Visibility of eTwinning Projects Group July 2016 Newsletter------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Why I Have Chosen eTwinning by Iuliana-Florentina Ispir
In the summer of the year 2011 I did not have a clue about eTwining activities. After being chosen as the coordinator of educational partnerships by the council of teachers, in the first local meeting I had on my town, I heard for the first time about eTwinning, even if the discussions were mostly about Comenius, Leonardo da Vinci and Grundtvig.
From that small corner I was sitting in I was listening in peace, and I finally understood that I can learn and do more.
Curiosity guided me and today I have in my personal map nineteen projects. In two of them I did not work, for two other I have not received the certifying card yet because of the poor communication, but I have fifteen eTwinning Certificates of National Quality and two of European Quality.
I managed to involve three other colleagues in projects, and next year I will try to involve two more.
What benefit did I get?
I met great friends around the world, I improved my English skills, I understood that I can learn to work in a sector that was unknown to me until then and the introduce the new knowledge in my daily work with kids, I promoted many online courses that made me evolve and by learning new things at home, using the computer, I discovered new communities like I-Teach, Teacher Academy, School Education Gateway.
But the biggest benefit was that I improved a lot the communication with my students and their parents, by evolving them too on the projects I have developed.
What really satisfied me were the respect and the appreciation of my colleagues who have been working on Erasmus projects. They all were impressed by my personal work, which was sustained financially just by me.
Finally: why e-Twinning? For a better development of the teaching process, for not getting isolated as a teacher in a world that has no perspective, for meeting new educational partners and finding out new things like the tradition of planting trees every year in our backyard in the project " Plant a Tree for Peace ".
Iuliana-Florentina Ispir is a teacher in Rm. Valcea, Romania. She has been working in the educational sector for the last eighteen years. She is a firstgrade teacher, and her educational activity is meant to prepare the younger students for school, by teaching them to socialize, to communicate and to learn new things about life and nature. She wants her students to learn by exploring and discovering on their own and not by simply accumulating the information that she gives them.
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