Visibility of eTwinning Projects Group Newsletter no. 5 - July 2015 | Page 73
Visibility of eTwinning Projects Group July 2015 Newsletter
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Now, I could not think of another eTwinning project
without the families’ collaboration to help their
children and the school to grow up together. Then…
let us cooperate together!
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Hurrayyy! eTwinning goes national!
by Esen Sandiraz
I am a teacher of English and European Projects
Head Coordinator at Toros College in Mersin,
Turkey. I have been working with eTwinning
projects for about 6 years. I am eTwinning projects
and ITEC project teacher trainer in my country.
I would like to tell you about my eTwinning National
Project “İlden İle eTwinning’”.
When I heard that eTwinning decided to run a pilot
and open the platform to national projects to
encourage collaboration of teachers and students
from the same country, I got really pleased, phoned
my colleague Adil Tuğyan, who is one of the most
experienced Turkish eTwinners, and in a short time
we decided to start a brand new national project
together. We were aware of the fact that new
eTwinners and less experienced teachers who don’t
speak a second language will take advantage of this
new opportunity because it would give them the
possibility to have an idea about collaborative
learning and the opportunity to use eTwinning
platform in their own language.
Our project was about getting to know each other’s
culture, historical places, local cuisine, and daily
lives in different cities of Turkey. There were more
than 50 participating schools in this project. We
sent a mascot, a teddy bear, by post, that is
travelling from one participating school to another.
The mascot stayed a week in each city and in each
school. Teddy participated in lessons with the
pupils, visited students’ homes, had spare time
activities and tried to get information about the
city. During the visit, students took photos and
videos, prepared slideshows, joined online lessons,
used ICT tools, wrote down what he/she
experienced and shared with other partner school
students.
The subject and the aim of the project were closely
connected with the school curriculum and our
school education programme. The pupils improved
their level of English, Turkish, maths, ICT skills etc.
thanks to the project - mainly the communication
skills.
The project is an example of innovative way of
Language Teaching,too. Using a mascot motivated
pupils and increased interest in language learning.
Pupils and teachers developed ICT skills and
improved their understanding of working together.
The project taught tolerance and developed creative
thinking.
Our project “İlden İle eTwinning” is a crosscurricular project housing a lot of pedagogical and
educational aspects within:
It was the first national eTwinning project
consisting of 50 schools from different cities
in Turkey.
It had project and inquiry based learning
styles because during the project class
activities students created their own
learnings by carrying out the activities
individually and in teams. They seached for
information and refined it and then reflected
their outcomes to others for inspiration.
It had technology entegrated with the
project activities in which students
developed their ICT skills.
It had a very well organized communication
networks through internet and face to face.
It had a very well balanced collaboration
among the partners in terms of sharing the
workload and responsibilities.
It had clearly visible outcomes and
products.
It had the power to flip the classroom with
our online classes with our partner school.
It had joy and excitement while the
students were waiting for Teddy to visit
their ͍