From 11 to 15 October 2021 at Hellenic Mediterranean University (HMU) in Heraklion, Greece, a first hybrid workshop for staff was held within the project Weeks of International Teaching – Inclusive and Digital. The International Week was organised by International Relations Office of HMU.
After the global lock-downs caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, this workshop was joined with International Week of HMU and was organised mostly face-to-face, but also with online participation. In the sessions of the workshop teaching and administrative staff from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Czech Republic, Croatia, Egypt, Greece, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine came together for a week of knowledge sharing on innovative digital teaching methods.
The workshop was opened with HMU campus tour and followed by the presentation of digital skills and tools by Dr. Petridis. A special attention was given to the preparation of proposals and management of Erasmus KA2 projects through the presentation by Dr. Macrides, but also the presentation of Erasmus Without paper, given by Ms. Vega.
The main part of the workshop was group work of participants in exploring and presenting different digital interactive teaching methods on three different topics: Gamification of Nanotechnology, Democracies in Peril and Water Eco-culture. Following platforms and programmes were used: Kahoot, Mentimeter, Padlet, Zoom and Excel, while participants have been acquainted with other interactive and digital platforms as well.
Dr. Evridiki Patelarou presented the Report on organising International Weeks (IW) and similar events in partner institutions and countries as an outcome of the Activity 1.1.
Dr Athina Patelarou and Dr. Đorđević presented the results of Activities 1.2 and 1.3 regarding the definition of competences on IM for students and teachers in higher education and all the teams reviewed the progress on Output 2. Additionally, discussion was open for the continuation of the work on international competences for teachers and MENDELU team presented the initial steps of Output 3.
Participants of the workshop had the first-hand experience in working under extraordinary circumstances since the on-site work during the workshop has been interrupted by a rather severe earthquake that hit Crete on 12 October, so part of the tasks were also carried out in the online mode during the period when the University was closed for security reasons. Further internationalisation was carried out during the social and cultural events: dinner and visit to Knossos Palace.