Partners across Europe: emagazine n.6 "eTwinning e la realtà"

I built myself a house of glass:
It took my years to make it:
And I was proud. But now, alas!
Would God someone would break it.
...
Edward Thomas

Sometimes I wonder how many teachers, especially at secondary level, still live in their personal “house of glass”, still feeling proud of it.

Maybe in the past you could call them “good teachers”: after all, they do care about their students, they spend much of their out-of-school time to prepare tests, correct them, make up new exercises, they make polite conversation with their colleagues and… they are desperately isolated.

But in a time of global crisis, with more and more unemployed families, with growing social tensions all around Europe, with schools lacking money for ICT equipment/ substitute teachers/ books/ paper / younameit, with misinformation often running through the web, at easy reach of our students… isolated teachers cannot be “good” enough anymore. They have to collaborate and share. They have to teach themselves how to become good partners.

I think eTwinning is the ideal starting point for this. Projects, Teachers’ Rooms, Learning Events, Workshops and seminars are the European meeting point for individuals who are willing to share in their profession and in their life, and become members of a community.

I thank all of those teachers who lured me in eTwinning - and in Europe - and let me try to be a good partner for them as they were for me. I’m proud of giving up my house for a condo!

I thank all of the eTwinners who contributed to this ebook, thus giving evidence of what being “partners across Europe” really means.

And I thank Mrs Fiora Imberciadori, who was the first to make me understand - and care about - what being an European citizen and teacher could mean to me.

eTwinning e la realtà n.6

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Zen and the Art of Teachers' Rooms Manteinance

Hi everybody, I'm sharing this time a great resource we created together during the eTwinning Learning Event "eTwinners go social: creating and managing a successful Teachers' Room".

I ran the Learning Event in December 2012, together with a great team of co-managers: Antonella Ciriello, Elena Pezzi, Maria Rosaria Fasanelli, PAola Arduini and Monika Kiss.

It was a wonderful thrilling experience, not only for what we taught and learned concerning Teachers' Rooms and our place in the eTwinning geography, but also because, once more, we experienced the power of teams.
And then, it was a special experience because of the people we had the opportunity to meet.

Believe me, whatever you are doing, if you do it together it will come out a lot better - often in an unespected direction.

This time, together with the participants, we decided to share our reflections and opinions with a wider public of eTwinners - and not only. We believed our ideas, tips and suggestions should go further than the closed space of the Learning Lab.

That's why, at the end of our journey, we created this Teachers' Rooms Handbook.

Have fun everybody, keep on travelling the eTwinning world, keep on sharing, meeting, imagining, chatting, teaching and learning...

A big THANK YOU to all of the contributors, enjoy your handbook

Laura

Zen and the Art of Teachers' Rooms Manteinance

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Teaching Teams: the safe net

As many of you may know, I'm one of those teachers who are actually happy to be one, despite the crisis, all of the red tape, the stressful routine, the neverending meetings, you name it. Now, I think that's because I've found in my career a safe net that provides me from falling at times, and that keeps me motivated and supported at all times: that's teaching teams.

I’ve been teaching for 15 years now, first in private schools in Italy and abroad, teaching Italian as a foreign language, then in the Italian public schools, as a secondary teacher of Literature, History and Geography.
And all the way, I’ve been fond of team working (both among teachers and students), of international cooperation, and of edu-tech.

Every single year of my career has been marked by a different kind of collaboration with my colleagues, my pupils, and my international partners. And year after year, the net – the virtual dimension of “being together” – has gained a central role in my teaching. That is to say, I’m more and more involved into teaching and learning together with people (teachers, students, experts) that are actually not in my classroom.

But let’s see the steps of my team-building process in the public school:

1. First - edUtopia: at the beginning of my career in the public school, teaching in a Lower Secondary school, back in 2000, I taught in a course with extended time. This means the students had 36 hours/week: 5 in the morning (mon-sat) + 6 in the afternoon (two afternoons of 3 hours each). It was a paradise, as teamworking was officially recognized: in fact, in the afternoons there were hours of teamteaching – Mother Tongue + Foreign Languages and Mother Tongue + Maths/Science. Our Ministry of Education understood how important it is for teachers to work together in order to have the pupils learn (understanding the connections between different subjects) and, but I’m not sure the Ministry was actually aware of this, the teachers actually learnt a lot from each other by being together in the same class. Teaching Teams were a great professional development tool at zero cost (think in terms of teaching styles, assessment, etc.). We made our first steps in the world of European projects together. We worked with our first partners and started sharing online. Do I need to say that our best projects were born here? out of collaboration among colleagues off- and on line?

