Digital exchange, March 2022 4 hours with two breaks
Digital exchange, May 2022 7 hours, two 15-minute breaks and one 2-hour work- ing break An audio recording and podcast workshop with an ex- ternal speaker from Germany was organised during the digital meeting in May in preparation for participants together producing podcasts on the places of remem- brance during their in-person meetings in June and July. A two-hour working break, i.e. an offline phase, was also planned for this meeting. During the offline phase partic- ipants were able to relax, although they were also given the task of using their phones to record sounds that can be heard where they live. The recordings were supposed to create a link to the history of that place. Participants in each of the national groups were able to choose whether to do the recordings alone or in pairs. Before the break started, the speaker talked about what to look out for when making audio recordings and how to create a pod- cast. After the break, the recordings were played back and discussed. Towards the end of the workshop the participants were shown how to combine literary texts – for instance a poem downloaded from the internet – with background audio recordings or instrumental mu- sic.
Dan Wolf, a rapper from the United States, was invited to lead the second digital exchange. He had previously led creative/educational workshops in Ravensbrück in cooperation with the Memorial Site. 14 It was only thanks to the digital setting that it was possible to invite Dan to take part as an external expert, as otherwise it would have involved a lot of time and expense. One disadvan- tage was that on account of the time difference between Europe and the United States the exchange had to take place late in the evening and participants were therefore already quite tired. Dan started the workshop with a hip- hop performance and then went on to show the young people how to write their own texts about their place of remembrance. They then read out their texts on Zoom and Dan accompanied them with a beat so that partici- pants could learn how to incorporate rhythm into a rap.
For this workshop, the Greek participants were divided up into two groups, each with one laptop.
Participants again used their smartphones to make the audio recordings during this meeting.
Opportunities and risks Participants’ commitment
guage Animation activities and methods for strength- ening intercultural learning are well suited to that. The Greek group, for instance, recorded videos at the start of the project in which they introduced Lechovo to the participants from Germany. These videos were then shown and discussed during a joint Zoom meeting. The Greek group’s recordings encouraged the German group to make their own recordings of their surroundings and then present them to the Greek group. Another idea is to get participants to make up a quiz or an escape game about the place where they live. It became clear during the project that joint creative ac- tivities can boost participants’ motivation to take part in digital meetings. Creative exercises or games should be done in a variety of formats, that is as individual work, in mixed pairs, in the national groups and as a whole group. If they can present an outcome they have worked on together, participants are more likely to feel they be- long to a group.
It became apparent that participants’ commitment to a project is different in digital settings versus on-site ses- sions. The participants from Germany, who were able to log in to sessions individually, took advantage of being able to switch off their camera at will to participate from various places – for example when walking around out- side or out shopping – or to take part only sometimes or not at all. This could be an indication that participants’ commitment has to grow over the course of a project and cannot be taken as a given from the beginning. If experts take this aspect into account, they can plan spe- cific activities to boost participants’ intrinsic motivation to take part in the digital sessions. But how can that be done? When participants get to know each other and explore each other’s lifeworlds and surroundings, that increas- es their curiosity and strengthens mutual relationships. They want to see each other again and find out more about their peers and their culture and language. Lan-
14 For more information on Ravensbrück Memorial Site’s “Sound in the Silence” project conducted in cooperation with Dan Wolf, go to https://www.ravensbrueck-sbg.de/bildungsangebote/projektgalerie/ (in German).and https://www.ravensbrueck-sbg.de/ en/educational-programmes/project-gallery/ (in English).
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