A participant of an international eTwinning seminar in Poitiers, 2012
Another great benefit of the seminar was a personal contact with 80 teachers from all across the world. Even more positive aspect of the seminar was that the communication language was French and friendships were initiated in this language. We also looked for possibilities to communicate in this language and in this way support its teaching. Only those who have experienced the unique atmosphere of such event can understand what an immense impulse it can be for one’s future work.
I gained several interesting contacts not only for myself but also for my colleagues in school and other schools in Brezno. I spoke about my experience from the event at language teacher meetings in Banská Bystrica. I learned that this tool is virtually unknown in teaching and therefore underappreciated. It is not only means to enhance foreign language teaching. The possibilities of its use in teaching are virtually endless and unlimited. This tool enables you to undertake a multitude of activities ranging from the simplest to more elaborate ones, with relatively little costs. When you meet experienced eTwinners, they can inspire you. The number of directions you can take is almost unlimited. School subjects, which can be effectively enhanced by eTwinning need not be named, as it concerns each one of them. The only limited resource is time. Should working with a tool be meaningful and fruitful it requires enough time and systematic and sophisticated work on the part of the teacher.
I am grateful to the NSS staff in Žilina. In 30 years of my practice as a teacher I had not heard of a case where a teacher would be looked after so well. They planned the journey from Bratislava to Poitiers in detail; they were always at hand and they replied to all my enquiries with patience and promptly. I had never before experienced such a highly professional approach in education. I am sincerely grateful to all those, who made my participation in this well-organized seminar possible.
Although at the moment I only observe what is going on in eTwinning and do not use the wealth of ideas the program offers (due to serious personal reasons), I believe that the time in my life, when I join in the huge virtual world, which despite its size seems so nice, friendly and helpful when seen through the Desktop, is still to come.
Travelling to the venue of the seminar one day in advance was a good idea of the Slovak organizers, because we attended the seminar from the beginning. Those who came on Friday evening were disadvantaged as they could not find their way around quickly enough and were not assigned to groups.
On Friday we started at exactly 3 p.m. in the presence of the top eTwinning representatives, Anne Gilleran and Claire Morvan from Brussels and Jean – Marc Merriaux from France. Among the event’s guests was also the Inspector General of the French Ministry of Education, Michel Perez.
Following the welcome speeches we were allowed to form groups for the coming two days. Unfortunately, although there were four workshops to choose from, we had only three half days to spend.
In the first workshop we were introduced to the Desktop and TwinSpace.
In the second workshop we could see an example of a videoconference as a synchronous communication among pupils and we saw a demonstration of work with Blackboard Collaborate. Then we had group discussions on how to use these tools in our work.
The third workshop focused on asynchronous communication tools. Mrs Coatanea presented to us how she works with pupils using Voice thread.
The fourth workshop was devoted to activities with such tools as Movie Maker or Format Factory.
I noticed that workshops three and four had potential for improvement in future. Since they were attended by too many people, not everyone had their own computer and because the lecturer moved on too fast we could not try out the presented activities at the time of the seminar. One of the benefits was that we learned about them and that we could see some results of working with these tools.
On Saturday evening we had a three-hour space to see the Futuroscope.
After the closing of the seminar on Sunday at 3 p.m. we quickly moved to the train station to catch a train home through Paris, Vienna and Bratislava.
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Daniela Jakubčová,
Secondary School
Brezno
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