Visibility of eTwinning Projects Group July 2026 Newsletter
By working alongside preschoolers, students, adolescents, young people, and educators from various countries, I have explored sustainability challenges through the lens of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, exchanging perspectives and developing ideas for a more sustainable future. Beyond the educational activities themselves, this experience highlighted the importance of international cooperation, cultural exchange, and teamwork in addressing global challenges. The emphasis on intercultural communication goes hand in hand with the development of student autonomy and adaptability, as participation requires them to navigate ever-changing collaborative situations and take responsibility for collective outcomes.
Accumulated experience confirms the value of eTwinning projects as effective tools for innovating educational practices and strengthening the European dimension of education. In the knowledge society, educational innovation is closely linked to the development of complex competencies that enable children and teachers to address challenges such as uncertainty, digital transformation, and intercultural interconnectedness. Educational innovation represents a process-focused, competence-oriented transformation of pedagogical structures, and it explores how the European eTwinning platform puts innovative activities into practice. The key competencies required for innovation – spanning from the macro level to microlevel pedagogical practices – include critical thinking, collaboration, communication, digital competence,
project-based learning, intercultural awareness, and adaptability. eTwinning provides the necessary structural framework for developing and applying these competencies through cross-border, project-based, and digitally mediated collaboration. The ongoing communication demands inherent in such collaboration are inseparable from the digital means through which interaction takes place.
A defining characteristic of the eTwinning program is that digital technology is intrinsic to participation. This means that students and teachers engage with digital environments from the very outset, utilizing communication tools, shared platforms, multimedia resources, and content-creation applications.
Consequently, educational innovation can be understood as process-oriented rather than product-oriented, emphasizing new or improved teaching and learning methods, curricula, or instructional practices; competence-based rather than content-based, focusing on developing students ' skills and capabilities rather than merely transmitting knowledge; systemic rather than isolated, involving organizational changes in school practices, administrative structures, and collaborative efforts; and strategically communicated and implemented, integrating new approaches to engagement, the promotion of learning, and the dissemination of educational practices.
Consequently, innovation is increasingly linked to the ability to generate, transfer, and apply knowledge collaboratively.
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