Visibility of eTwinning Projects Group Newsletter 6 2016 | Page 40

Visibility of eTwinning Projects Group July 2016 Newsletter -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------of each others’ decorations and posted pictures of the finished work on the Twinspace: https://twinspace.etwinning.net/11792/home We included a link to the Twinspace on our school website so that pupils could make the decorations at home during the school Christmas holidays. Our whole school took part in the project, with pupils ranging in age from 5 to 11 years. Towards the end of term, we held a video call with Germany and Poland. Our Year 6 pupils (aged 10-11 years) played their violins, having been inspired by our call the year before with our German partners who had all played an instrument. Pupils also showed each other the decorations they had made from the shared instructions. eTwinning and Erasmus+ Ambassador in Germany, who talked us through the application and answered our questions. We also used the wonderful videos uploaded by the UK National Agency on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZuMJemHHU&list=PLq24jCC8AsjHJnayn6T7JI5Gsn75BWMZB& index=7 Other schools also held video calls with their partners. Pupils exchanged letters and Christmas cards, as well as information about Christmas customs. At the end of the project, pupils reflected on what they had learned and enjoyed. Teachers also reflected on the project. An ebook was compiled by the Spanish students, as a lasting outcome (and very useful resource!): https://www.joomag.com/en/newsstand/crafts-ebook/0786734001459800572?ref=ib The project for mentoring teachers In my local cluster of schools in England, I used the project to train colleagues in the use of eTwinning, and to help them to find partners for future Erasmus+ projects and job-shadowing visits. We held a number of training sessions through the autumn term 2015. Teachers were supported in this by being released by their head teachers in school time to attend the meetings. A number of eTwinning tools were used, including the videoconferencing tool. We had intended to use the project for participants to find a partner school in France, as most of our schools teach French to children aged 7-11. We were not successful in finding partners in France for everyone – but we were delighted to find some great partners in other countries! We used the project as a springboard to apply for Erasmus+ funding for staff training job-shadowing visits. At Steeton School, we had already some experience of the application process, having successfully applied in 2015 for Erasmus+ funding. At one of our meetings, we held a video webinar with one of our project partners, who is an We included a page on our Twinspace with Top Tips about Erasmus+ applications, which we updated as we went along and has been made public: https://twinspace.etwinning.net/11792/pages/page /70526 Four schools in the cluster applied for Erasmus+ project funding for job–shadowing visits and all four were successful! The success of the project was acknowledged with a prize for ‘Mentoring’ at the UK national conference in June 2016 and the assessor commented: "This is an exceptionally well planned and structured cross curricular eTwinning project specifically designed to engage students but equally to support staff and schools into the eTwinning programme. The focus is simple yet achieves it goals elegantly and the evidence from the well laid out Twinspace does show full and active engagement by all the participants. The comments and engagement of the students from all the schools clearly demonstrate enjoyment, motivation and active learning including creating instructions and instructional videos for their peers. This very precise and structured project has within it the opportunity to be creative, collaborative and to have student voice and engagement at its heart. The opportunity for partners who have built trust and relationships to then move through to Erasmus+ should contribute well to success going forward." 40