Introduction to Twinspace

1. eTwinning is the community for schools
in Europe and beyond
Twinspace
Triantafyllia Syvaka
eTwinning ambassador (Gr)

2. Basics about the TwinSpace
The eTwinning TwinSpace is your project’s safe platform where
teachers and students work together. Users can access their project’s
TwinSpace from projects’ profiles in eTwinning Live or from the
eTwinning portal.
The table below shows your active and closed Twinspaces

3. A list of upcoming online events
all users’ TwinSpaces) it also
displayed. Users can go directly
online meetings from here.

4. The table below shows how to get to the key features of the TwinSpace.

5. Shortcuts to other areas of the platform
From any page in the TwinSpace a button on the
top-bar allows you to jump to the other areas of the
platform.

6. The homepage of the TwinSpace is a hub of information and projects’
updates, coming both from users and TwinSpace activities
automatically recorded by the system.
The latest updates feed on the
homepage shows the posts published by
all users in the project that the TwinSpace
represents, which can be liked,
commented and pinned (pinned comments
remain on top of the feed). NB: the public
view of the homepage shows the main
information about the TwinSpace and
the users’ posts in the latest updates
feed.
This feed is also visible in the project’s
profile in eTwinning Live.

7. The TwinSpace can be edited by clicking on the tool icon. Administrators can edit
information such as the name and description, and change the colours of the
TwinSpace. Three themes are available.

8. Customise their TwinSpace
oChange the image of the TwinSpace.
oChange the name and the description of the
TwinSpace. NB: This will not affect the name of
the project.
oChange the TwinSpace colours. Click save to
“theme”.

9. •View, comment on and like posts from project’s members
From the home page users can

10. •Post materials and updates related to your project
From the home page users can

11. •Access the Teacher Bulletin
If your membership type is teacher or teacher administrator,
you can use the “Teacher bulletin” to add notes that only other
teacher members can see. Teacher administrators can delete
any post.
Ιf your membership type is teacher or
teacher administrator, you can use the
“Teacher bulletin” to add notes that only
other teacher members can see. Teacher
administrators can delete any post.
From the home page users can

12. •Access the
Instant
Messenger from
the ‘Online
Members’ box
•Join the chat
room
•Organise an
online meeting
•Create a thread
From the home page users can

13. •Access their profileFrom the home page users can

14. User's Profile
This is the user’s profile page. Other users
can post a quick message there. From this
page users can edit their information and
manage their notifications. NB the profile is
unique for all the TwinSpaces the user is
member of.
A time zone selector is available to the edit
profile in eTwinning Live and the
TwinSpace/Groups. When set it will
automatically convert the dates & times
displayed in the respective modules from
CET to the selected time zone, including
daylight saving settings for the time zone.

15. TwinMail
TwinMail is the
TwinSpace messaging
system. It functions in
the same way as the
messaging in
eTwinning Live. You
have one TwinMailbox
for all your
TwinSpaces, which
means that you can
send messages to all
the members of all the
TwinSpaces that you
are a member of from
the same interface.

16. From this page users can decide which notifications they want to receive, and via
which means (in the TwinSpace notification centre and/or via email). Notifications
sent via email will be collected in a ‘digest’ email sent daily.

17. Pages TwinSpace
Public pages allow you
to promote and make
the results of your
projects visible online,
beyond your project.

18. Under the pages menu there is a button “Create a page”.

20. When you create or edit a page, you can select “who
can edit this page?” and
“who can see this page?”
“Who can edit this page?”
•Pupils administrators
•Visitors
•Pupils
•Administrators
•Teachers
When a user is editing a page, other users who try to
work on the same page are notified that “the page is
being edited by someone else”.
“Who can see this
page?”
•Everyone on the
internet
•TwinSpace members
•Just me (and
administrators)

21. Pages may include:
•Content: Text – Images – Videos
•A TwinBoard: an interactive board where you
can post text, images, or embed videos
•A poll: to survey opinions about people’s
thoughts on a particular issue or an attempt to find
the most suitable time to plan a meeting
•Content lets you add a content box
•A TwinBoard is a tool to append sticky notes
•A poll allows to add simple polls to the page

22. Insert images on your page by dragging and
dropping. Alternatively, select the image icon
from the bar above the edit space and follow
the onscreen instructions.

