The purpose of this project is to allow our students to acquire the necessary competences to live in the 21st century characterized by three important aspects: the Internet Era, the Multilingualism and the Globalization. It is founded on the use of eTwinning based learning in everyday school activities, in a cross curricular approach to different school subjects and functional to the achievement of the most innovative guidelines, both national and European, and the CLIL.( Mother tongue/ english).
The project is born from a collaboration between some teachers from different European schools, exactly the Istituto Comprensivo " Ex Circolo Didattico"" of Rionero in Vulture; Szkoła Podstawowa nr 9 im. M. Kopernika w Dzierżoniowie, Dzierżoniów, Poland; Agrupamento de Escolas da Lousã - EB nº2 from Lousã, Lousã, Portugal; CEP Virgen de la Guía, Portugalete, Spain. It's been recognized for a long time that the traditional school work and learning are no longer able to meet the needs of today's students. Many students start to become reluctant to learn and adopt disruptive behaviour in class, or drop school. This project, thanks to the use of eTwinning and ICT tools, allowed us to go beyond the traditional lesson, experiencing a new way to teaching and learning, based on the creation of an interactive, collaborative and motivating learning environment and the proposed of practical, inquiry-based tasks and open-ended problems. Students are been guided to find solutions and to learn through the exchange of ideas, research, collaboration, creativity, the assessment of their own work and that of others.. Students and their collective learning experience are at the center of learning. They are engaged in active learning and to work in teams on multidisciplinary topics fostering competence development and strengthening both individual and collaborative aspects of learning. The proposed activities have allowed the students to integrate the virtual experience with the real one (inside and outside of school) and rework it creatively through the use of technology.
The intent of this project was to integrate eTwinning in school activities as a cross curricular method, a way to overcome the traditional lesson model and promote the accomplishment of multidisciplinary and collaborative learning units/modules(attached Document: Learning Units). These were planned to address different topic and its objectives were set according to our schools curricula. All the competences was developed. - ICT, English and native language were used across the activities .The main one the communicative, oral and written but the scientific competence due to the themes chosen for the project, has been very well developed (internet, environment, recycling). We can’t forget the autonomy and personal competence because the students , guided by teachers, are the ones to carry out the project as they were the designers of the activities The Math competence, artistic and learn to learn were also important in the project This is a first attempt at a new approach to school thanks to the use of eTwinning. The project was approved by the Teachers Councils and integrated in plan of training (Spain and Italy)/ Activities Anual Plan (Portugal). For the objectives of various modules see the page Project of the eTwinning twinspace. Were used various Web 2.0 tools, such as google doc and Padlet for collaborative brainstorming, Google slides with a set of guidelines on digital citizenship and presentations, Prezi for the 'development of plan for a healthy living developed by students, free websites for image editing ,tools for creating / editing video or slides (windows movie maker, Slidely, Photopeach or other), YouTube to host videos, Madmagz for creating a collaborative e- magazine on environmental sustainability, ooVoo for the videoconferences, Sticky Moose voting tool (for the logo competition, Christmas songs and presentations), Thinglink, Myhistro (trip around the country) and Takl to show the 10th anniversary celebrations in each school.
The project involved teachers and students from partners school, parents ( Italy), Teachers and students communicate and cooperate using ICT tools (email, videoconferences, eTwinning twinspace). The eTwinning twinspace gave the opportunity to the different project partners to stay in constant contact and keep constantly updated on the implementation of the various activities and progresses made, as well as to share ideas and materials. Apart from that, the relationship between the teachers involved has been continuous sending emails several days a week so the contact has been very close.
This project is a demonstration of how eTwinning is far beyond a simple e-learning platform. If well used it is a useful methodology to innovate, improve and make collaborative the process of teaching / learning playing a fundamental role in achieving the skills of the 21st century. Furthermore, the proper use of technologies can help to create a learning environment based on creativity, autonomy, language and technical skills and affects the relationship that children have with the school, focusing on the relationship and dialogue between peers , between students and teachers, by encouraging the exchange and cooperation from several European schools, strengthening and enhancing the ability of all pupils, encouraging their active participation in the world of education by reducing a inequalities and difficulties, motivating students to engage in learning, preventing any risk of early school leaving and lays the groundwork for the formation of active and responsible citizens, able to fit in an active and productive in a highly technological and globalized society.