The projects which the student groups presented were extremley well done and so the receiving of this year´s certificates and the final photoshooting were proper acts to end with the first entirely digital Cologne Summer School. But how to hand over a certificate online you might ask? No problem: it just needs creativity, a bit of craziness and courage to test new things!
We, the organizers, did what we always do. We handed over the certificates to our students. We called out every single student with the words: "And the certificate goes to..." while our words were accompanied by the applause of the rest of the group. The only difference was that we held the certificates in front of our laptop camera and the usual handshake was replaced by a friendly nod.
Since we did not want to do without the traditional photoshooting, we did something slightly crazy whose results you can see in the picture gallery below. We installed our camera infront of a second monitor and in that moment when we called out a student's name and he or she appeared as a big, single picture on the screen, we shot the photo. This is why the pictures show a "bad quality" but knowing how they were made, they convince by a special charm. Afterwards, we created the design you can see in the gallery and uploaded each picture to the online platform. Our participants were happy and greatful for such a nice memory - and so are we!
