The national contest of the European project “Crowddreaming: Youth Co-Create Digital Culture,” which involved the schools of Italy, Croatia, Greece, and Latvia in the creation of Thanksgiving Scenes to celebrate the value of the transcultural nature of Europe for then collect them on the “Europa Square” platform, the first “digital monument” dedicated to European identity and cultural heritage, entirely created by young European students.
Two Italian schools were proclaimed winners by popular vote at the national level: the I.C. Capozzi-Galilei of Valenzano (Bari) and the Classical, Linguistic and Human Sciences Lyceum “F. De Sanctis” of Trani (BT). The Jury Prize was awarded to the “Foiso Fois” Music Art School of Cagliari. Special mentions by the Jury also for the IC Boscotrecase for their thanks to France for the omelet invention, the Liceo Innocenzo XII in Anzio, and the IIS Amedeo d’Aosta de L’Aquila for their thanks to Spain respectively for the Chupa Chups and Saffron. A mention also at the Liceo De Sanctis for making us discover that the tie was invented in Croatia.
The event took place entirely online on March 24th, and it was a great success: hundreds of people connected on the Zoom platform and live on the Youtube channel of the State General of Innovation which, we recall, conceived and coordinated the “Crowddreaming: Youth Co-Create Digital Culture” with the European network ALL DIGITAL, and the funding by the Erasmus+ programme.
“Crowddreaming” is an all-Italian “good practice,” which enjoys success among students and professionals, and experts in the field. The comment of Paolo Russo, coordinator of the project for Italy, is enthusiastic and draws a few conclusions: “I am delighted with the results of the project: the numbers of subscribers to the platform speak for themselves. We learned two lessons from this project, which took place almost in its entirety during the pandemic. First of all, we should think about a school model that integrates online and offline teaching in a balanced way. Online activities are now a fundamental component of life and work, and the school must prepare for those. Indeed, it cannot be done just by telling them in books. The second lesson is on the effectiveness of the STEAM teaching approach, which integrates science, technology, and humanities to stimulate the development of soft skills that are fundamental in the digital age we live in. And it is probably no coincidence that an Art High School won the jury prize: I believe it is the course of study that is currently closest to STEAM logic and the most suitable for developing a digital culture in students. “