Citizenship and European School Collaboration
More than 500 teachers from across Europe discussed the impact eTwinning has through school collaboration on citizenship at the annual eTwinning Conference on 14 – 16 March 2013 in Lisbon, Portugal.
The prize award ceremony is always the most important and interesting part of the eTwinning European Conference. The high quality projects and their coordinators from the all over Europe are awarded in different categories.
The winning projects are excellent examples of European cooperation, diversity, creativity, involvement of pupils and use of eTwinning and other ICT tools.
European Prizes: Winners 2013
The overall winner of eTwinning prizes 2013 was the project “The rainbow village”.
1. The Rainbow Village project
In this project students from France, Greece, Italy, Poland, Romania, Turkey, Slovakia and the United Kingdom learned to live together and shared their experiences.
The languages used were English and French. Through the eTwinning platform, students first got to know each other, discussed everyday life topics and compared their customs with their European counterparts. This data was then used to create a virtual village that was a ‘mixture’ of cultures.
Students:
1) assumed new identities (physical description, character, likes and dislikes ...),
2) wrote a physical description of their ideal village,
3) decided upon an emblem, a national anthem and common laws.
Events took place in this village, participants reacted to them and thus interacted. The students communicated through emails and videoconferencing.
Specially designed teaching material was made available to them (with a focus on the teaching of cognitive and metacognitive strategies) through a learning platform located at Nancy university. Finally, teachers and students shared their impressions of the project.
The Greek winner
English language teacher Paraskevi Belogia, Primary School of Grizano, Trikala, was among the Rainbow Village Project winners.
1. Direkt aus... (German Language Prize sponsored by the eTwinning National Support Service in Germany)
German language teacher Μaria Chatzigiossi, Model-Experimentelles Gymnasium der Universität Mazedonia, Thessaloniki, was the winner.
Maria and her students worked on the Mediterranean cuisine, cooked healthy dishes, made posters and exchanged recipes with their German counterparts.
2. Marie Skłodowska Curie Prize (prize sponsored by the eTwinning National Support Service in Poland)
Fly me to the Moon
This project mixed scientific observations, measurements and research of local traditions and beliefs. Theatre plays, songs, poems, artistic photographs etc were created by pupils, inspired by the Moon.
English language teacher Eleni Kostopoulou cooperated with her colleague Miltiadis Leontakis, teacher of Psysics at the 5th Lyceum of Veria and got the first prize. The Project was also awarded the European Quality Label.
3. Mevlana Prize for Intercultural Understanding (prize sponsored by the eTwinning National Support Service of Turkey)
Intercultural dialogue through fairy tales, drama and art
Students and teachers from 35 schools, from different European countries, collaborated in order to become familiar with the culture of each partner school’s home country through the use of fairy tales, drama and the arts.
Every school involved in this project first created a PowerPoint presentation of their school which was posted on the eTwinning site. These presentations provided background information for each partner school.
Each school then translated one national fairytale into English and then posted it on the eTwinning site for all partner schools to view. Students from all schools read these stories in their English classes, drew illustrations of their chosen fairy tale and dramatised it.
These performances were recorded and posted on the project’s web site. A fairy tales e-book was produced and distributed to partner schools and local libraries.
Melahrini Papardeli, teacher of English at the Primary School of Zervohori, Halkidiki, was the winner.
4. English as a second language Prize (prize sponsored by the British Council)
P.A.L.E (Play And Learn English)
In this project 5-6 years old pupils start learning English through on-line and off-line activities, in an interactive way using ICT tools.
Anna Karidi- Pirounaki, Kindergarten of Kaparelli, Thiva, was the winner of this Project. Anna has been living and working in this rural area since 1980. The P.A.L.E. prize is the fifth award her kindergarten receives.
