2. Nice to meet
you
Val Brooks
eTwinning Stockton-on-Tees
Ambassador
Retired Secondary Maths teacher
and Primary School governor
Grandmother and gardener
3. Workshop Agenda
What is eTwinning?
– Why use eTwinning?
– The Public Portal
– Project Case Study
– Activity 1
Registering on eTwinning
– Registration
– Your eTwinning desktop
– Finding a Partner
– Activity 2
Next Steps
Other British Council Opportunities
Resources and Evaluation
7. Why join eTwinning?
Share and Showcase your
work
ICT in the classroom
Safe virtual learning
environment
Real audience is motivating
Watch this short video
8. Public Pages: project ideas and resources
Desktop: personal profile, partner-finding
tool, project registration
Twinspace: Your project’s
own virtual classroom with
communication tools and a
place to share your work for
your project
41. Having found a partner, you
will need to…..
1) Make sure your partner is
in your eTwinning
‘Contacts List’
Next steps 2) Decide on your project idea
and discuss the details.
3) Create the project within
eTwinning.
4) Get started!
42. Want to learn more?
Join an eTwinning Webinar
http://www.britishcouncil.org/etwinning-events.htm
48. When you come to create the project you will need to complete
some sections which require all the details.
It is best therefore to have used a template beforehand.
66. What type of schools can I partner with?
A) All types of schools (including SEN) from age 3 – 19
B) Primary & Secondary Schools only
C) Primary Schools only
D) I don’t know!
67. What language(s) can be used for eTwinning
projects?
A) English only
B) Any language, as agreed, by all the project partners
C) English & French only
D) My native language only
68. When can I begin an eTwinning project?
A) Any date, mutually agreed by partner school (s)
B) During the Autumn term only
C) During term time only
D) September only
69. How long does an eTwinning project
last?
A) 1-3 months
B) 1 year or more
C) Any amount of time, mutually agreed with partner
school (s)
D) 3-9 months
Picture from one of our South East schools celebrating 5 years of eTwinning in 2010
What is eTwinning? - eTwinning enables European schools to engage in collaborative projects using the internet and ICT It is a strand of the European Commission’s Lifelong Learning Programme - eTwinning began in 2005 and became part of the Comenius in 2007. Some of you may have heard of Comenius before It is a Community for Schools: - A Community for European schools/teachers to work together/learn from each other/work collaboratively.
32 European Countries: All EU countries can participate Plus Norway, Iceland, Turkey, Switzerland & Croatia can participate. Switzerland is the newest member of eTwinning and joined in 2011 25 Languages eTwinning website available in 25 languages to make it easier for all teachers across Europe to use eTwinning, not just those who are fluent in English. You can change the display language of the website on the home page at www.etwinning.net. There is a support team (called National Support Service) for every European country. In the UK, this is the British Council Teachers Teacher numbers are constantly changing but you can see the most up to date figures on the home page For example, how many teachers are registered and who joined most recently. Projects eTwinning project numbers are constantly changing as teachers join eTwinning & start/finish collaborative projects at any time
ICT in the classroom : - eTwinning is an online programme but you don’t have to be an ICT expert to use it - eTwinning can allow you to use collaboratve ICT tools and perhaps even develop new skills to support a project - ICT always been a strong focus of etwinning since it started in 2005 - A key aim is to encourage the use of ICT throughout the curriculum, not just in during a formal ICT class Motivational real audience A pupil might not want to impress you with his or her work but if they know it’s going to be read by peers overseas then they may think differently! Participating in an eTwinning project could give you the opportunity to work collaboratively with pupils; for example using an ICT programme or tool in a new manner in the classroom Safe Safe because only teachers can register and all new registrations are monitored eTwinning gives you access to various ICT - you as the teacher have control over setting pupil access including how much access they have to upload and delete work, they are completely separate from the teachers area and you can issue or withdraw their passwords at will. Share Store everything between partners in one place. For example, keep a project diary or use the eTwinning twinspace area to share/store/record your eTwinning project activities. Collaboration between teachers: eTwinning allows teachers to collaborate but individual teachers decide how they would like to do this For example, you might share resources in the resource section; create a collaborative project with partner teachers; take part in an online ICT training event; participate in a teacher room or etwinning group to share pedagogical ideas.
This slide used to explain the set up of the wesbite and how logins and privacy works. The slide shows how there are 3 levels to eTwinning: Public pages – project ideas etc Desktop – for registered teachers only. You need to have a login to access this bit TwinSpace – A “virtual classroom” for when you have a partnership. Private to you and your partner schools only
This is the public portal and look out for the 4 tabs at the bottom. They contain useful info for starters
Browse people, schools and projects
To find a description of a current project and who is involved.
Look at Project Gallery & Kits - there are useful areas for inspiration.
