A lot of projects in the field of promoting migrants deal with the deficit oriented approach e.g. in which field are the weaknesses located or in which area do we have to train and promote pupils. This kind of approach very often leads to frustration and demotivation of adolescents with a migration background...

1. CASE STUDY
Mixopolis
by
Diana Wieden-Bischof
This document is part of the overall European project LINKS-UP - Learning 2.0 for an Inclusive
Knowledge Society – Understanding the Picture. Further case studies and project results can be
downloaded from the project website http://www.linksup.eu.
Copyright
This work has been licensed under a Creative Commons License:
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This
publication reflects the views only of the author(s), and the Commission cannot be
held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained
therein.

2. A lot of projects in the field of promoting migrants deal with the deficit oriented ap-
proach e.g. in which field are the weaknesses located or in which area do we have to
train and promote pupils. This kind of approach very often leads to frustration and de-
motivation of adolescents with a migration background.
A lot of adolescent with migration background have a great interest in their educational
biography or professional orientation and want to actively organise, create and person-
alise their life and career panning but very often they get thwart because of language
problems and cultural differences. Approximately two-thirds of students with a migra-
tion background visit the secondary modern school. Although they have mostly the
same educational qualification as adolescent with no migration background, they exper-
ience significant disadvantages especially at the labour market and in the course of pro-
fessional orientation for the benefit of others.
Case profile – Mixopolis in a nutshell
Mixopolis
Intercultural online portal for adolescents to promote profes-
sional orientation
Website http://www.mixopolis.de
Status Active/running (2008 – 2010)
Mag. Susanne Hehl
Interviewed person
Schulen ans Netz e.V.
Ministry of Education and Research, DE
Funded and promoted by…
European Social Fund, DE
Combination of formal setting (e.g. schools) and informal setting
Location of the Learning Activities
(e.g. home)
young migrants from 14 years upwards
Target group(s) multipliers and trainers (from schools, associations, youth welfare)
which support the adolescent person in their professional orienta-
tion
Number of users 250 multipliers and 1000 adolescents as members
Educational Sector(s) Secondary School, Vocational Education & Training [VET]
Category of the Learning Activities combination of formal, non-formal, informal
Web 2.0 technologies used... Wiki, blog, chat, forum, social bookmarks, social networking tools
Methods to support inclusion (Peer) e-mentoring
Short description and key characteristics
The project idea of Mixopolis builds on the useful experiences of other projects of Schu-
len ans Netz e.V. especially the project LIFT (Lernen, Integrieren, Fördern, Trainieren;
2

3. 2005 – 2007) with a strong deficit approach and LizzyNet (http://www.lizzynet.de; 2000
– 2007) where a lot of experiences in this field could be collected during the last years.
Furthermore the project bases on surveys and studies. Schulen ans Netz e.V. was foun-
ded in 1996 and is a non-profit association, which promotes the further development of
innovative and sustainable educational concepts in the area of digital media.
Key characteristics
Mixopolis (01/2008 – 12/2010; http://www.mixopolis.de) is funded by the Federal Min-
istry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the European Social Fund Germany (ESF)
with approximately two million Euro and wants to avoid with its online offers the voca-
tional and educational disadvantage and discrimination of adolescents with a migration
history. There are a lot of further partners involved in the project for example co-opera-
tion partners (e.g. schools, universities, organisations, other projects) and media part-
ners which support the project in different ways1. The Webdesign and technical imple-
mentation of Mixopolis was realised by DigiOnline GmbH. Mixopolis is a licensed version
of WebWeaver® 3.4 Suite.
Dimension of learning and inclusion
The aim of Mixopolis is to accompany adolescents in the phase of education and profes-
sional orientation. It promotes the educational participation of adolescents with diverse
offers e.g. e-mentoring service, discussion forum, training centre with online courses
and a magazine that counteracts the various constraints. The project focuses on the
“empowerment strategy” where adolescents are empowered to develop confidence in
their own capacities. They should identify and recognise their strengths to better visual-
ise them to other parties in the school sector or at the labour market. The intercultural
online platform of Mixopolis offers a possibility for these adolescents to exchange with
others and to create a place of interest where they can contribute. To use all functions
of the online portal the users have to register for free. In the first place the project ad-
dresses students with a migration history from 14 years upwards, but integration and
migration cannot work if other groups are excluded and not involved. So it is also im-
portant for Mixopolis that adolescents in general can cross-link and network at the plat-
form with all community members. Mixopolis stipulates clearly and precisely the them-
atic backgrounds in the community with topics like professional orientation and intercul-
tural competencies. They provide topics the members can really talk and exchange
about. In addition to this information and community portal, Mixopolis offers also a
training area where students can on one side try and find out what their strengths are
and on the other side build on them.
Innovative elements and key success factors
Mixopolis follows an innovative approach and provides a peer e-mentoring service. This
means that not only on e-mentor is responsible for one member (tandem mentoring)
but all e-mentors take care of all members. Therefore the portal offers the opportunity
to discuss specific issues and professional development options with various e-mentors
in the community also from an area other than their own. E-mentors of Mixopolis are
1
More information about the involved network partners are available under: http://ww-
w.mixopolis.de/ww3ee/2516560.php?sid=72529894215927599427537603811540
3

