an eTwinning Project

Escola Secundária Emídio Garcia, PortugalIX. gimnazija, Zagreb, CroatiaEscola Básica e Secundária Gonçalves Zarco, PortugalZespół Szkół Ogólnokształcących Nr 1 STO, Poland

Final eBook

FRESHLY PAINTED

TRUEcolours

True Colours is an e-Twinning project. It involved teachers andstudents from four different schools in what can only bedescribed as a journey into Colours and how they influence everyaspect of our lives.Our goal was to help our students become aware of howcolours were tied to cultural differences, how they could be usedas an important communication tool.

This e-book is our way to share our adventure. We hope youenjoy it.

We started the project with four teachers - Alexandra Francisco;Anna Tobiacelli; Arjana Blazic; Luísa Lima - and about one hundredstudents.

As the project developed we were able to capitalize on ourschools’ resources and got more students and more teachers totake part in it. Some by actually joining the project on thee-Twinning platform, others simply by sharing their expertisewith us and our students. To all of them goes our heartfeltthank you for their support and help in making our project richer.

THE PARTNERS

Activity Plans

ActivityPlans

In order to keep our activity plansorganized, up to date and easily sharedbetween us, we used Google Drive. Youcan check all the plans by clicking the coatof arms.

TwinspaceLike all e-Twinning projects we had our own Twinspace. Aplace where we could post and share our students workand keep our Project’s Journal.

ActivitiesIn our online meetings we tried not only to determinewhat we wanted our students to accomplish, but alsowhat would be the most beneficial for their learningand their personal growth.Keeping in mind that for technology to be successful,we, teachers needed to make informed choicesrelating to pedagogical approach, students' needs, andour learning objectives, we set up a series of activitiesthat we thought would give them the opportunity toput into practice four essential skills: to collaborate, tocommunicate, to connect and to create.

Activity 1"If I were a colour"

In this activity students were asked to introduce themselves bywriting a short text starting from the prompt “If I were aColour”. Afterwards they transformed their texts into a digitalpresentation of themselves.

Poland

https://issuu.com/antosto/docs/blue_by_magda.pptxt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEnzxQwU4GE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nT6YTt2xjIw&feature=youtu.be

Portugal ­ Bragança

https://goo.gl/TYkmzw

http://bit.ly/1SjIR17

https://goo.gl/xZIOq6

https://goo.gl/9aLREO

http://bit.ly/1QGWz8C

Portugal ­ Madeira

https://slate.adobe.com/cp/sJ3pg/

https://youtu.be/MzrmZXx6yD0

Croatia

https://animoto.com/play/WWCd7X8qi8Awb7QdTI3Pvg

https://spark.adobe.com/page/iZwLs/

http://goo.gl/SZhW9J

Activity 2"Survey"

Students conducted a simple survey to find out what werepeople’s perception of “colour”. This survey was created so wecould have an idea as to how each country, each partner relatedto colours and what role they played in their everyday lives.Afterwards they analysed the results and drew conclusions aboutit. An all partner presentation was created to share everyone'sresults.

https://youtu.be/dOBUdkCK4Wc

Activity 3"Colour Masters"

Students were divided into groups. They were free to choose theirteam - Writing Masters; Science Masters; Video Masters; MusicMasters; Painting Masters and Game Masters.Teams created their own products within their topics. They alsohad the chance to work collaboratively with their partners indifferent schools giving their contribution to a common product.

Poland

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lICSX4LUw4

PaintingMasters

This team looked into Art and how colours could be used toconvey different meanings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRCwGjphr­8

Portugal ­ Bragança

http://www.calameo.com/read/004016710cd3a2942f906

Portugal ­ Madeira

http://en.calameo.com/read/00447756888fa62d2d954

Croatian students came up with the idea to recreate works of art.They chose The Scream by Edward Munch. Jan painted thebackground of Munch’s painting on his iPad and then we projected iton the big screen in the classroom. All the students screamed infront of Jan’s painting, they took photos of each other and made avideo.

Croatia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWl_Nd6h8sc

All the partners liked the idea and soon they joined their Croatianpeers in recreating the painting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLofSiREE3E

The Music Masters team explored colour in music; how words andcolour could create mental pictures. Students were free toexplore. Like the Polish students cleverly put it “hearing colours,tasting music”.

Poland

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRwL2YLzsU8

MusicMasters

Portuguese students created the lyrics and Polish studentsdazzled us by not only coming up with the music for it, but alsoby putting together a wonderfully colourful video.

Portugal ­ Bragança

https://youtu.be/vr9uhTglF7M

Portugal ­ Madeira

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRwL2YLzsU8

Bragança created story cubes and sent them to all the partnerswho worked together to create a story book.

WritingMasters

http://en.calameo.com/read/004477568ff5ea1857ad4

https://madmagz.com/magazine/812734#/page/1https://goo.gl/2DXlzY

Poland, on the other hand, wrote a story called Big Grey Cave andTinter. It was up to the other partners to create and share newversions of it.

https://youtu.be/CQI5zTlm9mc

https://en.calameo.com/read/004016710a200536d1dad

https://youtu.be/aVGbWxEe4EM

This team was all about designing games and using colours eitheras an element of the game or simply as something they could useto bring more depth to the game. Students had to think of astoryline that held the game together.

