A way to enter the eTwinning world?

Georgiadou MariaeTwinning ambassador of Southern Aegean –Greece

European Programmes’ promoter of South Aegean for secondary education

Being fascinated by an eTwinning LE,

thanks to which I have learnt about

“ A hole in the wall” of Sugata Mitra,

I decided to create “my hole in

eTwinning”, by asking myself simple

questions, as he did!......

Etwinning is a successful story of European school collaboration. How can somebody have an idea of what it means?

From the number of registrations

From the number of projects

Let’s see the statistics!

It’s common for all the countries that:the number of registered users is much greater

than that of projects! Why?

You must have a project idea before searching for partners! ETwinners have the possibility to find ready made projects kits to use or to take ideas

from them. Let’s see how:

1) Project kits2) Project

gallery

Project kits: search by 12 thematic fields

Project Gallery

41/10 ( that means that 10 out of 41 are easy)

10/2

16/3

36/748/11

27/10

23/4

1/-

4/-

36/17

46/12

26/9

Three levels of projects: easy, intermediate, advanced. If an eTwinnerwanted to start with an easy one, how many easy projects would find in

eTwinning? Let’s have a look in every category

RESULTS

1) 75 out of 186 projects are “easy”2) You can have the same project in many fields.3) The same kit may be included in many different fields. For example, the kit “Young entrepreneur” exists in the follow categories: technology, languages, economics and entrepreneurship, culture. That means that the number of kits is

much smaller.

Asking people who attended eTwinning workshops ,if they started an eTwinning project, they answered:

3) I have no partner!

Although, many of them accepted to

participate to an easy project, started by a

new friend and old eTwinner!

1) I need time to understand

2) It’s too much things to manage!

What exactly is a project?

A project is an organized commitment of effort

to produce a defined outcome within defined

constraints of scope, time, budget, and quality

(Jim Hertzfeld)

Let’s consider as easy project ,that commitment

of short effort, that provides these defined outcomes,

described before.

Finishing, I would like to make some more…simple questions:

1) “The beginning is half of everything” told Pythagoras.Are mini project kits the secret of being involved in

eTwinning? ( speaking especially for the new etwinners)2)Would be useful to create some of them?

3)How to proceed?4)What about introduce this activity in the eTwinning

workshops?5) Could Ted –Ed be a source of inspiration to create

project kits?

A way to enter the eTwinning world?

Trying to get answers.

Let’s begin with the 3 first questions:

1)Are mini project kits the secret of being involved in

eTwinning?2)Would be useful to create

some of them?3)How to proceed?

Starting by the fact that all new eTwinners would start with an easy project, we take for granted that mini project kits would really be of great support!

You can try, as an experiment, to propose an easy project to the participants of your eTwinning

workshop! I think that most of them would meet the project!

This is exactly what I did, when an eTwinning friend,

Bastiaensen Ben, sent me a message about joining his easy project, entitled "A European

Winter". ( Thanks Ben!) The idea was to collect pictures and movies about winter in your

Country. Many of my workshop participants have joined it! So, the answer to the second question is

…yes, it would be useful to create some mini project kits and let’s see now, how we can proceed

for that.

It’s time to examine all the easy project kits that exist in eTwinning, in order to understand their proper characteristics and understand also, how to create

new of them.

.

Of course, we should mention that the projects that we will observe are finished , done and closed, while we are speaking about mini project kits, just in term of ideas. So, with the term of mini project kits, we are referring to the ideas that could become projects and the way to develop them.

A project kit contains information about:1) Details (description of the project)

2)Pedagogical objectives 3)Process 4) Evaluation 5) Follow-up 6)Links

1)As we have seen in the first part, 75 out of 185 projects are classified as easy, but in fact their number is much smaller, because the same

project can be classified in many categories or thematic fields.