2. Next – why paying two for one? The edUtopia period lasted some five/six years, enough for me to learn a lot and to miss them badly now. Then of course, as everywhere in the world for what I know, governments decided to cut on “unessential expenses” – read: education and services. Paying for two teachers at the same time was considered to be crazy, so if we wanted to go on in our collaboration, we had to do this in our spare time. Or we could do it – we were lucky at the beginning – with the support of Local Authorities that paid for extra hours of co-teaching. It was no more official, still we had some hours to actually share in the classroom. By now, we had partners throughout Europe and having them with us, during our lesson, quickly became something normal. So, in order to learn from other professionals, we could not only turn to each other, but also to our net-colleagues. We run lots of successful projects (and as you know, by “successful” I mean those projects where students learn & enjoy, not only those actually awarded) and we learnt a lot ourselves.

3. Today – praise the “safe net”. In a time of crisis, and of spending review, do you think there’s any room for two (or more) teachers being together in the same classroom? Do you think we can invest on education? So, just forget teaching teams, unless you want to do everything in your free time (which we often do, because we care!). But here’s the good news: after years of sowing, we can now harvest. And our crops are our partners, a net of colleagues scattered here and there in the world, who share, and discuss, and learn, and teach with us, every day, through the web. This net of teachers, met through eTwinning, Comenius and other international projects, is today our safe net. I think it is correct to say that LLP is today for any European teachers the best provider of professional development opportunities: formal ones – Comenius in-service training, eTwinning PDWs and LEs … - and informal ones, mainly through eTwinning. And then, there’s the web, and fellow teachers and edubloggers all around the world. So, teaching teams are today wider and wider nets, that can turn into safe nets at times.

At least, that’s what happens to me every day. In this blog first of all, and then in eTwinning (in Groups, in the "eTwinning e la realtà" teachers' room, etc.).

So I thank my colleagues, those I meet every day in my school, I thank my colleagues and partners troughout Europe, I thank my friends blogger, met online, here and there, in the strangest ways, and I thank all of the students I’ve met in my life. I thank you for what I keep learning (and teaching) every day with your help.
Luckily, we are each other's best resource in a time of crisis.

Learning is a social process, and I’m happy to “go social” with you.

Dissemination, Maths and Science... and lots of languages!

Here's the latest issue of the "eTwinning e la realtà" emagazine.

Once again, it's a multilingual emagazine: this time in English, French, Italian, German and Hungarian.

We decided to keep the multilingual structure, instead of sticking to the traditional "English only" feature, to underline the European dimension of our team, and our work. We didn't want to lose the feeling of our different identities and different competences.

Our differences are what makes our team so special, and so useful. To me, it has been sometimes a safe net in case of need.

So thank you everybody, thank you eTwinning, thank you enthusiastic European teachers.
Enjoy our emagazine!

eTwinning e la realtà - Europe Calling

Summer - as we said in another post, for a teacher it's time for friends, relax, holidays, and edu tech !

True, we couldn't stop exploring the web & meeting online, and given more time, lots of us eTwinners spent the hot afternoons trying out new tools, planning future projects and devising new ways to spread our ideas and experiences throughout Europe.

And, as for us...

The 'eTwinning e la realtà' teachers' room went on being our meeting point, and that's where Antonella first got the crazy idea of a multilingual issue of our e-magazine. "We can translate our articles... we can ask our partners for help... we will help each other... we will make it!"
We were a bit anxious at first, but she was right - we could definitely rely on the eTwinners' skills in collaboration.

So, a group of enthusiastic/crazy teachers spent some of their summer translating the articles, laughing when they got mixed up or when they needed some funny periphrasis because "I can't find the word", asking each other for help, and chatting a lot. We were thrilled: we could get in contact with teachers from different countries, going beyond the national dimension.

