened: after more than a year of online meetings, due to the Covid-19 emergency, we have been able to organize the Third Transnational Meeting in person and, after months of screenshots, we were able to take our first photo together!
On the 14th and 15th of October, in fact, representatives from each partner organizations coming from 5 different European countries, finally met in person and were able to work together on the next steps of the project.
We were welcomed by the Escuela de Arte “San Telmo”, Spanish partner of the project, in the beautiful city of Malaga. Here, all the planned activities took place with the objective to test the game proposals developed over recent months and provide feedback on the next steps.
The first day was dedicated to the playtests of the educational game proposals, which is at the heart of the second intellectual output (Soft Skills Game Manual), and thanks to which students will be able to develop their transversal skills, as identified in the Evaluation Report.
The Salone dei Rifiutati and ISMA, partners responsible for this project output, collected all the ideas discussed in the previous phases of the project and created two game proposals. As such, in Malaga all participants, divided into three groups, were invited to play the game at their best and provide feedback through a form collecting impressions and ideas after the testing phase.
In addition to playing and having fun, this was an opportunity to practically experience what had been discussed during the online meetings over recent months with the aim to finalize the development of this specific output. There was no winning game, but we took the best features of both and designed an upgraded version of the game based on recorded feedback. Finally, we discussed about the design of game board and playing cards, the content and timing of the different game challenges, but also about the icons and words used in the game.
During the second day of the meeting, we focused on the other outputs of the project and, in particular, partners could discuss on the content of the Soft Skills Training Notebook, developed by the polish partner Fundacia Salus Publica: what should be improved or modified?
The Soft Skills Training Notebook will be a fundamental tool to support teachers in the implementation of the educational game, therefore we asked ourselves how this Output can be a meaningful handbook for teachers, explaining the pedagogical approach and the transversal targeted skills, providing guidance on the role of facilitator and supporting material for participants’ evaluation, so that teachers will be fully informed and well equipped to act effectively as facilitators.
In addition to playing, collaborating, discussing and planning, these meeting days were also an opportunity to admire some of the most important cultural attractions of Malaga. We took part in a guided tour to discover a city of Mediterranean charm, getting to know the partners better, eating delicious tapas with Iberian jamon, either in a pub in the historic center or a good Ajoblanco dish in a beautiful restaurant on the wonderful Costa del Sol.
Now, back in our cities, in Germany, Italy, Latvia, Spain or Poland, full of enthusiasm and new ideas, we have to get to work on finalizing the remaining three project Outputs.