Visibility of eTwinning Projects Group July 2014 Newsletter
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Involvement and Enrichment
by Olga Antonioli
I started on the eTwinning ambassadorship path in
2010 without a clear idea of what they expected me
to do. I was simply an enthusiastic eTwinner with
some experience in eTwinning projects.
I started keeping myself up-to-date because I
considered it necessary if I wanted to give my
colleagues advice and suggestions to solve their
problems.
I was shy and afraid when I first showed my first
Spartan PowerPoint presentation in a regional
seminar. I talked about eTwinnning and my projects
with passion and with the worry of being unable to
answer my colleagues’ questions. I took for
granted they knew more than me as eTwinning
projects had become part of my teaching, but soon
I realized that most of them had never heard about
eTwinning, or were fearful to start a project, or
hardly used a computer. I had the impression that
they considered my experience a bit far from theirs
especially for the use of web 2.0 tools and I had the
opposite effect.
I took part in a certain number of Learning Events
offered by the eTwinning portal itself. I did not care
if I had to work at night because it was also my
challenge. Among them I completed Level I and
Level II of the Learning Course for Ambassadors,
and that gave me a great satisfaction as only a few
of us finished the second part. I took part in
Professional Development Workshops as well where
I had occasions to meet personally some of the
European colleagues I had worked online with. Lots
of motivating and enriching Italian seminars have
also helped to build my training.
I spent a lot of time thinking about how I could
make my experience simpler, more desirable,
involving and challenging for my inexperienced
colleagues. I had to find out the right key to open
their mind and make them think they also were
able to do good projects and so to become active
eTwinners.
In these years the number of teachers, schools and
projects registered on the eTwinning portal has
increased a lot in my region Molise, and that means
there has been a great willing to innovation.
94