Here's the outcome of our summer collaboration: a special multilingual issue of the "eTwinning e la realtà" emagazine, with articles in English, Hungarian, French & Italian.
That's our eTwinning gift to celebrate the new school year.

We hope other eTwinners, throughout Europe, will read our stories and find them useful and inspiring.
And we hope we'll go on collaborating, and widening our circle.

I thank all of the teachers who created the ebook.

Welcome back to school everybody... enjoy our new emagazine!

eTwinning Team Power

Hi everybody, just few lines this time to wish you all the happiest summer holidays ever.

And if you need something to read on the beach, what about having a look at our new issue of the "eTwinning e la realtà" emagazine? You can read it online or download the pdf version - download is free as long as you have a Calameo account (if you don't, creating one is a matter of minutes).

This post is a big "thank you" to all those ones who contributed, supported, liked our teachers' room, or only had a look from time to time.

And this post is our answer to all those ones who question the social aspect of eTwinning. We created three ebooks, we wrote lots of posts, we got plenty of new ideas, we just helped each other. We didn't need any certificate, any diploma, or any extra money to be convinced to do it. We enjoyed being together and we found it useful. This was enough. And that's the closest to a Community of Practice I've ever been.

Laura

"eTwinning e la realtà" - emagazine n.2

Here's the latest issue of our "eTwinning e la realtà" emagazine.

This time, we concentrate on practical ideas for eTwinning teams and for students' mobilities in eTwinning / Comenius / self-financed projects.

I talked about our teachers' room "eTwinning e la realtà", and the pleasure of working together,  in another post. So, this time, I'll just say once more how happy and lucky I feel for the people I met and the ideas I got there. I definitely felt creativity is a collective process.

The ebook, as well as the teachers' room, are in Italian: in fact, at the beginning they were ment as a series of experiences, tools, suggestion, ideas and strategies for new Italian eTwinners.

Anyway, this second issue, and the third one, that will follow soon (ideally, first half of June) are so rich in useful information, tips & hints, that we are planning to translate some of the articles in different languages. It will be a huge thing, I know... but together, huge things just become a succession of small steps.

Thank you everybody for making the best of teams!

---

E visto che l'emagazine è in italiano, una piccola introduzione in lingua madre mi sembrava d'obbligo!

Vi siete mai chiesti che documenti ci vogliono per portare i ragazzi all'estero nelle varie fasce d'età (primaria - secondaria di primo e secondo grado)?

...o che succede se un ragazzo perde la carta d'identità all'estero?

...oppure quante riunioni fare / come parlare con i genitori prima di organizzare uno scambio?

...e che fare se il vostro team comincia a traballare pericolosamente nel bel mezzo di un progetto?

...o come chiedere un riconoscimento per le ore extra effettuate in un progetto, o una diaria per le mobilità?

Bé, in questo ebook troverete, se non proprio tutte le risposte, almeno delle indicazioni e delle esperienze di "vita vissuta".

Per la parte sulle mobilità, che è un vero patrimonio, troverete davvero risposte esaurienti, e molto di più! Nel twinspace pubblico di TNG (sotto "useful materials" - cartella 8: mobilità degli studenti) ho caricato una raccolta di schede e documenti utili per organizzare lo scambio (scheda sanitaria, cosa metto in valigia, scheda per gli abbinamenti, ecc) che le colleghe hanno messo a disposizione di tutti.

Per la parte sui team, considerato che ognuno è diverso e unico, abbiamo condiviso esperienze e strategie di "how to" sviluppate nella nostra storia di eTwinners.

Buona lettura a tutti !!!

eTwinning e la realtà

This post is meant to celebrate the little word that works magic: together.

At the beginning of December 2011, I had this idea of creating a special place in eTwinning where I could meet like-minded colleagues and friends, exchange ideas and support each other. I created a teachers' room (never tried before, I just thought I could give it a try: I was curious and wanted to take advantage of all of the opportunities offered by eTwinning).
I named it "eTwinning e la realtà" because I didn't want another place for talking about an ideal world, where eTwinning is always the answer, where everything is simply perfect and all we have to do is congratulate each other on our success stories. Of course there are success stories, and of course we do congratulate, but real school life is not an exhibition: that's what it is, real life - not always perfect, not always successful. And I wanted to talk about reality, about our everyday practice in European projects, about the ups and downs of our schooldays, about our needs. Who knows teachers' needs better than teachers? So, let's have a place where to state what we need and ask for it. Who knows? Someone may listen.

