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?