E-TWINNING BASIC GUIDELINES
Σοθία Γιαρμεμίηοσ
Βαζιλική Πελεκούδα
Γκπαιδεσηικός Αγγλικής
Γκπαιδεσηικός Αγγλικής
94ο Δ.Σ. Αθήμας
36ο Δ.Σ. Αθήμας με απόζπαζη από 9ο Δ.Σ.Λάριζας
published by
: 94o Δημοηικό Στολείο Αθήμας
ISBN : 978-618-81006-0-2 94o Primary School of Athens 94o Δημοηικό Στολείο Αθήνας No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form -- except for teaching purposes in Greek State Schools with prior acknowledgement of the author/s. _________________________________________ Απαγορεύεηαι η αναδημοζίεσζη και γενικά η αναπαραγωγή ηοσ παρόνηος έργοσ με οποιονδήποηε ηρόπο -- εκηός από ηη τρήζη ηοσ για εκπαιδεσηικούς λόγοσς ζηα Ελληνικά Δημόζια Στολεία μεηά από προηγούμενη αναθορά ζηον ζσγγραθέα ή ηοσς ζσγγραθείς First published 2013 by 94th Primary School of Athens Πρώηη έκδοζη 2013 από 94ο Δημοηικό Στολείο Αθήνας
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To Thalia Hatzigianniglou, our school advisor, who has devoted herself to our professional development.
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CONTENTS 1. What is the eTwinning action?
p. 4
2. How to get started.
p. 5
3. Using the Desktop.
p. 6
4. Finding etwinning partners.
p. 7
5. Running an etwinning project -
p. 8
The Twinspace 6. Invite teachers and visitors.
p. 9
7. How to add material to the Twinspace
p. 10
8. “OUR IDEAL EUROPEAN NEIGHBOR”: An awarded etwinning project. 9. Resources.
p. 11-24 p. 25
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What is the eTwinning action? “E-Twinning� is the community of the European schools. It offers a free and safe digital environment for teachers and pupils to work in. It facilitates collaboration and partnership between schools and enables us to connect and work online around Europe on projects of our own choice, through the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). Linking to European schools will give our pupils the chance to enhance their communication and foreign language skills and ICT use as they get involved and motivated. It gives us the opportunity to give a European dimension to our work and share our professional experience. Getting involved in an eTwinning project does not mean having to do extra curriculum work. It just offers us a framework to share ideas and activities with other teachers. It is on us to decide when, how and for how long we work on a project. Projects that reach a certain national and European standard get Quality labels after being evaluated. The National and/or the European Quality Label is a public affirmation of the high professionalism of our work and a certificate of acknowledgement for our creativity and innovation.
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How to get started There are three “levels� in eTwinning: 1. The central Europe-wide portal www.etwinning.net/el/ 2. The Desktop 3. The Twinspace Each one of these levels has its own tools.
In order to start a project these are the basic steps we should take: First we go to the portal and follow the instructions to register.
A Pre-Registration page appears where we complete some details about us and our school. When we get fully registered we get a user name and a password and we create our personal profile. It is important to give a short description of our preferences and experience so that other eTwinners can get to know us. (A nice photo is also recommended here!)
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Using the Desktop
The Desktop is our personal window to the platform. Through here , we can: 1. Communicate with potential partners 2. Receive notifications 3. Learn the eTwinning community news 4. Review our profile 5. Find about learning events that may interest us 6. Participate in Teachersâ€&#x; Rooms 7. Get into our project(s).
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Finding eTwinning partners We can either set up a project and invite other teachers to work on it with us or we can participate in a project organized by someone else. For the latter, we go to “Projects� and we make a search that matches our criteria. While choosing partners to collaborate, we should keep in mind some important factors: 1. we share similar objectives. 2. we work with pupils of comparable age and language level. 3. we can communicate regularly. 4. we are equally determined to work professionally and effectively towards the objective of the project. 5. we have the basic ICT equipment and knowledge that is necessary for our effective collaboration. Tip: We can always check their e-twinning experience and try to work in projects suggested by our school advisors or experienced colleagues.
We can enter in a project for its innovative and interesting features. But if we want our work to be evaluated and awarded, we should keep in mind that it must meet the following criteria: a. Pedagogical Innovation and Creativity b. Curricular Integration c. Use of Technology d. Sustainability and Transferability e. Results and Benefits
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Running an eTwinning Project As soon as we become members in a registered project it appears on our desktop . When we click on the name of the project we get to the main “page” of it. There we can find all the relevant information as well as the names of all participating teachers. Under “Actions”, there are tools that allow us to invite new members, ask for help, apply for the Quality label etc. We work on the project using the twinspace.