I called some Twin-friends, told them about my idea, asked if they were willing to join in. And that's how the teachers' room was born.

Few days after creating "eTwinning e la realtà" I was involved in a car accident. Everything was forgotten for a couple of months. But that's when the little world, together, did its magic.
When I went back to the teachers' room, I found it was full of ideas, messages, stories, jokes and projects. It was full of people with my same passion and hopes.

And we came up with this idea of creating an emagazine out of our experiences, a collection of "stories" we could use in order to compare our different journeys in European projects, to encourage new eTwinners to get more involved and to disseminate the spirit of eTwinning.

A couple of months later, here we are with our e-magazine. It was born thank to all of us, not only those who wrote the articles, but all of the others, who helped me with their suggestion, support, knowledge and, again, experience. It's so nice to feel you're doing something thank to someone else's experiences. This means that our success stories are important, but our mistakes have a value as well: they can prevent others from making the same mistake. We can provide others with the solutions we already have.

So, thanks everybody. And... here are our stories!

Rita Napoli, Rossana Falsetti, Mónika Kiss, Elena Pezzi, Maria Rosaria Fasanelli, Paola Arduini, Sandra Branconi, Barbara Furiesi,
 Maria Grazia di Iasio, Laura Maffei

LOOKING FOR CONTRIBUTORS: High School/university students, young workers

Let's look at the other side of the coin...

We've been talking a lot about CLIL and cooperation programmes from the teachers' point of view.
We all agree Comenius, Grundtvig, eTwinning and all related actions are crucial for our professional development and we believe they motivate and engage our students with a positive impact on their competences. True. Or is it?
I mean, we want to think the effect is what we planned. But are we sure? How are these experiences seen (and lived) by the students? What do they think? What's the impact of these actions on their lives?

The best way to know is ask the main actors of cooperation projects: students.

That's why we are looking for "guest posts" written by High School students, University students and young workers who had the opportunity to live any kind of cooperation experience in the UE and beyond.

How to apply:

• posts must be limited to 500/600 words (images welcome if not copyright protected) - all of EU languages are welcome
• content of articles is at the discretion of the eContributor, as long as it deals with international work/study experiences
• please forward your contribution along with a short resume about yourself (not a curriculum vitae, just few lines so that we know who you are!) to laura_maffei@yahoo.com or kiss.mnika76@gmail.com
• you will be given access info to publish the article yourself
• deadline for submission: February the 26th

So, if you are a student/just graduated/worker, we re looking for you!

And for all our fellow teachers... why don't you ask your students to share with us their experiences?

Looking forward to get to know more...

[to be continued...]

Working for a better future

In the last three years I had many opportunities to travel and get to know more about the education systems and lifestyles of the different European countries. This happened because my school partecipates in programmes like Comenius and eTwinning.

I have had so many experiences… I saw beautiful countries, met great people and we prepared interesting activities together. But what I like best – I think, if we can visit a partner school, we can get to know more about real life in a country.

Sometimes it happened that I was surprised at the richness of materials that a school and teachers could have for free in their everyday job. For example in France in a primary school I found a lot of paints, tinted papers, pasteboards and didactic games. Maybe in your schools there are all of these things, but for me it was a miracle.
Another school in England had a great place for free activities, and a theatre room. Fantastic!

But sometimes I met very difficult situations as well. The deepest poverty I have ever seen was in a desert, near Syria. We visited one of our partner schools in Turkey, and then we went to visit the Ancient City of Harran.

While we were having a walk around the town, I heard that a child was crying. I tried to look around, but I couldn't see the child. Later, I found where he could be.. he was a little boy, in a barrow. I didn’t see him, only his foot. He was covered by some clouts. I didn’t meet his mom, he had only his two brothers next to the barrow. I was really sad, and I wished I could help.


