Visibility of eTwinning Projects Group Newsletter no. 5 - July 2015 | Page 10

Visibility of eTwinning Projects Group July 2015 Newsletter -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------eTwinning is the best way to learn! It is great to be an eTwinner! international meetings as well as various online learning events on the eTwinning portal. And now to communicate with you and to make you smile, this girl is for you, with all our love… Almost imperceptibly, I changed the way of teaching, acquired new knowledge and skills in the logic of lifelong learning and furthermore my attitude towards my students became more dynamic, open and cooperative. There was also an evolution in the students involved in the projects. The first participants were shy and afraid to face European peers, were not curious and constantly they had to be encouraged and urged to work. Little by little students gained more self-confidence and courage, enjoyed using ICT tools with their own creativity and dared to do better the next time. They themselves spread the word to the new students who spontaneously asked me to activate a European project. PS – This was made with imagination, love, white paper and 12 coloured pencils by Matilde Real, 5 years old. Guilherme, 5 years old, took a picture of Matilde’s work with a digital Cassio camera. Afonso, 5 years old, edited the photo in Microsoft office 2010 and our teacher imported it here. So are you smiling? Good! So we are communicating! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ My eTwinning experience by Olga Antonioli In November 2014 and May 2015 I took part in two regional workshops as a pedagogical advisory. I illustrated the benefits teachers and students gain directly and indirectly from eTwinning: authentic learning, collaboration, professional development, European dimension, ICT use, tolerance and much more. I have written these lines for those teachers who are still reluctant to take advantage of the opportunities eTwinning offers. In these 10 years of eTwinning involvement I have met lots of them. Most of them make a list of personal reasons which prevent them from embarking on a European project and complain about students’ demotivation. How could we be innovative if we do not start to innovate ourselves? In 2005 I joined the eTwinning portal, driven by curiosity and the desire to improve myself as an educator. It was not an easy task to find my first partner: there were not all the guidelines and tutorials that abound nowadays and not many colleagues were available to start collaborating with people they did not know. I did not give up. I turned difficulties into positive learning opportunities: slowly but with determination, I learned to find my way in the portal, to build bridges of friendship, to use the computer in an innovative way and to collaborate with pupils and colleagues. At first my professional and personal growth was stimulated and supported by the participation in training courses organized by the Italian National Support Service, then by regional, national and 10