Visibility of eTwinning Projects Group July 2016 Newsletter------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
the creator of a page, we can invite others to share ideas and / or vote through text, posts or images. As this is being posted, participants can vote on the ideas they like best by clicking on voting dots and once you are the creator, you can restrict the number of votes that each person gets. After the voting is complete, we can easily check the number of votes each received. Please have a look, for instance, at https:// dotstorming. com / topic / 56a0f6354400bbe00 af24d8d ~~~ uploaded to youtube that you can check at https:// www. youtube. com / watch? v = qXsi83mo9EY
Needless to say that though some are oldies but goodies, all can still be used not only to enhance eTwinning projects but also for any other educational purposes. Common to all is the fact that these tools are free and simply meant to showcase how we can use them to enhance our eTwinning projects.
Already ringing a bell? Happy reading and happier projects!
For this school year’ s project with secondary students who worry more about their grades, I decided to award badges( and an extra mark in the end of the term, too) to all students who accomplished all tasks in eTwinning. I used http:// classbadges. com / a free online tool where teachers can award badges to learners for accomplishments or academic mastery. Through our teacher account, we can award badges customized for our classroom or school. Have a go … it works as students engage even more!
The simplest and equally attractive( and successful) way to promote eTwinning projects and / or activities is using photo collages. However, for a language teacher, this is the poorest tool as there is no balance in what concerns the 4 skills: reading and writing are extremely reduced and there is absolutely no speaking or listening involved. http:// pixlr. com / http:// bighugelabs. com / or http:// pic-collage. com /( this one a mobile app) are among some of the tools I’ ve been using. As for video, besides the aforementioned Animoto, there are literally dozens of alternatives for video creation, editing and publishing, all free. As curious as I am, for this year’ s project, I have also used https:// studio. stupeflix. com / en / to create a short video for a school visit to a local newspaper and then uploaded it to youtube as you can check at https:// www. youtube. com / watch? v = LeFf77cJzhs- I did the same last year but with a different tool that I am sure you have already come across, too, that is http:// www. kizoa. com / In May 2015 we planned a 10-day celebration for eTwinning anniversary and as I had taken several shots and so had my students, I gathered them to create a video later
Alexandra Duarte is an EFL Teacher at a school in Portugal. She is from Coimbra, Portugal, and is currently teaching in a school in Soure, about 30 km away from the famous university town of Coimbra. She has been a teacher of English for over 20 years and has already taught different levels and age groups. She is an avid reader, a blogger and very curious about free tools and their implementation in the classroom.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kahooting to Empower Learners to Leaders by Helena Serdoura
Kahoot was firstly introduced during an Erasmus +“ Keep Invest Donate Spend” meeting hosted in Agrupamento de Escolas de Marco de Canaveses in 2015. Although pupils seemed to frankly engage in the cultural quiz and be highly motivated I regarded it as just another quiz as many others available online, stepping into lessons as an extrinsic motivator, a reward at the end of a class or a way of testing knowledge.
@ APPI 2016, Mário Cruz with“ Flip the Way you Teach English, Gain 20 % of Time and Game On” peeled the layers of Kahoot and brought to light some key features that could make the difference in the teaching and learning scenarios. Gave it a try and some of my 6th grade pupils created a Kahoot“ Saving Quiz” submitted to the national competition“ No Poupar Está o Ganho” in financial literacy.
More than the prize awarded to the pupils work and the visibility given to the eTwinning / Erasmus + project within school community and amongst the
47