The guide talked about life in a desert, and about people who five years ago lived in caves... in that moment I felt that what I consider a difficult situation in my life, in fact it is not so difficult compared to that. I have food to eat, a family, friends, a job I like - and actually I live in a house.

Now we live a crisis, and unfortunately I feel this school year many families have a really difficult situation in Hungary as well. Parents loose their job, don’t have enough time or patience to be with their daughters and sons. I see some of my pupils who can’t study because they are hungry or sleepy, and who don’t have such a simple and normal thing at school as a ruler. This week one of my pupils went to live in another town because of economic problems in her family.

What kind of future can they have? I am worried about it. The school and school foundation help. For example a little girl was given a new winter coat, other pupils can come with us in a theatre for free, etc. But because of social issues it is more and more difficult to study, to attend a good high school, or university.

European programmes help us give our pupils more opportunities. It is great to see how our pupils and parents are happy when we could visit our partners abroad or when our partners come to visit us and we are together or we prepare our new activities.
I would like to give the same opportunities to many many pupils, and help them feel that it is important to study, to speak a foreign language, make friends with someone different from us.

We often talk about it – we would like to build a better future. Yes, it is true. But we need help to do it.
I hope the EU, through „Erasmus for All” and other programmes, will help us reach what we would like to do so much.

an eTwinning story with the little ones

time flies...it is very true. My small pupils are 8/9 years old now, and for the third year we are together in our class.

I remember how excited I was when they started school - it was the very first time I could work as a primary school teacher. I had so many questions in my mind - will they really read, count and write, will I be able to  teach them all these important things? And another question: will they enjoy school? I just hoped the answer could be yes.

One of the very first school experiences for my pupils was an eTwinning project (Celebrating International Days for a Special Reason!, founder countries: Greece and Poland). It was a challenge for me too, because I "used" the project for building our community as well. I was lucky because we had partners from more countries in Europe, and we collaborated with kindergardens and primary schools, so it was perfect from the point of view of my pupils' age.

Children enjoyed the project activities, and at the end of first year we went to Budapest to take part in an eTwinning competition, and we celebrated in the classroom our fantastic prize: a new television! together with families, cakes and fun.




What does an eTwinning project mean for my pupils? interesting activities, friendship, opportunity to learn something not included in our school-books, experiences and having fun.

Just an example: at the end of our second school year one of my pupils asked me when we could go again to Budapest to participate in an eTwinning programme. I answered: I think, we can go again if we will "work" in our project. She told me: it is not a problem, we do it gladly, we just would like to go again.
For me it was great to hear it: if children are motivated, they do the activities because of eTwinning, just because they like them.

And yes, we went again to Budapest to play eTwinning :-).Just look at the picture about eTwinning Day for Children:

eTwinning Conference "Leading 21st century education" - conclusion

It's kind of funny when you think how many ideas, projects, doubts and (especially) questions can come out of a single event. The eTwinning Conference held in Genova was a gold mine for my personal reflections, not only dealing with the future of eTwinning, but with the future of the EU and the future of European education.

Which means, a huge part of my own future (and yours, if you're a teacher). Something we cannot fully decide for ourselves: and it's quite scary when you feel someone else is deciding for you.

 So, while in Genova, I just sat there all the time, staring at the policy makers, burning with questions, and hoping for some answers. Unfortunately, there actually was very little time for questions. And I must admit what was said was not exactly answering my doubts.

If you want the official covering of the event, you can have a look at the article on the eTwinning portal When eTwinning meets policy makers! You can find videos there , documents and much of what was said and done.

And if you want my very personal, very unofficial and very uncensored opinion as well, just go on reading!

I was convinced by:

- Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou's speech. True, eTwinning is an EU success story, and Heaven knows if Europe needs success stories these times. And true, as a success story it deserves more attention and recognition by the political world. Now, the question could be: is the political world interested in common EU success stories? or individual (national) selfishness is bound to prevail?