23. A video

24. Some web tools like Padlet, Thinglink, or websites like YouTube will give you
embed codes to use. These given ready to use codes will not work with the
iframe function we offer to you - but there is a way around.
Padlet: For Padlet you just need to use the url. For example
https://padlet.com/assi_honkanen1/5au3419h3xlm. There is no need to use
the embed code provided by Padlet.
Thinglink: for Thinglink you need to click on the share icon - select embed
and click on the box ‘iFrame’. A code will automatically be generated. Copy
and paste the whole code on a notepad or word document, and then just copy
and paste the src element of the embed code in the field “src URL” of the
editor.
Example:
<iframe width="550" height="550"
src="//www.thinglink.com/card/1124623407896330243" type="text/html"
frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen
scrolling="no"></iframe> - from the embed code you just need to paste in the
field “src URL” of the editor
this: //www.thinglink.com/card/1124623407896330243, and then adjust the
width and the height. Please note that we recommend you to use for width
550 pixels.
How to embed using the iframe:

26. A TwinBoard

27. A Poll
Users can also add a custom poll to the page with a
single question and multiple answers

28. You cannot delete a page
completely. If you do not
want a page to appear in
your TwinSpace you can
archive it by editing the
page and clicking on
“Archive page” below the
page content.

29. If you have archived a
page by accident. In
“Pages” navigate to
“Archived pages”, find the
page you want to reinstate
and click on edit. Then click
on “Undo archive page”.
Only administrators can see
pages once they are
archived.

30. Materials TwinSpace
The files you can upload here are:
•Image: 5MB in size maximum (All large pictures will be automatically rescaled to Full HD
dimensions (1920x1080) and if needed converted to JPG.)
You will see two main sections. Albums/Folders and images/files, to add an image, either
drag an image into the images section or click on the button to select from your
desktop/device.
Edit – delete - or sort the images by hovering above them. You will see three icons
(delete/sort/edit).
Manage your images: All images will remain in the main view but you can use albums to
create a collection which you can later add to a page to form a gallery. A folder is a place
to store and organize your files. It works in the same way as folders in Apple and Windows
PCs.
•Document (Word/PDF): 20MB maximum
You can upload: ai | aiff | dbf | dif | doc | docx | eps | flac | mp3 | odg | odp | ods | odt | otp
| ots | ott | pdf | ppt | pptx | rar | sda | sdd | sdc | sdw | stc | sti | stw | svg | sxc | sxi | sxw |
txt | vor | wav | wma | xls | xlsx | zip
If the file you want to upload is not allowed, then we recommend you to compress the file
to a ZIP or RAR file. These file types are accepted.
•Videos
Click on the icon Add video and insert the video URL you want to upload. You choose
videos from the below websites:
oDailyMotion
oVimeo
oYouTube

31. Forum TwinSpace
Teacher Administrators manage the forum. To do this, navigate to “Forum” and create a
discussion. The moment you create a “discussion” you can also create threads.
Everybody can reply to threads by clicking on the reply button.
The Forum section contains discussions, each
of which contains one or more threads
composed of messages and replies. The
homepage of the section shows the latest
updated threads and the user’s latest posts.
Discussions created in specific pages are
displayed as threads in the section under
“page discussion”. These threads are created
automatically when users add a discussion to
a page.

32. Threads can be individually “subscribed to”. This means
that when a reply is posted users receive a notification.

33. Online meetings TwinSpace
Chatroom
All the members of a TwinSpace can enter the chatroom by simply clicking on the Chatroom
icon on the ‘Online meetings’ tab. When more members have joined, you can all participate
in online activities or discuss and share ideas. Teacher administrators can access the chat
history from the chat page.
Online meeting
Administrators of the TwinSpace can organise online sessions using Adobe Connect where
their students can interact live with the students of their project partners. Administrators who
want to set up an online meeting define its main information and search for available slots
according to the date and numbers of participants.

34. The admin then selects the slot
and saves. The event is
created and it will be
accessible from this section for
all teachers (not students).