Portugal ­ Bragança

GameMasters

http://www.sploder.com/game7.swf?s=d00508ws&cs=1%5b/flash https://gamestarmechanic.com/toolbox?game_id=6192505Username-gameswork;password-gameswork1

http://goo.gl/4Kh1dH

Portugal ­ Madeira

http://goo.gl/O2k2Kl

http://goo.gl/MABpTl

Portugal ­ Bragança

ScienceMasters

This team was in charge of looking into colour through the eyesof a scientist and coming up with experiments that showed thescientific side of colours.

https://youtu.be/9qGCSHHMJtY

Portugal - Madeira

https://youtu.be/E3pvt5ddxXEhttps://youtu.be/KyzL9Y3LIVI

VideoMasters

The Video Masters teams were to create video presentations aboutcolours and their use. Some teams, rather than creating somethingfrom scratch, just worked in close collaboration with the otherColour Masters teams, helping them document their work.

EXTRAACTIVITIES

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Besides the three main activities set on the project, a

number of extra activities were developed alongside.

Their goal was to complement the main activities and

provide more personal development opportunities to

our students and ourselves.

It was up to each teacher to consider learning goals,

possible time issues and then decide whether or not to

take part of them.

"Colours Lesson"Bragança held a Colours lesson which seemed to please everyoneand a lot of vocabulary was elicited. They also had some paperT-shirts pinned to the wall where their names were writtenaccording to the colour of their choice.

"Hearing Colours,Tasting Music"

One of the lessons held atWarsaw school about colours.

"Skype Calls"

Our students got in touch with one another over skype. Our goalwas to give them a chance to finally come face to face and findout a bit more about each other but also to allow them toexchange ideas on the work they had developed throughout theproject.

Students shared their expectations regarding the True Coloursproject. It was a good way to see what they hoped to accomplishand what they thought we would be working on.

"Expectations"

"Selfie ChallengeWe challenged our students to share a selfie that wouldportrait them and their colour. We also asked them to write ashort message about it.

"Know your partners?"

In order to spark curiosity about each partner, Madeiracreated a video in which students answered, to the bestof their knowledge, some questions about the otherpartners, who in turn created videos to help them getthe right answers.

"Visit to a ContemporaryArt Centre"

Bragança, Centro de ArteContemporânea Graça MoraisOn the guided visit through some of therooms and works the students learnedabout the importance of colour and therecurrent themes in Graça Morais’spaintings. They were then to choose oneof the works in display and prepare anoral work on it.

"Visit to ArteSacra Museum"

Madeira students explored themuseum led by Martinho, our guide,who helped them understand howcolour can be used by artists toconvey different meanings, differentfeelings and emotions.

Workshop on“Colour in Art”

In Bragança, teacher and artist Manuel Trovisco came toour room to talk about colour, how it is formed, whatit means, how it influences our life and how it was usedby painters throughout the times. It was a greatexperience and we were able to share it with ourMadeira partners through Skype.

ASSESSMENT

""Grade less. Assess more."John Spencer

STUDENTS & TEACHERS

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ASSESSMENTSTUDENTSWhen we first started the True Colours project weasked our students what their expectations were ­some were a bit wary of the way the physical distancecould make it hard to work together; some were a tadscared with possible communication issues; otherswere just looking forward to the opportunity to makenew friends and the chance to actually use English inreal life situations.

Now, as we wrap the project up we asked themto assess the project. It was a real pleasure tohear their enthusiasm as they looked back onthe work they did and proudly talked about it.They were aware of the “simple things” like:Yes, it was a fun way to learn and practiceEnglish; Yes, it was great to skype with otherstudents; Yes, it was really good to workcollaboratively.

But what was truly amazing (what eluded most of them)was how the project had sparked their creativity, theirability to make new things; how they had been able toaccomplish individual learning and contribute to thelearning of others through the use of digital media.

ASSESSMENTTEACHERSThe True Colours project brought together students fromprimary, middle and secondary schools, proving that thesetype of projects can and do work across age and gradespectrums. We had the opportunity to witness, first hand, how the younger students were thrilled to be working witholder students, looking to do their best and contribute to thetasks; how the older students showed awareness of theirresponsibilities towards their younger colleagues, and feltproud to be a part of an international peer group that wasdoing something interesting and important together.

It is true that assessing is never easy, but one thing we aresure of: we all tried to start from our curriculum and madelearning our goal, adjusting the activities to our owneducational context. So, as we weigh our choices and lookat all our students accomplished in such a short period oftime, we couldn’t be prouder. We believe we haveimproved our professional practice and contributed to theeffectiveness, vitality, and self renewal of our school.

All in all, the outcome of the project is clearly positive, andwe are walking away from it more aware of our owncapability to cooperate and compromise.

True Colours2016 eTwinning Project

THANKYOU