- The four workshops. Of course I loved mine (Pedagogical Practices), I found I had so much in common with the experts in my panel, even if we came from very different experiences (with me being the only simple teacher...). But I liked all of the workshops I could attend, and it was pleasant to see there were teachers in all of the panels: after all, there was someone who knew what we were talking about in practice, not just delivering a lecture. What's more, the workshops were the ideal size in terms of participants, so we could exchange ideas and try to find common solutions for our (common) issues. There was a debate, not just a speech from a stage. And here, there are two questions as well: 1) did the policy makers understand the real value of this cooperation between teachers all over Europe? or 2) did they look at it as a non-expensive toy to keep their teachers entertained and professionally growing (without them having to do anything)?

- Anne Gilleran's sentence: eTwinning is a place where you're allowed to fail. Great! Even if as teachers we're usually obsessed with being perfect, in fact we can't be. And it's a relief to feel free to make mistakes once in a while - and learn from them. That's what LifeLongLearning is supposed to mean. Now, to the question: will policy makers understand this? will we still be free to fail in an "institutionalized" eTwinning?

I was NOT convinced by:

- the projection of a bright technological future for the European schools, where teachers and students communicate via twitter, regularly meet on social networks and happily exploit ICT as creative educational tools. I've visited schools in Tuscany (and we're supposed to be one of the rich parts of Italy) where the ICT equipment is zero. A high percentage of teachers can't even hold a mouse. Lots of pupils think exploiting ICT means playing Wii or Play Station games. And there are even more serious issues: more and more families, in this time of crisis, can't afford buying a pc or paying for the internet access. Lots of Municipalities have less and less money to provide their schools with ICT equipment. Not to mention the crisis of European Education we've been discussing in another post (how can we forget all of those un-met benchmarks?). My feeling was that the impact of the present crisis was underestimated. It's my personal opinion, but the efficient and creative hypertechnological school of the future is Utopia school... or (worse) it is going to be an elite school for those who can afford it.

- the policy-makers speeches: sorry, apart from very few happy situations, the distance between the politicians and the EU-minded experts (Eugenio Riviere, Santi Scimeca, Anne Gilleran, Donatella Nucci etc) was patent. The politicians just kept seeing their small slice of the educational world, while the others talked in a wider perspective. And sadly, I'm not sure they had the same goals in mind. My question: did they understand each other?

...

Ok, that's all for my experiences and thoughts about Genova. I know maybe I've been boring with all of these posts, but we are living such a difficult period for the EU and the debate in Genova got for me a wider meaning, going beyond eTwinning.

After all, in my opinion the question is not if eTwinning will or won't be recognized by the institutions of the different countries. The question is: will the different countries recognize the existence - and value - of the European dimension in education?

eTwinning Conference "Leading 21st century education" - part two

The Eminent - eTwinning Conference in Genova has actually been a great series of events and a brilliant first step towards giving an institutional role to eTwinning.

Do you remember the key questions the conference was supposed to address? I do, but if you don't, just have a look here. I believe thousands of eTwinners are now anxious to know which role they'll be playing in the near future in their schools, in the European educational system and in their national educational systems.

Before I start with my own, very personal reflection, let me say I tried to keep track of all speeches and info I could put my hands on. Sometimes I wonder if eTwinning is actually disseminating itself well enough, as it was very difficult for me to find materials, presentations and speeches delivered during the conference. Anyway, you can find something here, through Eminent. And, as usual, I uploaded all that I could find in the TNG twinspace - first folder under "Useful materials". So, if you're curious and you'd like to know something of what was said and done, just have a look there.

Now, back to the key questions. I can't deal with all of them in this post, so, this "conference soap opera" will have a third chapter as well (maybe more). As for now, I'm just starting with the first question.

- How can professional development policies benefit from eTwinning practice?

Not sure of the answer - but believe me, all of the important people, policy makers and stakeholders were just as puzzled as I (the "normal" teacher) was. Of course eTwinning is a great place for professional development. Of course it's a place where we meet, share ideas, develop projects and thus we grow as better teachers (that's what a social network based on educational shared interest is supposed to do for us). And of course again, professional development policies already benefit from eTwinning (at almost zero cost: teachers choose eTwinning for no other reason that their passion - no funding involved for us).
So, eTwinning practice has already done a lot for professional development policies.
Now, in my opinion, the question should be different: what can professional developmet policies do for eTwinners? can our work and our passion be recognized someway?
The good news: in some countries, it is already. The bad news: most of the others think what we already have (?) is more than enough.

