Visibility of eTwinning Projects Group Newsletter 6 2016 | Page 62
Visibility of eTwinning Projects Group July 2016 Newsletter
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------My Unforgettable eTwinning Projects
by Ana Tudor
“A picture equals 1000 words” is one of my
unforgettable eTwinning projects. I had good
reasons to focus on it as a project founder, together
my Greek partner. Students of today living in eworlds receive stimuli lots more from the
cyberspace, the tv, the radio and much less from
the press and the written material. As a
consequence, they tend to become more „optic”.
The written expression is maybe superior and
eternal, but soul and feeling is just a prerequisite to
manage it. Students of today are more passive to
messages and less active. In parallel, they are more
attracted by the dynamics of the picture that is the
easiest to understand and express oneself form of
communication. The nature (sea, mountains,
flowers, sun sets and sun rises) as well as the
psychographies that can be drawn from the
depiction of social places such as cafes of the old
times and cultural events, or even photos of older
people carrying the experience of an entire life,
were our favourite themes. We all aimed at opening
new vivid worlds of our actual world in front of the
eyes of our students. Open windows to the
countries in which the schools of the partership
belong. Communities to communities. So distant
and so close. So close and so distant. We were
always aiming at feeling. That’s why, we allowed
the students express themselves and see the pics
and the feelings of their classmates round Europe.
Pictural communication and yes Synesthesia!
Drawing! Pics! Photos! Words could also be used.
But we have tried to let the dynamics of the picture
incite psychograms of the momentum. Expressions
of the innerself, shared with all goodness. As
Goldman said, the true meaning in life is "To LIVE,
to LOVE and to LEARN"! We hoped that within this
project through the lens our students learn to FEEL
and to UNDERSTAND the feelings of the others. As
in schools of today, so much effort focuses on the
cognitive part and IQ measurement. Thus, this
project permitted us to manage high IQs in the
sentimental cognitivism and, why not, to discover
among our students the talented brilliant
photographers of tomorrow.
“Women of the Mediterraanean” is a project
whose aim was to show and analyze the social and
cultural path that women carried out last century
and have been still carrying out, with sacrifice, to
reach equal opportunities and rights. We liked all
students to know these changes through photos
and so we had created a section of our photo
exhibition that was also devoted to intercultural
education and that has been presented for the 2nd
time to public and territorial, regional and provincial
authorities the day of the festivity of women. Many
European schools have participated in the 1st photo
exhibition, it has been useful for a continuous
exchange of personal information among pupils of
different countries and all this has enriched their
way of learning. Our purposes were to educate
people to feel themselves „citizens of the World”,
with equal opportunities, in the spirit of legality and
solidarity. In this respect, our objectives were to
know and value local traditions, to recover historical
memory and oral traditions through the history of
the women and to start a dialogs and a comparison
with other cultures. The activities developed by us
focused on searching photos from 1900 to our days
that may testify the evolution female role in
society, in family and in job, analyzing in depth
problems regarding social marginalization,
exclusion from the world of work and lack of parity
of the rights. Our European photo exhibition and
brochure were amazing final project products.
“Let's discover a better world” is a project
aimed at improving our students’ knowledge of
English as well as their ICT skills, by impersonating
young discoverers and inventors. They got
knowledge about inventions which are still the most
important for humanity. They also found out about
famous inventors and travellers. Finally they
designed and invented their own things which could
make their lives easier. Students not only invented
things and objects but also discovered people’s
feelings, emotions and promoted tolerancy and
acceptance among people of different nations. The
European students and their teachers who took part
in this e-Twinning project have involved other
classes and colleagues by presenting them the
effects of collaboration which was motivating for
others. Students from other classes were invited to
prepare their own material in order to be published
on our Twin Space. The teachers involved in this
project supported their students’ ideas, helped and
advice them, decided together. They shared ideas
and experiences with teachers of the partner
schools, discussed and even made conclusions
concerning the progress of the project. For all
partner schools, this interesting project brought the
improvement of relationships among students,
teachers and parents, the promotion of the schools
in local communities, the involvement of a big
number of students into the project and a bigger
motivation to learn among students and to teach
among teachers.
“Chi