Visibility of eTwinning Projects Group Newsletter 6 2016 | Page 6

Visibility of eTwinning Projects Group July 2016 Newsletter

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------name a few) noticed in their works (see
Bibliography).
IV. Digital media offer new modes of representation
that shape intercultural communication and
perceptions. Publication is so cheap that almost
anyone can do it. The Internet has 'democratized'
representation by allowing individuals to represent
themselves and their various groups rather than
simply being represented. As in the Romanian 2014
presidential elections, citizens are able to provide
their own account of the unfolding situation.

The worldwide explosion of new media technologies
is uniquely situated at the crossroads of
interpersonal, intercultural and mass
communication. ICTs, including social media, but
also mobile phones, text messaging, email, online
games, blogs, Skype, enable people to connect
across cultures, nations, time and space in ways
unimagined until the dawn of the 21st century.
Bibliography:
Bennett, J. M., & Bennett, M. J. (2004) Developing
intercultural sensitivity: An integrative
approach to global and domestic diversity. In
D. Landis, J. Bennett & M. Bennett (Eds.),
Handbook of intercultural training (3rd ed).
Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Bruns, A. (2006) Wikinews: The next generation
of online news? SCAN Journal, 3 (3).
Byram, M. (1997) Teaching and Assessing
Intercultural Communicative Competence.
Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Couet, R., Fulkerson, G. and Bott Van Houten, J.
(2014) From Fact to Function: How
Interculturality Is Changing Our View of
Culture. The Language Educator, January 2014,
42-45.
Gans, H. (2001) Multiperspectival news
revisited: Journalism and representative
democracy. Journalism, 12 (1), 3-13.

Pfister, D. (2011) Networked expertise in an
area of many-to-many communication: On
Wikipedia and invention. Special Epistemology,
25 (3), 217-231.
Shohamy, E. & Gorter, D. (2009) Linguistic
landscape: Expanding the scenery. New York,
NY: Routledge.

Daniela Bunea is a teacher of English at Colegiul
National Gheorghe Lazar in Sibiu, Romania and a
Romanian eTwinning ambassador. Daniela is author
of online and onsite professional development
training courses. She has written articles about
teaching and learning with technology and 3 books
for children. She is also the coordinator of the
Visibility of eTwinning Projects Group and the editor
of this Newsletter.
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Core Values in eTwinning Projects
by Sophia Kouzouli
Abstract
This paper discusses the dynamic nature of
eTwinning projects reporting on the experience the
author gained from the eTwinning projects she did
with her classes during this school year. All the
projects lasted more than seven months, were
international and had a variety of work products
created by students. Identifying the values with
which eTwinning projects enrich pupils’ learning
experiences at school highlight their multifaceted
benefits, their pedagogical significance and their
creative character, and can be helpful in generating
future projects.
Introduction
The powerful qualities and contribution of
eTwinning projects reflect valuable insight, which
can definitely affect the designing of future projects
at school and enhance students’ participation. The
special characteristics of young learners (Mckay,
2006) from various countries cooperating and
learning a foreign language (Brown and Yule, 1983)
in the framework of a shared project and their
implications in creating for them a safe
environment for creative interaction (Petrina, 2007)
are very adequately catered for within eTwinning.

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