Now, let's talk for us in Italy. You can be a brilliant eTwinner, develop the best projects ever, have a collection of QLs and a fantastic net of reliable partners all around Europe. Great! You grow up to be an almostdigitalnative teacher, you have lots of competences, you're happy in your job and your pupils are enjoying their learning process. Now, say, one day you decide (or you have) to move to a different school. And ops! nothing of this beautiful world of experiences and competences is kept in your professional record. That is to say, your curriculum vitae is just as good as that of any "chalk & talk" teacher.
All of your eTwinning experience (which is precious, and I do believe it is), in fact does not exist for your Ministry of Education. Better, it is of no interest to them.
Well, I don't think that's much to encourage any teacher to enter the eTwinning world (or the EU projects world).
Lots of us are "old" eTwinners, we were pioneers first, then we developed in time the belief that the eTwinning  methodology can be both an incredible tool and an incredible meeting point for our teaching. We are here because we are sure that's the right pathway. But if we want to involve more teachers, if we want to have a bigger impact on education, if we want to go beyond the pioneer-stage... if we want more, we have to give more.

I believe the last 6 years in my life as a teacher cannot be kept apart from my life as an eTwinner. I learnt, shared and taught a lot in the eTwinning community. Is it so difficult for policy makers to understand this? Would have been better for me to pay for a traditional University course, and just sit there and listen to a lecturer for some 20 hours? In terms of my professional record, yes. In terms of my professional development, it would have meant learning, by listening, 1% of what I learnt through eTwinning, by doing.

Now, I get scared when I read things like these (quoting the Eminent blog)

" By the end of the session a common agreement had been reached: eTwinning should stay flexible and free and shouldn’t be overly controlled, as it is a safe environment. The general feeling was, “Do we really need to embed eTwinning in education policies? Don’t we risk diluting the essence of eTwinning?” "

Which general feeling? Not that of the teachers, be sure.
Of course we do need to embed eTwinning in educational policies! (still my very personal opinion) Otherwise it's like having a perfect educational world that doesn't exist for the real world. And I don't want to live in educational Utopia, I want real life. National and European policies should be able to speak the same language.
By the way, what was this conference for, if we don't think eTwinning should be embedded in education policies?
But I was there, and it was a good event: and I believe it was the beginning of something. I still believe utopia and reality can meet somewere.

Or am I just Alice in Wonderland?

BACK TO SCHOOL CAMPAIGN: involve your colleagues!

The eTwinning BACK TO SCHOOL campaign focuses this year on mentoring: eTwinning is growing as a strong teachers' community, where eTwinner helps eTwinner. And the "let's help each other" motto is the basis of our projects as well - LLT first and The Next Generation now.

So, let's involve more and more colleagues in this rewarding and exciting world. We already know by experience eTwinning can be addictive... now let's see if it can be contagious as well!

This BACK TO SCHOOL campaign is just asking us to go on doing what we are already doing: help new eTwinners, if we're experienced, or ask for help, if we are new.

Now, go to http://www.etwinning.net/ and have a look: there could be someone asking for help - or someone ready to answer your questions.

Most likely, there will be both. As all of us have lots of questions and answers. And that's why we come together :)

TEDGLOBAL 2011: The Stuff of Life

Let's take a break from CLIL for a while, and concentrate on "the stuff of life". Sounds funny? On the contrary, that's something very serious indeed.

You may remember Sugata Mitra's speech - the one Elena found for us. That's one of the speeches recorded during one of the TED conferences (I think 2007). And the TED motto is "ideas worth spreading".
So, who is TED? TED is a number of people who, since 1984, are sharing their ideas for a better future, and a better life, for all of us. There are two conferences a year: one in Spring, in the US, and one in Summer, in Europe. This year's TEDGLOBAL took place in Edinburgh , July 11-15. And its subject was "the stuff of life".

I was in the UK at the time and dreamt of attending. I say "dreamt" because I soon realized that 1) couldn't afford it; and 2) every single place had already been booked looong before.

So I had to wait for the videos to be uploaded on the conference website.