The Twinspace The Twinspace is the safe platform where our pupils can be members and/or administrators. We can invite them and give them a password to use. It is important to have their parents‟ permission and avoid using their full names. Pupil-members can then create their own profile, post things on other members‟ walls, attend the progress of their work, send messages to and chat with each other. These are very important tools if we want to improve their ICT and foreign language skills.
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Invite teachers and visitors Take these steps in order to invite other teachers at the twinspace. Important: You need their e-mail to do this.
A teacher administrator can add material, make changes and invite pupils and other teachers at the twinspace.
All the material we create throughout the project ( videos, photos, slideshows,documents) can be uploaded at the twinspace.
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How to add material to the Twinspace First, we click on “προσθέστε το λήμμα blog”. We give a title and a tag. We click on HTML code and we paste the code of the material we want to add to the twinspace.
Finally we click on “Publish” and our partners can share our material with us!
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Welcome to project's activities This section of the TwinSpace is where you will find the online collaborative workspaces (activities).
Each activity includes a selection of applications (blog, file archive, forum, image gallery, wiki or web content). These are selected by the administrator.
Included in each new TwinSpace is a sample activity "Introduce yourself". This includes a forum and a file archive. It is an ideal place for project members to introduce themselves and get to know each other.
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Summary In this activity plan , pupils are introduced to the concept of „neighborhoodsâ€&#x;, neighboring countries, and finally the European Union. The methodology used is project work, which fosters cross- and co- curricular learning that encourage the pupils to observe reality from multiple perspectives working and developing the idea of social responsibility, so that the pupils can work together towards the development and structuring of social responsibility in their own lives.
Aims:
The promotion of cross cultural, social and communication skills, expanded and developed through this kit. An essential goal of the work was to strengthen pupil awareness in a range of citizenship and cultural issues, based on key competencies.
Age of pupils:
11-12
Duration of the project:
December 2012-June 2013
Process There are 6 modules in this project. For each module there was a separate Forum on the twinspace.
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Module 1: Let’s get to know each other Students wrote their biographical profiles. Teachers prepared worksheets, similar to this one and QR codes (small digitized squares used for storing encoded information into a small, two-dimensional space that can be read by Smartphones and other handheld devices, such as iPads, web cameras, or QR readers) are used for partners to get to know their partners. The book cover has the students‟ chosen symbol Examples of students‟ biographical profiles that are put together to create the ebooks.
ICT tools QR tool: qrstuff.com 14
Symbols generator: picmonkey.com Product: E-books with the students‟ biographical profiles Forum:
Student a from Romania writes what he learnt about students A from
Greece
Twinspace: Folder Archive with the students‟ work.
Module 2: My school:A multi-cultural space School
Partner students present their schools with a special point of view towards European or cross-cultural aspects of these institutions:
Campus
Subjects extra-curricular activities
Projects
School photos and presentation using Smilebox (add some captions to describe each photo) Students write about their subjects, extra curricular activities, projects they do and use LinoIT - sticky notes - http://en.linoit.com to present their work (registration required)
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Pupil’s Interaction
In written form each pupil commented on three entries from the partner schools about the above mentioned aspects of the school.
My Neighborhood Brainstorming: pupils handle the concept of „Neighbor‟ in that they collect terms which indicate their understanding of neighbors (for instance: geographical proximity, common interests, household division of labor,
mutual aid and
consideration, common celebrations, preparation of street fairs). The pupils introduce their concepts of „Neighbor‟ to their partners making videos of their neighborhood.
ICT:
Visuwords
-
graphical
connection
-
Online
Graphical
dictionary
http://www.visuwords.com 16
Creation of a wordcloud using www.wordle.net My Class: A multi-cultural community The pupils introduce their own classes: (the person in the next seat, classmates, mentors, classrooms). The pupils discuss this in connection to the difference native countries of their classmates. They will create a profile of their class.
My way to school-a multicultural environment The pupils observed whether they could make any discoveries on the way to school, and whether there were those among their fellow citizens who came from other countries and enriched the culture of the city (for instance: restaurants, Asiangrocers, kebab stands, mosques, temples). Video, photos, interviews can be taken. Since our school in Athens is multicultural students interviewed classmates of different nationalities and ages.