Give them chance to explore the public portal. Use Activity 1
If you haven’t already registered, click on the ‘Register’ button.
Once registered, you can log in to your desktop.
Click on ‘Go to Desktop’.
Now we will explore the eTwinning Desktop – an area where you can really get to grips with eTwinning
This is my Home page It is username and password protected. When you sign in you will see this screen, notice the following: Centre of screen – eTw news from Europe Sidebar – eTw news from the UK team Polls – quick research polls to help us improve eTw Details of forthcoming learning events for you to participate in Details of recently uploaded eTw resources
Explore the different tabs along the top of the screen, starting off with your profile Here we can see details: School and teaching info Last date of login Ready for an eTw project Ready for a Comenius project Details of contacts and project You can upload a picture to your profile & edit your details at any time
Look at “Find eTwinners”. This is where you can search for schools to partner with As you can see below, you can make: “ Quick Search” – use this if you already know the name of someone who is registered on eTwinning Use the extended search to search the database by “role”. “country”, “region”, “subject” etc
This is a dummy search. We have searched for a school in Spain, who would like to do cross-curricular projects, aged 4-11
We van see at the top that 11 search results matched our category – which a good number to look through. The basic information of each teacher is displayed below (eg locatoin, interests, age range, time registered etc) But if you want to know more about a teacher then click on their name or school to view their profile – so lets do that and look at the second one down, Gloria’s profile page. To access this we click on her name which is highlighted blue
We can easily learn a little bit more about Gloria from this page, she has included A profile photo On the right hand side, her “eTwinning life” She has noted that she is ready to start a project She last logged in quite recently so she is still active – this is a good thing to look for. You don’t want an inactive partner! Below this we have “My Journal”. There is a nice description from Gloria – you can see her page has attracted some replies. You can click on “Write a comment” to reply or just click ‘I like it’ Notice on the left, there is also a list of “My Contacts”. This is a bit like a Facebook or MySpace page. Every teacher on eTwining has this profile page. It is a good idea to keep yours updated and informative – more likely to attract partners this way. You can also click, on her school which is on blue text this lets you see who else from that school in registered and what projects they are
What else can we notice on this page? As well as being able to post on people’s pages, you can also e-mail them through the website. See the envelope icon at the top. This is like a normal e-mail message but it goes to your “eTwinning inbox”. The next slide shows where to find this.
This is always on the right hand side of the screen. You just click on this and it takes you to your eTwinning inbox. It’s a good way to communicate directly with teachers. How do you know if you have been sent a message? We’ll have a look on the next screen.
Here is a good top tip for you, Check your notifications and make sure you are subscribed by clicking on the ‘subscribe button’. This will save you from having to keep logging in regularly as notifications will be sent to your email address.
As well as searching for and contacting teachers directly, you can use more general searches, for example forums
You access the forums again through your desktop and click on the ‘Find eTwinners’ tab. ON the right you will see the forums are spilt into eTwinning and Comenius and age group –so you must select the appropriate group to you. It is a live forum so you can very quickly and often immediately communicate and make contacts if you use the forum in the right way. Lets take an example and click on eTwinning age group 16-19
The numbers at the top are the number of forums. A lot! As you can tell, people are short cutting the system and putting up posts – but it’s good because you see how many teachers are active! First – lets ‘Search the Forum’ for any interesting posts that are already created.
You can type any relevant text you think may apply – e.g penpals for a penpals project! Select from the drop down list and start searching! Complete a few searches – let’s look at the results from this search by clicking search
A list will be displayed for you to read – so you can the original post and the replies received. So lets reply to one. Just click the “Reply” button and….
And we get to add our message which will appear on Julios post. Remember the top tip… Keep your message simple, clear but with enough information for Julio to be interested. Include information… about yourself your pupils - your project Any expectations – not too much detail yet but you will need to consider each others project expectations and objectives
Back at the main page, let’s look at how you can post your own forum Go back to our desktop and the ‘Find Etwinners’ tab – select the appropriate forum and age for you or even general forum! Lets look at a post primary example
Click to create message.
Remember to keep it…. (see notes on the slide) Tip - write in the language you want to communicate in. Something you could do straight away to test the waters.
This is a post we created for an earlier session. Your message will now be displayed at the top of the forum screen initially – top tip – you can reply to your post and this pushes it to top of forum list ! you can delete a message you created but please be aware of the effect that may have – e.g. teachers may have replied to you and that will delete the whole string of other messages You can report a slide if you think anything inappropriate appears – the report is sent direct to us the UK NSS and we deal with it by either deleting the post and contacting the teacher or the other NSS involved if any further action needs taken we can escalate it the CSS.
So remember to… Note the title of posts you reply to Note the name of the post author Regularly check eTwinning for replies and new messages Make them contacts!
Use Activity 2 to explore your desktop.
