2020 was a year of change for everybody: we learned to appreciate and take advantage of the opportunities offered by technology to communicate, teach, learn and work.
This was the case for more than 20,000 teachers who trained with the ETN School courses on G Suite for Education, but also for those who, like the staff of the various ETN agencies, worked on training projects on a European scale.
This is the case of the Erasmus + KA2 “Playing 4 soft Skills” project, which aims to develop new non-formal educational tools, to encourage young European students to activate certain soft skills (find out more here: https://playing4softskills.eu/)
The project, led by Berlink, the ETN training agency based in Berlin, also has Axonforce as a technological partner, which is responsible for the development of a training app that promotes the activation and development of transversal skills in students through digital game tools, as well as being responsible for the dissemination.
As a representative of Axonforce and an expert in new technologies, I participated in the project which began one year ago.
From that moment on, due to the epidemiological emergency, all the meetings had to take place on Google Meet, which became our virtual room where to discuss, share ideas, present the results of the work done and carry out activities for the development of the outputs.
And finally, on October 13, I had the opportunity to meet in person the other partners from 5 different countries (Germany, Italy, Latvia, Spain, Poland).
The Third Transnational Meeting took place in Malaga, home of the partner Escuela de Arte San Telmo:
a beautiful city, which struck me not only for the mild climate, the artistic beauties and the excellent food, but also for its peaceful and quiet streets, albeit full of movida.
A city full of energy, ready to welcome tourists and students, such as the boys and the girls from the “Nicolò Pellegrini” Agricultural Technical Institute, present in those days at the Tribeka Training Lab.
My trip to Malaga, in fact, was also an opportunity to visit the Spanish headquarters of ETN, in the heart of the city, a stone’s throw from Plaza de la Constitución. Here the light of the Costa del Sol that passes through the large windows, shines across the rooms and illuminates the faces of Marie Antoinette, the Agency Director, and of all the Tribeka staff: Giulia, Barbara, Elisa, Selene, Giovanna and Aleksandra.
While drinking some tasty coffee overlooking Malaga (the top floor of the Plaza de las Floras has an excellent panoramic view over the city) I could see first-hand the passion and the energy they put in their job, providing all the information and documents to the teacher of the school “Pellegrini”, organizing everything for the students coming here from Italy, Poland and Bulgaria and thinking about new projects with other European organizations.
That positive energy, that return to normality (albeit with masks and hand disinfectant gel always with us), the desire to travel and explore new horizons were all present there, in the Tribeka agency.
Malaga has really many stories to tell: I had read about this Mediterranean city in these articles but living it has been much more fascinating