Visibility of eTwinning Projects Group Newsletter 6 2016 | Page 70

Visibility of eTwinning Projects Group July 2016 Newsletter

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------“Making a Difference in Our Learning”: Our
Students’ Point of View
by Cinzia Masia
I have been working with other colleagues from
different parts of Europe exploiting eTwinning
platform since I had the opportunity to know the
valid chances it offers. Every school year I involve
my pupils because I believe it supports them in
developing some of the 21st century learners’ skills
such as critical thinking, creativity, communication
and collaboration with others while knowing and
understanding different cultures. In fact, one of the
aim of our last project “Making a difference in our
learning” was to engage our pupils more actively in
their educational experience increasing their English
communication skills in a concrete and meaningful
context as sharing information and experiences.

and completed a provided worksheet in order to
present their system of education to their partner
schools. After that, the worksheets were shared and
the information were turned into a mind map
created with Popplet. All those maps allowed
students to evaluate the different systems of
education and they shared personal ideas and
thoughts in Padlet walls created by teachers.
“Discovering my Learning Style” was introduced in
Module 4 to help students to discover their learning
style (Visual, Auditory or Tactile) and help them to
learn better. They tried out "What is your learning
style questionnaire"
(http://www.educationplanner.org/students/selfassessments/learning-styles-quiz.shtml) and posted
the results of it in Padlet walls also providing
feedback to partners from other schools.

Students had the chance to work together in order
to:
 describe their system of education and
compare it to the partners’ ones
 identify their learning styles and reflect on
how to improve their school performance
 discover how to cope with challenge and
difficulty while being involved in the process
of learning
 develop useful strategies to help them to
improve their achievements at school
 imagine their dream schools integrating
ICT in language learning
They were involved in several activities to create,
exchange and evaluate materials, sharing opinions
and ideas but also increasing their Digital,
Communication in foreign language, Social and civic
competences.
This experience was developed with partners from
Greece, Spain and Italy too and all together we
planned 8 different modules, tasks and final
products to be shared in our TwinSpace.
In Module 1 “Getting to know each other” students
introduced themselves in the Forum. They started
developing the topic of the project answering the
question "How can I make a difference in my
learning?" and replied to at least two partners from
another school. Then, each partner prepared a
presentation of the school and uploaded it by using
Smilebox or Kizoa Video Maker.
According to “Our Educational System” theme of
Module 2, pupils had to discover our partners'
system of education so to compare and contrast
them. Students of each school worked together

“The power of believing that you can improve” was
the focus of Module 5 where students were asked to
watch two TED-talk videos "The Power of Yet"
(https://www.ted.com/talks/carol_dweck_the_powe
r_of_believing_that_you_can_improve) and "The
key to success? Grit"
(https://www.ted.com/talks/angela_lee_duckworth
_the_key_to_success_grit) in order to facilitate
them to discover how to cope with challenge and
difficulty while they are involved in their process of
learning.
This activity was useful to develop their receptive
and communication skills watching the films and
discussing on them. In fact, students interacted
exchanging their views regarding the videos both in
class and with the partner mates by using the
Forum section. They also took notes of some
keywords that referred to the secret of success and
created a collaborative wordcloud by using
www.tagul.com Furthermore, pupils of each school
worked to gether to make a short animated video
entitled the Secrets of Success by using
www.powtoon.com

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