4. young (experienced) adults which have already started a vocational training or an aca-
demic study and have completed successfully parts of their own professional career. The
currently eighteen e-mentors help with words and deeds and they answer questions
and give advice, tips and suggestion about school, career choice, academic study, media
as well as intercultural contents. To qualify as an e-mentor it is necessary to be between
18 and 29 years old. The co-ordinators of Mixopolis try to have a balanced proportion
between female and male mentors, to have mentors with a migration background, to
get mentors with different educations and vocational trainings and to cover the regional
provinces. The members can get in contact with the e-mentors via MixMail or Quick
Message when they have a personal question or via the forum, chat or different clubs
on Mixopolis.
E-mentors take care on clubs with different special topics and adolescents can enter
them after a short confirmation and discuss and work together on documents with like-
minded people. Mixopolis also provides the possibilities for multipliers (e.g. school insti-
tutions) to open a private/closed club (Figure 1) so that they can generate outputs in the
clubs. It is also important that Mixopolis provides a guideline for multipliers, how to use
the online portal and the tools as well as how to use the materials, otherwise they
wouldn’t use it. Very soon multiplier will be able to develop their own learning objects
and units within the club and they will be able to check if their target group of adoles-
cents have already completed the assigned tasks given by them.
Figure 1: Examples of some open and private/closed clubs at Mixopolis [06/2010]
The clubs include a lot of varied tools and functionalities like blogs, forums, wikis for col-
laborative working, a media centre for uploading and downloading files, a calendar and
4

5. notes function and bookmarks (e.g. del.icio.us, digg…). Furthermore if a user wants to
know what others are thinking about a special topic, it is also possible for him/her to
use the survey tool and to start a poll. Each responsible club administrator can adapt the
structure of the club and can remove tools and functionalities (e.g. calendar, chat…) ac-
cording to the requirements and also to make it less complex for the users (Figure 2).
Figure 2: Club: Abi & Studium
Besides the clubs, members can participate also in the official Mixopolis forum outside
the clubs, take an active part in the chats where different topics are discussed from time
to time, participate in courses provided at the training centre or read and write for the
magazine.
Adolescents can actively participate and write contributions (e.g. book reviews, inter-
views) for the Mixopolis magazine which is administered by an editorial. This also offers
a change that the members can show their strengths to a large audience in the Web. For
Mixopolis it is important that the stories get a face otherwise the users acquire the basic
information from different other places in the Internet. Outputs from the clubs and for-
um discussions give a hint about hot topics for the magazine and get linked.
At the training centre of Mixopolis, the adolescents can subscribe for different courses
to the main topics application, competencies, academic study & job and trade. The
courses are also listed in a special personal area called “Mein Mixopolis” (My Mixopolis)
where users can organise their training plans, can also manage their profile, photos, cal-
endar, notes, friend lists, blogs and can upload and download documents in the media
centre. Future plans to expand the service of “Mein Mixopolis” for the users will be the
5

6. possibility to manage their own contributions, written assignments or articles as well as
game and test results of the Citygame Mixopoly and Mixopolis quiz and further to
present or make the knowledge they have identified, acquired or expanded during their
activities at Mixopolis transparent to third parties.
The online portal with its rich offer of multimedia possibilities is designed this way to
support non-linear learning that means it offers a combination of an information area, a
communication and a learning area and the adolescents are able to use and select the
parts they find helpful and suitable. The implementation and mixture of these three
parts was a very challenging task for Mixopolis and for the technical providers of the
portal, because the possibilities of cross-linking between these areas have to be given.
Mixopolis engages the users in every part of the portal and help them to develop their
soft skills like self-esteem, self-confidence, mutual appreciation, intercultural competen-
cies, to take responsibility for their own acting, the capacity of teamwork and the ability
to communicate.
Problems encountered and lessons learned
Since the start of Mixopolis in January 2008 the project has passed through some
changes. In the original concept the project coordinator wanted to address the adoles-
cents in an instant as a direct target group on e.g. exhibitions and fairs. But after a while
they had to admit that it is very difficult to approach the crowd of youngsters straight-
forward with learning offers while there are other platforms which provide more inter-
esting content and have a greater marketing budgets and promotional frame. It is al-
ways difficult to address people with educational offerings and therefore Mixopolis had
to change their strategy. Now the target group is addressed over third parties and re-
spectively multipliers like teachers, trainers, migrant organisations, and youth welfares
etc. who work with the adolescents and support them in their professional orientation
also with different materials from Mixopolis. This strategy works much better for Mixo-
polis because via this way on one hand for example teachers recommend the portal to
their students and work with them on it, so students get to know how they can use it
and on the other hand much more members get generated for the community. Cur-
rently Mixopolis has about 250 multipliers and 1000 adolescents as members but there
is always a kind of fluctuation (e.g. semester has ended; the need of the student is ful-
filled).
6

7. Collaborating institutions in LINKS-UP
Institute for Innovation in Learning, Friedrich-Alex-
ander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen,
Germany
www.fim.uni-erlangen.de
Arcola Research LLP, London, United Kingdom
www.arcola-research.co.uk
eSociety Institute, The Hague University of Applied
Sciences, The Hague, The Netherlands
www.esocietyinstituut.nl
Servizi Didattici e Scientifici per l’Università di Firen-
ze, Prato, Italy
www.pin.unifi.it
Salzburg Research Forschungsgesellschaft, Salzburg,
Austria
www.salzburgresearch.at
European Distance and E-Learning Network (EDEN),
Milton Keynes, United Kingdom
www.eden-online.org
7