Collective identity – ODIMET mascot – part 1

Contextualisation

This activity is a logical continuation to the activity on personal and digital identity.

The one will approach the notion of collective identity and is realized in two parts.

Objectives of the activity

For this activity, we suggest you to reflect on collective identity and the idea of a mascot.

The main objectives of this activity:

• Understand what a collective identity and a mascot are
• Give clues to discover your country
• Imagine a common mascot for the project

What does the activity consist of? How to achieve it?

Duration of the activity : 1h30

Introduction: 15 min

Reminder of what was done in the 1st workshop: difference between personal and digital identity and definition of an avatar.

Question and answer time around the students’ activities:

• Can an identity be collective?
• What is a mascot?
• What is the role of a mascot?
• Does your country have a mascot?

Elements of a response:

• What is a mascot?

Larousse definition : Object, person or animal considered as lucky charm, fetish.

L’Internaute definition: object, animal, doll or anything that is used as a good luck charm, amulet or emblem that represents a group, nation or any other meeting.

• What is the role of a mascot? The mascot personnifies several values, messages, which all children can identify with because they share them together. The mascot brings a playful and sweet aspect to the exchanges.
• Does your country have a mascot? A symbolic figure that represents its values?

Ex : Marianne for France

The black eagle for Austria

The lion for Belgium

Work on collective identity: 30 min

Find common features among students. Reflect on what joins students together: school, class for example ….

Then, thinking outside the school, what other groups do they belong to?

• We lived in this city
• We live in this country
• We were born in this year
• We live in Europe
• We speak this language

Secondly, reflect on their common features with the students with whom they exchange via ODIMET:

• We all live in Europe
• We are the same age
• We are curious about other’s cultures
• We all go to school
• …

Write down all these common traits for the whole class. These are to be kept in mind for the second part in order to pick the ODIMET mascot.

The symbols of your country: 30 min

Once you have thought about all these common features and understood the idea of collective identity, let’s work on the identity of a country, especially your own. What are the collective values in your country? What are the symbols of your country? How to introduce your country to your penfriends?

To help you with this, print and distribute the Chinese portrait for the students in order to download it.

This portrait consists of 11 questions. You can divide your students by question, for example, two students per question, so that they can discuss together and then report their ideas orally to the whole class.

With all the students’ ideas, agree on the answers to have a final version of the portrait to share on the collective Padlet wall in order to collaborate with all the classes participating in the project.

Review of what was learned during this session: 15 min

Finally we realized that we are all part of the same class, that we share values, language and rules. These values can be found through symbols that represent the country in which we live.

But we also have a lot of differences.

It’s up to you to discover the symbols of the other countries you are exchanging with and find out if you have any in common!

How to share the students’ productions?

Complete the Padlet with all the symbols of your country you have identified through the Chinese portrait.

You can also take a photo or present your Chinese portrait in video form and share it on the exchange space dedicated to the project on the ODIMET website.

Don’t forget, all the resources / guides to help you make a video, but also all the proposed activities and educational sheets are available on the ODIMET website.

See you soon !