Twinspace:
Folder Archive with the students‟ work.
Photo gallery
Forum
Short videos
Module 3: My Neighborhood – my city My home and my neighbors The pupils describe their residential area – their residential surroundings and pay special attention to their neighbors and to their foreign fellow citizens. Photos to create a video using www.animoto.com
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This is Exarheia, our neighborhood
My social spaces The pupils described social spaces that they currently seek out to be with people for various reasons (for instance: squares, playgrounds, sports fields, music schools, bookstores, gymnastic clubs, garden spaces).
The pupils also observed each public social space that serves as meeting places for all citizens and introduce these to their partners (for instance, shopping centers, playgrounds, kindergartens, market places, parks, sports groups, garden spaces, movies, the doctorâ€&#x;s waiting room, and libraries) Photos to create a video using www.animoto.com My multi-cultural city 1) Population
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The pupils researched their city on the web in order to find more information about the international aspects of their towns. 3) Services for foreign citizens The pupils shared information about the services for foreigners in their city. Activity: In addition to internet research, we had a well prepared visit to city hall of Athens so that the pupils understood that there are institutions already in place on the local level to support citizens with their requests. They also interviewed in English a city counselor about the problems migrants face in Athens. Students created a video of interview with the interview city counselor. Twinspace: Document library for texts, photo gallery; Forum for exchange
From our visit in the city hall of Athens
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Module 4:
My country and its neighboring countries
Our neighboring countries The pupils created a brief profile of their neighboring countries and collected questions about what they would like to learn about these countries and ask their partners. Quiz: classtools.net Twinspace: document library, photo gallery, forum
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Module 5:
The idea of Europe – the European Union as a
neighborhood
The European flag – Symbol of a neighborhood of equal partners integral to the idea of „Europe‟ as a joint venture. The pupils investigated the symbolic content of the European flags as preparation for the activities with the institutions of the European Union.
The European Union: European neighbors united for different reasons The pupils researched, the reasons for the founding of the European Union and what membership concretely means for a country. Twinspace: document library, forum
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Module 6:
Our ideal European citizen
To promote work results, that is to say as a synthesis of the individual project steps the pupils created a poster with their partner schools, which described the profile of an „ideal European citizen.â€&#x; The following preparations were necessary for this:
All project participants jointly developed a question list for a survey that was used for each country. The goal was to determine the characteristics of a model European citizen as revealed by the survey results. The production of questions was done in different categories with which the pupils had already been acquainted: 22
Possibilities for political participation
Values
Social involvement
Use of public institutions (libraries)
Foreign language knowledge (language proficiency)
Media use
each partner school carried out the questionnaires for what characterizes a European citizen according to the opinion of the population. The national results were accessible to all participants in Twinspace.
For this reason we walked in our neighborhood and students interviewed in greek about 20 people of different ages and various social and educational background. Pupils took pictures and wrote down the answers. The pupils made a slideshare(ICT tool) with the photos and the answers of the interviewed.
From the participants‟ results from different countries a joint product was produced, a synthesis depicting national perceptions of ideal citizenship.
The product was titled: Our ideal European citizen
Twinspace: document library, photo gallery, forum, web content page for videos, wiki, and joint production of the poster.
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Evaluation and...good bye friends! The pupils described the parts of the project they found enjoyable, how they experienced the communication with their partners, any new questions that arose from the project work, and what part of the project implementation could be improved.
We had a skype meeting on the 6th of June 2013 and students had the chance to talk to their partners.
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Did you like our Project? *
Yes
No
I don't know
What did you improve? *
My foreign language skills
My communication skills
My intercultural knowledge
My ICT skills
My behaviour as a citizen
My artistic skills
My knowledge on EU
Άλλο:
Which activity(s) did you like most? *
The project has just been awarded (Sunday 15-9-2013)with the Quality Label for the work done in Etwinning. 25
RESOURCES
http://www.etwinning.net/el/pub/index.htm
http://www.etwinning.gr/
http://www.britishcouncil.org/etwinning.htm
http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/llp/comenius/comenius_etwinning_en.php
http://www.llp.org.cy/etwinning/
http://etwinningmentoring.blogspot.gr/
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This booklet is a simple guide for teachers who want to get involved in an e-twinning project. In the first part there are instructions on how to find partners and use the e-twinning platform. In the second part, an awarded project is described as an example of good practice.
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