The idea of TEDGLOBAL has been defined "the speed dating of ideas": short speeches about different issues/opportunities/perspectives on a subject (in this case, the stuff of life) one after the other. That means scientists, writers, philosophers, economists, actors, politicians... all of them sharing their point of view, their ideas, their discoveries.

A shower of ideas.

So have a look and be sure - you'll find something for you as well:

http://conferences.ted.com/TEDGlobal2011/ 

http://www.ted.com/

An important note: many of the speeches have subtitles in different languages. After all, they're ideas worth spreading...

School Beyond Borders

School Beyond Borders
Colle Val d'Elsa, May the 3rd, 2011

Conference Proceedings

The seminar "School Beyond Borders" was held in Colle Val d'Elsa on May the 3rd 2011, in the context of initiatives for the Comenius Week 2011.

With this event, our aim was to collect and enhance the experience of the Valdelsa region referring to school partnerships in Europe.
Our area has, in fact, a strong tradition of involvement in Community programmes - mainly with Socrates first and LLP and later.

The seminar was born out of many years of involvement by the school "Arnolfo di Cambio" in LLP, especially Comenius in its various actions: multilateral partnerships, in-service training, eTwinning projects.

Our involvement culminated in March 2011, when Mrs. Laura Maffei with her Class III L of Casole d'Elsa won the eTwinning Prizes 2011 for the age group 12-14: the resulting participation in eTwinning Conference & Camp in Budapest, with the resonance given to it by the media, has helped to spread on the territory knowledge of the action and involvement of families and entire community.

At the same time, the Institute has expanded the participation of classes in the running Comenius, achieving excellent results in terms of sharing among colleagues and professional growth.

It was therefore felt the need to cooperate with schools in the area, at all levels of education, in order to share strategies and solutions in the area of European projects, while stimulating the involvement of territory, stakeholders and Authorities to a higher level.

Therefore, the work was aimed at an audience of "experts", in particular managers and teachers coordinators of European projects. Our goal was to share good practices, recognize common problems and develop possible solutions together.

We wanted to adapt each other's success stories and paths to the different learners' needs and to create a local "network", a vehicle for training and information.

A new LLP action was introduced as well: individual pupil mobility, which could be a new opportunity for the students in Valdelsa.

The seminar resulted in a new commitment: the commitment to meet in the future on a regular basis, the commitment to keep up the exchange and sharing at the local level and beyond. And finally, the commitment to share the moments of dissemination.

We thus hope that this event will be just the first in a series, because by confrontation and cooperation from local to global, the school could really go beyond borders: not only geographical borders, but ideological and social borders as well.

We thank all the participating schools:
- Primo Circolo di Poggibonsi
- Secondo Circolo di Poggibonsi
- Istituto Comprensivo Folgore da San Gimignano
- Scuola Secondaria di 1° Grado “Arnolfo di Cambio” di Colle Val d’Elsa – Casole d’Elsa - Radicondoli,
- Liceo Statale “A. Volta” di Colle Val d’Elsa.

We thank the teachers and Headteachers who shared their ideas and innovations.

We thank Mrs Alexandra Tosi and Mrs. Maria Lacovara, who brought the experience and support of the National Agency, illustrating the opportunities offered to schools, pupils, and teachers.

Finally, we thank the Municipality of Colle Val d'Elsa, for the organization of the event: because we believe that in order to create successful European project, we need to have strong roots in our own area.

Comenius Week 2011 - School Beyond Borders

As a part of the Comenius Week 2011, I'm organizing with my Institute the Seminar "School Beyond Borders - percorsi di innovazione dalla Valdelsa in Europa" (Teatro dei Varii, Colle Val d'Elsa, 03.05.2011).

The seminar deals with Comenius and eTwinning experiences in our area. Principals and teachers of Primary and Secondary schools of the Valdelsa will meet to share ideas, pathways and successful practice.We will have a representative of both Comenius and eTwinning National Agencies, who will introduce to us new opportuinities in the field of European projects. Comenius individual pupil mobility and implementation of eTwinning teams in the different institutes will be object of debate.The event will be hosted by Colle Val d'Elsa's Municipality in the Teatro dei Varii, inside the Mediaeval castle.