"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!

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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 !!!

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.

bye bye Comenius - introducing Erasmus for All

Erasmus for All is the new EU programme for education, training, youth and sport proposed by the European Commission on 23 November 2011.

Let's say bye bye to Comenius, Grundtvig, Leonardo da Vinci and all of these actions: the European Commission decided to stop using the different existing names of mobility programmes and gather all of them under the widely recognised  "brand" of Erasmus - a name strongly associated with learning abroad and European cooperation. It's obviously considered to be a name that markets itself and could work as a sort of advertisement for the whole programme.

You can read more about this new action, including FAQs, key figures, and a short video presentation, at the European Commission - Education and Training website.


But - naming apart - what changes will be introduced by this new programme?
Difficult to say. Let's listen to the European Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou, who presented Erasmus for All and Creative Europe programmes, during a press conference in Brussels at the end of November.



Of course, we're just at the beginning of this new European journey and we can't judge something that is not even born. And please remember, this is just my very personal opinion. Anyway, I'm not sure that "financial austerity which all member states face" can be considered enough to describe what we are living now in Italy, Greece, and lots of European countries. And it's not enough to explain the crisis of the EU as a whole, the progressive lack of confidence and trust of common people, students and teachers and workers, European citizens - lack of trust in their national governments first, and then in the EU as an ideal, as a common cause.
I'm happy to know the EU is still willing to invest on the future - on learning, on youth - and I'm happy to know despite the crisis there will be a larger amount of money to support mobilities. People traveling, studying, working and having experiences abroad will help raise awareness about the importance of a strong, consistent, European Union.
But unfortunately, in my opinion, this is not enough. The educational world cannot fight on its own to keep Europe together, when European politicians fight each other every day to keep their countries apart.
Who knows, maybe next programme should be called "Less Selfishness for All"...