2) We observed that , apart from the objectivesthat are directly connected with the subject

(pedagogical objectives), there some other that could be used in every project. For example,

concerning the description of the project , or the general objectives, we could refer these ones:

to know each other and become friendsdevelop pupils’ abilities to communicate

in a foreign languageenhance pupils’ ICT skills

enhance pupils’ understanding and knowledge of different cultures and

culturesOvercome prejudices and increase

tolerance- stimulate creativity

3) About the work process, we observe that the activities are classified by month or by different

steps , such as: -starting activities-consolidation-conclusion

4) THE MAJORITY of the easy projects are of short duration ( 1 , 2, 3, or 6 months, even 1-3

weeks as the project “ four seasons”, for example!

As I told you in the beginning, Sugata Mitra was my inspiration for these thoughts.

• Thanks to Anne Gilleran’s Learning Event about 21st century skills

• I saw the video“ Build a school in the cloud”

• and I knew Sugata Mitra and

• TED Ed. What a pleasure!

My question ( not BIG!....) is: WHAT ABOUT IF, APART FROM ETWINNING KITS,MODULES AND PROJECT GALLERY, WE USED

TED ED,AS AN INSPIRING MEANS FOR CREATING MINI ETWINNING PROJECT KITS?

A mini project kit, as we described before, is a project idea, with a small description of it and with the general and

pedagogical objectives. The other parts, concerning the work process, or the evaluation would be developed by all the

partners.

In the eTwinning workshops or webinars, I would like to put this idea into practice:

1. Show participants how to look for project ideas via eTwinningand Ted ed.

2. Ask them to complete their kit by adding the subject description and some general or pedagogical objectives

3. Every kit will be added on a padlet, sent to the new eTwinners in their mails , hoping that just after the

workshop/webinar, they will have their mini project kits!

Let’s see now, how we will explore Ted -Ed and what exactly it is?

1.At first it was TED : a non profit organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading., created in

California ,26 years ago.2.After that, TEDx , created in 2009, gives

communities, organizations, libraries, universities and individuals the opportunity to stimulate dialogue through TED-like experiences at the local level. The

philosophy is always the same: ideas worth spreading.

.

3.TED- Ed: using engaging videos on TED-Ed, you can create lessons worth sharing and amplify

the voices of the world’s greatest educators.

Does these created lessons could be a

source of project ideas, leading to mini project

kits?

Let’s explore TED’s environment!

TED offers great ideas through its videos

There are also video lessons filtered by content or duration!

You can even create your lesson , using TED videos,or yours!

Let’s see an example: 1. We go to http://ed.ted.com/lessons ( to find lessons) or

to https://www.ted.com/talks/browse ( to have access to all the talks)

2. To the search engine , I write what I want, for instance “physics”

I choose my video and I start working on it. If I have a gmail account, I can insert my video at

www.videonot.es, which will permit me to take notes while looking at the video.

Maybe, some of you, would ask this question: “ Why to try to create a project kit, if it’s easier to find a partner first and work on his

project idea? In the Tricider, 18 out of 23 said that new eTwinnersprefer that for many, many reasons.

I agree. But I believe that trying to find your personal idea and develop it with your partner(s) is a very fruitful procedure, enhancing enthusiasm, creative spirit and self-confidence! It’s the first contact with your future

project and …..as you know, the beginning is the half of everything! ( Pythagoras again!)

But even if you work on your partner’s fresh idea, youcan look for a TED video, related to your theme , in order

to get it more interesting! You can also use it in the classroom!

Everything you write is saved at google drive. You can also share the link or invite your partner( if you have already

found) and work together, watching the video at the same time!

Etwinning gives great opportunities to take project ideas and create your mini project kit, which will be developed by you and your partners. With Ted-ed, this opportunity

gets bigger and maybe with more social character.

This webinar was inspired by an eTwinning Learning Event + a Ted video. So, this is the proof that this

combination gives inspiration!

My next webinar will be based on the SOLE TOOLKIT of Sugata Mitra,again!

(SOLE= Self O rganized Learning Environment)

http://www.ted.com/prize/sole_toolkitWe could work on that and present our results in the next webinar, if you find

it interesting!

Thank you for your

attention!