35. Below there is a step by step guide to use Adobe
Connect.

36. How to run an online meeting in the TwinSpace
Administrators can set up an online meeting, which includes a file
archive, a forum and a video-conferencing room (based on Adobe
Connect 9) which allows users to communicate, collaborate and share
with your project partners in real time.
From simple presentations to sophisticated training sessions, video-
conferences allow live and interactive sessions among members of
projects. If you are not sure how to best utilise video-conferencing within
your project, join one of the eTwinning Live Events or see a recorded
training session.
To access a videoconference room click on the button ‘enter meeting
room’ in the event’s page and a new browser window will open (see
below):
Depending on the browser you are using, the v/c
room will open after less than a minute in the same
browser window or in an external application. In the
latter case, check in the applications you are running
to see if there is something new. Remember: you
must have Adobe Flash installed! For a list of
requirement, check this
page: https://helpx.adobe.com/adobe-
connect/tech-specs.html

37. If you are the organiser of the event, the room will look like this:
From this interface, you can manage all the features of the online meeting. If you are not sure, just use the basic
features.
The user interface of the room for you and all the other participants can be in German, English, Spanish, French or
Italian depending on your selection. The default interface will be in English.

38. If you are a participant, you will see this:
In this case, you do not have to do anything: wait for instructions from the organiser.

39. Running a videoconferencing session
If you want to make a presentation or deliver a lesson (with audio and video), you should
start your webcam and microphone and make sure that everyone can hear you. You can
ask questions in the chat box.
To share your screen or a file, click on ‘share my screen’ and the system will give you the
options to share your screen, a document or a whiteboard. Use this to share a presentation
or document. In case you want to draw something, use a whiteboard.
To interact with your colleagues with audio and video do not forget to assign them the
right to do so.
Sessions can be recorded to be accessible to project members after the meeting for three
months. If you decide to share the recording with the other people, make sure that
everyone agrees
If you want to know more, you can find a lot of tips and guidelines from the help pages on
the Adobe portal:
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/connect/9.0/using/index.html.

40. After the event
Once the online event is over, the event’s page is still accessible. If you set up
a forum and/or shared files, they will be there for a follow up. Keep an eye on
this page so that you can answer questions from the other participants. In the
forum, you may want to share the link to the recording of the session so that
people who could not attend can catch up. The recording will be deleted after
three months.

41. Members TwinSpace
In this section, administrators can:
•Invite members to the TwinSpace
You can add teachers, pupils, and visitors here.
You can also export a pupils' list with their usernames. In case the password is forgotten, it can be reset by the
teacher who invited them
•Change a member’s user permissions
Find the member and select the drop down that displays their role.
oTeacher administrator - can edit and delete everything
oTeacher - can only edit and delete their own and their pupils’ content
oPupil administrator - you can create a subset of pupils as administrators. They can then be assigned to edit
pages you define.
oPupil - can add images and videos and can only edit pages that pupils are allowed to edit.
oVisitor - can see content within a TwinSpace - but can edit if she/he is given the right to edit
•Delete members
•Contact the members of your choice
Choose the members you want - you can choose teachers, or students, or both - and contact them for a specific
task.
•Check out their profile page.
In this section, administrators can invite, manage and delete members of the TwinSpace. They can be also contacted via
the TwinMail in batches. As usual, eTwinners can only be invited to the TS directly and project members via eTwinning
Live.

43. Students can be invited by checking if they are
already registered in the TwinSpace (for instance
in other projects). This is done by checking their
name or username and clicking on “verify”. If the
student already exists, he can be invited directly.
Otherwise, administrators can invite new students.
In any case, the system will verify whether a user with the
same name and surname exists already. Administrators
decide username and passwords for their students.
ATTENTION: For the creation of the password, use the following characters:
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz1234567890-_!:=

44. What can you publish on the TwinSpace
Therefore members must ensure that:
1.If they are embedding a short video-clip or uploading a picture, which include materials from
third parties like sound, music, voice or photos, they must make sure that the
providers/owners of the content have given their consent or written approval for the use
of the video/photo.
2.Anyone appearing in the video/photo has given their clear consent to their picture, image or
sound being used in the video/photo.
3. Any personal data (name, email address, home address, picture etc.) of your students that you
may need to collect for your project, is handled or processed in accordance with the EU’s
General Data Protection Regulation.
Technical Specifications and safety
The TwinSpace can be accessed by any browser which is newer than two years. No specific technical
requirements are needed. The complexity and richness of some pages suggest to avoid using a mobile
view.
The TwinSpace is safe from many points of view .

45. CREDITS: This presentation template was
created by Slidesgo, including icons by
Flaticon, and infographics & images by
Freepik.
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