Visibility of eTwinning Projects Group Newsletter no. 5 - July 2015 | Page 10
Visibility of eTwinning Projects Group July 2015 Newsletter
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------eTwinning is the best way to learn! It is great to be
an eTwinner!
international meetings as well as various online
learning events on the eTwinning portal.
And now to communicate with you and to make you
smile, this girl is for you, with all our love…
Almost imperceptibly, I changed the way of
teaching, acquired new knowledge and skills in the
logic of lifelong learning and furthermore my
attitude towards my students became more
dynamic, open and cooperative.
There was also an evolution in the students
involved in the projects. The first participants were
shy and afraid to face European peers, were not
curious and constantly they had to be encouraged
and urged to work. Little by little students gained
more self-confidence and courage, enjoyed using
ICT tools with their own creativity and dared to do
better the next time. They themselves spread the
word to the new students who spontaneously asked
me to activate a European project.
PS – This was made with imagination, love, white
paper and 12 coloured pencils by Matilde Real, 5
years old. Guilherme, 5 years old, took a picture of
Matilde’s work with a digital Cassio camera. Afonso,
5 years old, edited the photo in Microsoft office
2010 and our teacher imported it here.
So are you smiling? Good! So we are
communicating!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My eTwinning experience
by Olga Antonioli
In November 2014 and May 2015 I took part in two
regional workshops as a pedagogical advisory. I
illustrated the benefits teachers and students gain
directly and indirectly from eTwinning: authentic
learning, collaboration, professional development,
European dimension, ICT use, tolerance and much
more.
I have written these lines for those teachers who
are still reluctant to take advantage of the
opportunities eTwinning offers. In these 10 years
of eTwinning involvement I have met lots of them.
Most of them make a list of personal reasons which
prevent them from embarking on a European
project and complain about students’ demotivation.
How could we be innovative if we do not start to
innovate ourselves?
In 2005 I joined the eTwinning portal, driven by
curiosity and the desire to improve myself as an
educator.
It was not an easy task to find my first partner:
there were not all the guidelines and tutorials that
abound nowadays and not many colleagues were
available to start collaborating with people they did
not know. I did not give up. I turned difficulties into
positive learning opportunities: slowly but with
determination, I learned to find my way in the
portal, to build bridges of friendship, to use the
computer in an innovative way and to collaborate
with pupils and colleagues.
At first my professional and personal growth was
stimulated and supported by the participation in
training courses organized by the Italian National
Support Service, then by regional, national and
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