eTwinning Teachers' Blog

I joined eTwinning in 2005 after that my school organised an evening seminar by the NSS Mr Emile Vassallo. The way he described eTwinning made me very curious to explore this new world, and when I got home I registered. I placed my ideas for a new project about how Avian Influenza was affecting different countries in Europe since that year it was a very hot issue. Another teacher soon replied that he was interested to start off a project with me, and I was too enthusiastic. My form 5 students , did research about this microbe, and were monitoring all newspapers and news regarding how this Influenza was being dealt with in Malta and in other countries etc. We did a lot of work, but our parnter ended up doing nothing, and that was a big blow for us. We were very disappointed, but our headmaster appreciated our work and that was an intrinsic reward for my students and me.

Continue reading "My eTwinning Experiences - Josephine Ebejer Grech (Malta)" »

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In the previous school year my pupils and I together with a group of pupils and teachers from Italy and Spain worked on an e-Twinning project called ‘Discover Europe’(a safe web-based collaborative project focused on cultural awareness and intercultural learning).
Apart from exchanging information and photos about our local communities and our customs and traditions we decided to create a set of interactive learning objects based on the participating pupils’ personal accounts about their cultures (multiple choice exercises, drag and drop exercises, crosswords, fill-in exercises etc). These are digital modules built on certain didactic sequences aiming to enable a learner to acquire knowledge and skills on a specific topic or theme.
They help teachers increase their learners' interest and motivation in learning. Besides, they make learning and teaching more dynamic, intuitive and interactive and improve both pupils’ and teachers’ ICT skills.
As regards our learning objects, they are focused on cultural awareness and intercultural learning and aim to help pupils reinforce the information learned in the project.
I was really surprised to see how much of their own time my pupils devoted to participating in the project as they found eTwinning a rich and rewarding experience!
That is why, beginning with this school year our School Board has decided to include it in our school curriculum and allocate an optional course addressed to the 5th grade A and 7th grade A.

Continue reading "Discover Europe through a set of interactive learning objects!" »

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The evolution and the transformations in the social area which took place in our country for the past years, have highlighted the necessity of some special services in the phicho-pedagogigal and social fields. These special services are addressed to several categories of beneficiaries- people in difficulty or with several needs which they cannot handle and who often end up behind isolated, maladjusted, marginalized or isolated from the society.
With this project, we hope to reduce some of this difficulties which characterize many children who come from a family or from The Recovery Centre of the Children with severe Handicap Galata, Iasi.
“Tudor Argezi” School, The B structure of “Titu Maiorescu” school from Iasi, wants to facilitate the access of the pupils with special needs to free speech, education, games, songs, arts, practical abilities, stories, theatre, puppet plays by giving them a programme centered on the individual. We have chosen various activities, we have become partners with other schools and institutions, which will help our pupils to socialize, make friends and communicate.
There is no doubt that these children are seeking for love and support, just like the rest of us. That’s why the society cannot oversee or abandon these children with special needs and must offer them an equal chance.
All the activities we planned focus on reducing the marginalization of the children with special needs by the community and also, we want to give them opportunities to enlarge their knowledge horizon so that their social and relational results improve.
eTwinning is a great opportunity for all kids from Europe .
Teacher Eugenia Apetroi
“Titu Maiorescu” School-structure ”Tudor Arghezi” - Iasi (Romania)

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Maria Vaida, "Ioan Bob" School, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

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Last year, in October, Romania was accepted in eTwinning and I was very delighted that I became a member of this community. In a short time I find a partner for my project, a school from Spain, Colegio Caja Granada.
Our project is called THE CELEBRATION OF THE MONTH. The pupils, coordinated by the teachers work on gathering information related to the most important holidays of each month (ethno-folkloric, literary, historical etc). In the same time different products are developed: articles for the school magazine, pp presentations, a web site, CDS, a holiday calendar, an album with all the phases of the project. The representative works are published on the Internet in English, Romanian and Spanish.
During the activities performed together with the partner school the teams will identify the similarities but also the differences between the two cultures. There will be supplementary foreign language lessons, lessons about local and national history and geography. These activities will constitute a good opportunity for practicing linguistic competencies but also for socializing and developing tolerance and mutual respect.
The development of the project will be permanently monitored, the suggested objectives will be followed, and the activities will be adapted to the newly appeared needs.
The dissemination of the results will be an important aspect of the project. It will be realized throughout the whole period of the partnership. Finally, they will be presented at both schools involved and to the public in order to generate interest for learning foreign languages and to understand the similarities and differences between European cultures.
http://thecelebrationofthemonth.wetpaint.com/ - here you can see a part of our work
We do our best in order that our school should obtain a European dimension with a large opening towards Europe, conditioned by the entrance of Romania into EU.

This project constitutes an opportunity for our pupils to practice and develop their linguistic competencies. On the other hand involving pupils in an intercultural dialogue would improve their personal development and would contribute to a better social cohesion.
Our expectations are:
- The cooperation between the involved schools in order to identify cultural similarities based on the Latin origin of our countries; involvement in an intercultural dialogue.
- The promotion of some national and local elements together with the acceptance and respect for the cultural identity of each country.
- The formation of research and learning skills necessary for personal development and social integration.
- Raising awareness of the importance of life long learning.
- Improvement of pupils motivation and their communication skills in a foreign language.
- Formation language competencies in other languages besides those learnt at school.

Maria Vaida, "Ioan Bob" School, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

Posted by eTwinning Teacher at 10:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Let´s make the European heart beat!

Teacher and students can gain a lot from eTwinning project. Here goes my opinion about it:
- Improve skill languages;
- Learn about each country culture, economics, folks, food habits, politics aspects, geography, history and others;
- Exchange experience about pedagogical strategies;
- Improve the use of ICT tools and also learn how to use new ones;
- Be aware of difference between European countries and learn to respect them;
- And many other pedagogical aspects.
I think it´s important to fill near to other countries! Portuguese people use to say “Away from the eyes away form the heart”. After an eTwinning project we learn to love and worry about someone in other country. I really think it ´s important to approach people and that students fill near each other, because younger’s are our future!

So, eTwinning approach ours hearts. And after all, we are a country called EUROPE!

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