eTwinning Conference 2008

The conference report gives detailed information on all the sessions and activities throughout the event as well as their results. Whether you attended the conference or not, the report is a good resource for finding out what’s new in eTwinning and how teachers are using the Action to enrich their school work.

The official photographers’ photos are now in as well. Enjoy!

* Read the REPORT (6MB)
* Browse the PHOTOS
* Introductory speech by Marc Durando, European Schoolnet (Windows Media File, Flash file, movie file)
* Address by Jan Figel', Member of the European Commission in charge of education, training, culture and youth (Windows Media File, Flash file, movie file)
* Address by Doris Pack, MEP (Windows Media File, Flash file, movie file)

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Presentation by Eugenio Rivière, European Commission.

To view the presentation with animation, click here.

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Sunday morning's closing address by Marc Durando, EUN Executive Director.

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... made many of us stand up to take photos or join the dancers.
The dance with the wooden sticks reminded us of the Pauliteiros de Miranda

Teresa Fernandes, Portugal

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After the workshops on tools and other topics, after the exhibition talks and useful contacts with colleagues of the various countries represented, here we are at dinner time over a traditional romanian dinner

Teresa Fernandes, Bucharest, March 2008

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Back home after traveling for hours and I can’t stop thinking about the conference and its impact.
Marc Durando’s closing speech was very interesting indeed. His suggestion that we are moving from e-confidence to e-maturity is a useful distinction. However, I think we should all keep in mind that different schools will be at a different part of the spectre even in the same country. At some point Mr Durando said: “What is ICT in schools? Is it anything more than web searches, Powerpoint presentations and word processing?� I hope that at some schools it is much more than this but in my school if I mange to do all these things I will have achieved my goals 200%.
He also talked about the basic characteristics of e-twinning, namely the fact that it is simple, reliable, multilingual, project and practice oriented, community building. All these characteristics add to its charm and these are the reasons it has been so successful and so loved by teachers and students all over Europe.
But I think that the main reason we do all these things and the answer to the question of my last post may be found in the closing quotation by Albert Einstein which I reproduce as well as I remember it: “…to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge�.

Thanks a lot to all the organizers for a very good conference. See you all next year!

Anna Varna – e-twinning ambassador, English teacher, Larissa, Greece

The Greek delegation in full plus Kiki Haynes (of Greek origins)

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Talked to some colleagues about sharing photos taken during the conference; an easy way of doing just that is through web based storage. One of the largest (if not the largest) photo storage sites - and photo communities - is Flickr, nowadays owned by Yahoo!. The Flickr user interface is a bit cluttered but if you want to store all your photos remotely, plus access and share them anywhere through the Internet, the FlickrPro service is a super deal. And no, unfortunately I don't get a percentage of the Pro registrations..

What about Picasa from Google, then? Well, Picasa definitely offers a superior user experience compared to Flickr but - surprisingly! - they charge a lot for storage space exceeding 1Gb. You should also notice that using Picasa requires a software download and installation. Through a completely web based FlickrPro account, you get unlimited storage for your photos.

A very real catch about Flickr is if you are truly a pro photographer working with huge RAW images. They might take ages to upload and retrieve, if Flickr supports them in the first place (I think not). However, considering how fast the bandwith available to everyone increases all the time, this might be a non-issue in a year or two. Anther hole in the Flickr package is the absence of a batch download feature, in case you'd like to retrieve all of your photos in one sweep. Luckily, there is free software like FlickrDown available that does that very nicely.

Oops, I've been rambling ever so slightly - I do have some photos to share! Just follow this public Flickr link. Problems viewing the material? Please let me know and I'll do my best to help!
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Posted by: Niilo Alhovaara, Tunaskolan Luleå Sweden
Email: niilo.a@gmail.com
Skype: niilo.a

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Students of English and technology from the National College Mihai Eminescu in Bucharest are our intrepid reporters for the eTwinning conference this year. They are filming and interviewing key personalities during the event. On the last day, they will show their work to the whole conference in the closing session. They are being led by their very motivated English teacher Constanţa Harşeu.

The team is made up of 16-20 year olds, and includes Florin Băran, Adrian Priminescu, Cosmina Ioniţă, Mihaela Sîrbu, Matei Liberis and Adrian Bulboaca. So far they have interviewed high level guests, including the Commissioner Figel and the Romanian Minister of Education. We are looking forward to seeing their film on Sunday!

Alexa Joyce, European Schoolnet - eTwinning CSS

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The conference Keynote Speaker, Professor Sugata Mitra, talked about autonomous learning within primary education - and the way he did it totally captivated the audience!

Professor Mitra's field research both in India and UK strongly suggests that there is amazing learning potential in autonomous learning groups. The results of his "Hole In The Wall" experiments - where groups of children have been learning together using a single computer, without a teacher or a school schedule - first seemed completely incredible. After a while, however, it all started to make sense: just consider the way young people acquire amazing language skills today through collaborative computer games.

Another interesting aspect in the work of Prfessor Mitra has a connection to the OLPC initiative which focuses on supplying laptops to the developing countries, with the ultimate goal of one laptop per child. If the learning magic is all about the group dynamics, there is no need for every child to have a computer of his or her own. Indeed, this might even be counterproductive!

The final message from Professor Mitra that touched me the most was when he stated that children can learn pretty much anything - it you let them, and if they want to. It's as easy - and difficult - as that.

Podcact
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Posted by: Niilo Alhovaara, eTwinning ambassador at Tunaskolan in Luleå, Sweden
Email: niilo.a@gmail.com
Web: webzine Tunabladet

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First Day of the etwinning conference finished late at night!
This is my first time in such a conference and I was very impressed. First of all organization ran very smoothly and the programme was followed rather diligently. Second the key note speaker Professor Sugata Mitra was so interesting, he had his audience captivated for more than 45 minutes. And we didn’t even squirm on our seats because we wouldn’t want to miss a word, would we? He made us wonder on many things, our role as teachers, our role as parents and what we have been doing for so long trying to teach the difference between Present Simple and Present Continuous. When we leave this conference and go back to our classrooms, we will think twice before following our old routines.

The award ceremony was very touching as well. I don’t know about you but I always get emotional at such events. Seeing people who have worked so hard, being appreciated never fails to touch a nerve. What they said but mostly what they did was inspiring for us all. Congratulations everybody!

The exhibition on the 13th floor was very lively too! The Bulgarian and Spanish stands were voted among us (greek delegates) the ones with the best food and drinks! The Irish stand was given the (unofficial) prize for most lively atmosphere. Happy St Patrick’s day fellow e-twinners. After feasting on so much wine and local drinks and trying so many delicacies, but most importantly after we had met so many people, exchanged ideas and looked for new partnerships it was difficult to leave the room to go for the cocktail party.

The photograph is from the award ceremony, where the project Aspects of Religion was a runner-up in the 11-14 category.

posted by Anna Varna, e-twinning ambassador, Greece

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Brian Holmes, from the Education and Culture Executive Agency, and part of the eTwinning Steering Committee, made an interesting presentation on the impact of eTwinning in schools, and future plans for how it might evolve.

Alexa Joyce, European Schoolnet - eTwinning CSS

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