The next series of slides gives information about what to do once you have a partner and you want to start a project.
But you could just join one of these webinars!
However, if you want to read on, here is some more information.
Firstly, in the “Profile” section you should view your list of contacts. Click on “see all contacts” to expand the list
You will now see the complete list of all your contacts. You should check that your partner is listed in your contacts list. You will need your partner to be listed as a contact in order for you to submit your project.
So –of they aren’t listed, search for your partner, click in to their profile and click the add to Contacts icon
Before you create a project within eTwinning, make sure you have discussed the details with your partner.
Using this template with your partner before you create the project will really help.
Once you know all the details about your project, you can go ahead and create it within eTwinning. The purpose of this is that when it is submitted and approved by your partner and both NSS, you will be given a secure Twinspace which you can use for collaborative work. Submitting your project idea also helps towards gaining recognition such as Quality Labels.
Once your partner is on your contact request, and you have discussed the details of the project, go back to the Projects Tab. Click on “Create A New Project”. If you have other eTwinning projects they will be listed here as well
Select the one partner that you want to set up the project with. NOTE – Any eTwinning project that is being registered need to have at least one partner. You may have more than one partner school you are working with. If so, you can add more partners to your project later on. This is going to be explained later on in the webinar. At this stage you must only select one partner . When you’ve done this you click on “Next Step”… but before you do I have a few questions!
When you have selected your school / partner, this will bring you to “Project Description” Notice that your selected partner is listed at the top In this screen you are going to give your project a title and a description. Project Description Page – these are details for the project as a whole not just your school, you are writing on behalf of your partners too so don’t be UK-centric. Also it’s important to remember that this is a partnership project, so you should be giving consideration to this in your registration form. So, you should have an agreed title, and you should be able to give a brief overview of the project. You will also need to tick the language or languages in which you will be communicating.
The final step is probably the one that requires the most thought but if you used the template, this will be very easy. The Aims of the project should be what you hope to accomplish. So that could be non specific things like students working in teams, or learning how to use an IT tool like PowerPoint or Video, to more specific things that cover certain parts of your lesson plans or curriculum. Work process means literally the steps you will go through to work on the project. “What”, “How” and “When” are all questions to consider here Expected results are how you intend to complete the aims. For example, students will have learnt how to use PowerPoint and will have published their presentations on the TwinSpace
When you have completed all these stages you will come to: The preview screen, where you can see everything that you have added. If you want to amend anything, click “Change” in the bottom left corner. Or if you’re happy with it you can click “submit”
After you have completed your registration and hit the submit button, go back to the “Projects” tab of your Desktop, and click in the section called “pending” to see the status of your project. Remember, your project will remain in the pending stage until 2 things happen: Your partner has approved it (or vice versa if it is your partner who submitted the project) The National Support Service has approved it
You can view the current status of the project here. It will either be ‘waiting for partner approval’ or ‘waiting for NSS approval’. Note that you can also edit or even delete your project at this stage
Your partner will need to approve the project first. They will have received a notification in their Desktop to say that the project has been registered and is waiting to approved. To approve it, they need to go to their own Pending list where they can accept (or reject) the project. As mentioned, the notification will come to their eTwinning Desktop. But it’s a good idea for you to let them know you have registered the project anyway. They will not receive automatic notification to their e-mail address unless they have specified so in their settings. To set automatic notification, click on the blue “notifications” tab. (see next screen)
Remember to click on subscribe to get the e-mail notification. You get a daily summary of activity if you do this.
The next step is that the project is sent to the NSS in each of the two countries to verify and approve it. NSS’s will differ in their approach. UK NSS check new projects every day – other NSS’s may work differently, but verification would not take longer than three days. You do not need to contact your NSS to let them know you have registered a project. They receive automatic notification of this.
Once your project is aproved, you will receive a notifcation and when you next go to the ‘Projects’ tab, you will see over on the right hand side, that you can go to the Twinspace. This is what the twinspace looks like. It is basically a simple virtual classroom for you and your partner schools to use to support project. You can share, upload and communicate on the twinspace. You can find out more about using the Twinspace from other workshops or webinars – links on a later slide.
Look at the Programme Grid – there are a variety of different opportunities and information: funded programmes in Europe are 'Comenius', other global funded opportunities are 'Connecting Classrooms'; Foreign Language Assistants; International Schools Award as a great way to get accreditation for your school's work. Have a look at the Schools online website: http://schoolsonline.britishcouncil.org/ "This is your 'One Stop Shop' for all British Council Schools Opportunities" Go to > Projects and Resources > Professional Development & Projects and resources > Global Learning Resources; look at Accreditation and Awards > ISA for UK schools; if you register for Schools Online you can get updates about all BC Schools opportunities.
Go to > Projects and Resources > Professional Development & Projects and resources > Global Learning Resources
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