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=Welcome to ITE.M!= // A thing for sale, piece of information, point of a list: // these are a few meanings of the term item; however, in our project, Item is also the acronym of our school and the Textile Museum of Busto Arsizio.

The aim of ITE.M is the planning of services and of products addressed to the visitors of the Textile Museum. The project is based on the collaboration between Italian and European Institutions, namely Invicta Grammar School of Maidstone (UK) and Kopernikus-Gymnasium of Rheine (D) and it has promoted a mobility programme addressed to the students of the involved Institutions.

Three main working units have been selected:

a) Case Study: a business and its history.
The subject being investigated is the “Comerio Ercole” spa, a local firm, founded during the second industrial revolution and still working, whose machinery is part of the permanent collection of the Museum. The analysis of the general and local historiography, has focused on the organizational, productive and management aspects. The results of the research have been turned into texts and images for educational boards.

b) Planning of a Tourist Information Office – Museum shop
The second working unit was focused on the planning of an area aimed at promoting the local territory (historical/artistic information, local cultural events, accommodation capacity and catering), and also aimed at selling souvenirs, gadgets, guides and historical/artistic publications. The management of this service is foreseen to be entrusted to students of ITE as temporary internships, tutored by employees of the Town Administration. A fundamental role will be played by the teachers of Technique and Legislation of Tourism, assisted by experts in the Tourism sector, who will strengthen the communication and relations skills, useful for the management of the service, both in the classroom and along with the internship.

c) A symbol of Busto Arsizio and of the industial tradition: Tarlisu
The Tarlisu is one of the few symbols of the City of Busto Arsizio, which reveals the industrial tradition, being made of the fabric which has made famous the history of the town industry. The fabric “for mattresses” and the mask will be the subjects of a historical investigation. As is the custom in other museums, the sale of a gadget representing the items exhibited in the Museum, is considered to be very appealing, with the considerable added value of being designed and realized by students of ITE of Busto Arsizio.

As a matter of fact, this project is meant to promote the sense of belonging to one's own territory, in accordance with multiple identities and the attention to the work ethic and its traditions. The attention to the textile and tourism sectors together with the more general economic sector, has allowed to search for “local solutions” to “global problems” in a critical moment of the economy in Lombardy, in Italy and in Europe, by trying to provide young people with tools to play the lead role in the surrounding world. Communication, language and social skills have been developed with a variety of instruments in order to allow the students to acquire an open-mind and a flexible attitude in the world of work. The on-going exchange of ideas with teachers, experts and native English-speaking mates has improved the four basic language skills. The use of the micro-language in the field has enabled a real practical learning of vocabulary and of the communicative registers with relation to the context.

The analysis of the economic and working issues in the field has fostered the development of the problem solving skills and of the entrepreneurial attitude which will be shortly marketable in the working environment.