3rd prize in Slovak eTwinning prizes 2014
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Alena Píšová,
Primary School of Slovak National Uprising
Horná Ždaňa
I have not thought about it much before. I do not know where I heard the word for the first time, but I remember noticing, in the document issued by the Ministry of Education entitled Pedagogical organizational instructions, a recommendation for schools to participate in international collaborative projects. I did some search on the internet to find out that the National support service offers eTwinning training courses. I signed up for one and it immediately got me interested. So I started with my first projects. Since approximately two years and a half ago there have been 10 of them.
What can I say based on my experience? Firstly, the choice of a project partner greatly affects how interesting and successful a project will be. I must have been very lucky finding my partners. Both we, the teachers and our pupils enjoyed the projects. We have done projects with partners in the Czech Republic, Germany, Poland, the United Kingdom and Croatia, and our pupils have benefited from all of them.
In the previous school year I had almost all the classes in our school involved in projects. We have just closed some of our projects and we are currently looking to establish new partnerships. So what does eTwinning mean to us?
To pupils: Firstly, it is the joy of working on a collaborative project. Children have fun, as they do not realize they are learning and gaining new skills. They cooperate, explore, classify information, plan collaborative activities and produce joint outcomes. It is all about cooperation. They learn from each other, which is an important asset for life. They learn about life, education systems, cultures, and historic and natural backgrounds of their project partners. They improve their conversation skills in a foreign language. They develop ICT skills. They learn from partners how to use new applications and in return they present the ones they already know. They develop often long-lasting friendships. My pupils, too, continue their exchange with their Croatian friends, although the project has already been closed. Most importantly their in-class work has become meaningful. They do not compose texts, make presentations or videos to practice what they have learned; now they do it to contribute to a collaborative project they run with their friends. For me a positive indicator is seeing pupils, who have not been too active in the informatics classes, change their attitude and perform greatly.
It is fantastic to see children, who most of the time claim they do not like to learn, connect to the virtual library at home at 6:30 in the evening and together with partner pupils work on proposals for magazine covers and other interesting illustrations, which they subsequently put up on a notice board in school. And then at 9pm they ask the project coordinators for yet another task. eTwinning projects bust myths saying children do not like to learn. To teachers and project coordinators: I have gained from eTwinning pretty much the same as the children. First of all, it is the great people. I have made friends, with whom I keep in touch even after the project is over; we want to know how the other one is doing and we mutually consult various things, whether regarding our projects or school related matters. I have gained something from each one of my project partners and I hope they feel the same way about me. Sometimes it is the work and communication related technical issues, at other times it is the project management, work with children, organization of group work or how to conduct project-based lessons. There are a lot of things, which we compare notes about and learn from one another, and it is beneficial both for us and our schools. It would not have occurred to me before that we would use the internet to learn. And now we do, in on-line quizzes and virtual walks and we plan our virtual lessons. I am very pleased that my children display creativity in class, do not get bored and enjoy themselves.
To school and pedagogical staff: I cannot complain about my colleagues, as they have always been of help whenever I asked them. I did not require help frequently, but when it came to especially foreign languages, I sometimes was in need of proofreading or help with communication. However, at that time they still thought we were just “playing”. In the previous school year, the National support service announced some spring project activities (I cannot remember the exact name). Together with children we prepared presentations of three of our projects. We turned one of the school halls into a gallery, where we displayed photographs of our project activities. The children made and sent out invitations to teachers. We prepared tea and biscuits. Everyone in the school attended except for those who were bound by some urgent responsibilities. The children spoke about their projects and we also signed in to TwinSpace to demonstrate it all on the interactive whiteboard. I feel that my colleagues’ approach to eTwinning projects has changed since then and I think they started to appreciate what children do and how much they can achieve. And now it is not only about my asking “Could you please translate this, proofread this...”. Now my colleagues suggest on their own that, for instance, greetings for children in the UK can be prepared in their English classes and so on.
Our school is gaining public recognition. eTwinning is a regular topic on our school website and school radio, which broadcasts via the internet. Our display in the school hall is regularly updated and we are happy to see parents on their way to or out of parent-teacher meetings to take time to have a look at it with interest.
What des eTwinning mean to me?
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