Educatio Public Services Nonprofit LLC2012

e3: eTwinning partnerships – evolution 2012

This publication was published by the Hungarian National Support Service of the eTwinning

Programme.

eTwinning National Support Service in Hungary:

Educatio Public Services Nonprofit LLC

Department of Digital Pedagogy

www.etwinning.hu

etwinning@educatio.hu

The publication was edited by:

Emese Fodor

Mónika Lekk

Regina Nagy

Valéria Tóthné Viniczai

The publication was translated by:

Kata Szabó

Publisher

Educatio Public Services Nonprofit LLC

Sándor Kerékgyártó managing director

H – 1122 Budapest, Maros utca 19-21.

Telephone: +36 1 477 3100

Fax: +36 1 477 3136

e-mail: info@educatio.hu

internet: www.educatio.hu

Table of contents

Introduction 5

Éva Baloghné KovácseTwinning@Olympics 7

Zsolt Béla BárányLet’s experiment at home! 11

Alexandra Besenczi – Bernadette Deákné VassBound in a book 13

Bertalan Péter FarkasSingle currency, various interests – In & over the Euro sea! 17

Ottó KalocsaiWater: A Natural Habitat 21

Zoltán KispéterThe Secret of Paprika 25

Etelka Nagyné Szabó - Katalin Szépné Vinczencz - Zsigmondné FöldesiBehaviors and Manners 29

Katalin Erika Nemes-Nagy - Attila Simon - Zsuzsa Kádár - Éva SiposLet’s dye it & Give it new life? 33

Mónika NémethBaroque Castles across Europe 37

Rita Pintérné HorváthSpring on the Danube 41

Katalin RuffSounds Colours Tastes – Smells 45

Katalin Skultéty Zoltánné RusaieLEARNING TOGETHER! 49

Imre TóthMouzzle 53

Gabriella Vámosné KapitányEuropean youth – similarities and differences 57

Klára ZongorA 21st Century Tale 61

5

Dear Reader!

The eTwinning – Community for schools in Europe programme was initiated by the Euro-pean Committee in 2005 in order to promote school collaboration in Europe through educa-tional projects. Its primary aim is to foster collaboration between European schools, teachers and students through the use of various Information and Communication Technologies. The eTwinning portal serves as a common meeting point and working place for European teachers to carry out educational projects, where they can also find useful tools to enhance professional development and inspiration for starting new international projects.

Hungary has been a partner in eTwinning from the very beginning. Among the over 260 000 teachers registered in eTwinning about 1600 Hungarian teachers work in thousands of projects every year. The project activities are integrated in students’ everyday school activities. eTwinning project work means getting in and keeping contact with European students, com-municating in a foreign language, finding appropriate collaboration methods, working out and realising project ideas and presenting the results of collaboration – all supported by various ICT tools. During an international project both teachers and students can encounter such challenges, gain such experiences and acquire such skills that would be almost impossible – or rather limited – in other educational contexts.

The Hungarian NSS tries to provide every help to support collaboration and successful project delivery. The aim of the e3: eTwinning partnerships – evolution project (in Hungarian: eTwinning együttműködések – evolúció) was to create an eTwinning Professional Workshop where participants can develop their project plans under professional mentoring. Successful applicants had the possibility to attend various professional workshops and accredited in-ser-vice teacher trainings from January to September, 2012. As part of their work, participants were also expected to run a professional blog on their project ideas (http://e3etwinning.web-node.hu). The results of these months’ workshop activities are the eTwinning project kits ready to be used.

As part of the e3: eTwinning partnerships – evolution initiative the following project plans have been awarded by the professional jury:

„e3 Project of the Year Award”:• eTwinning@Olympics (Baloghné Kovács Éva)• Let’s experiment at home! (Bárány Zsolt Béla)• Let’s dye it & Give it new life (Nemes-Nagy Katalin Erika) „Promise for the Future Award”:

• The Secret of Pepper (Kispéter Zoltán)

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• Be aware of how to behave (Nagyné Szabó Etelka)

e3 Special Award:• Könyvbe kötve – Bound in a book (Besenczi Alexandra)• Single currency, various interests – In & over the Euro sea (Farkas Bertalan Péter)• A 21st Century Tale (Zongor Klára)• eLEARNING TOGETHER (Skultéty Zoltánné)

This book is the tangible result of our e3 project. The editors hope that the presented project ideas will inspire kindergarten and school teachers to expand their teaching repertoire through eTwinning. eTwinning provides the possibility for teachers to tailor their projects according to special subject requirements, teaching styles or school situations to best accom-modate their students’ needs.

With this book we would like to encourage European teachers to join eTwinning and wish them every success in their endeavours.

Hungarian National Support Service for eTwinning Educatio Public Services Non-profit LLC Department of Digital Pedagogy

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eTwinning@Olympics

Our school started an English-Hungarian bilingual programme for the primary school students in the 2011-2012 school year and also offers special English classes from Grade 4-8.

I feel motivated to take part in international projects since my registration to eTwinning, 2007. I have participated in numerous Hungarian and international projects so far (eTwin-ning, Comenius, MELT, iTEC).

My aim is to enable students to become more self-confident in their language learning and language use as well as in their intercultural relationships.

eTwinning@OlympicsThis project focuses on P.E. and sports by familiarising with Olympic sports, trying them

out and – as its main activity – organising a Mini Olympics. The various project activities will be carried out with ICT tools.

Age group: 13–14 Expected duration: 1 school year Language: EnglishSubjects, related areas: Foreign Languages, P.E.

The primary aim is to enhance intercultural education and cultural interactions through familiarising with the Olympic Games. The project is connected to our school activities and we hope that in the end our students will feel more motivated about sports, ICT and learning English.

Work process, main activities:

Baloghné Kovács Éva

Szent István Religious Secondary and Primary School (SZIGNUM) – Makó

www.szignum.hu

8

1. Getting to know each other (2 months) The students of the partner schools get to know each other through ICT tools in Eng-

lish. For the introduction and everyday communication the TwinSpace and other vir-tual language environments (virtual classrooms, social networks) will be used.

2. Project work, Phase 1 (4 months) We will create a Project Logo, which will be selected together from the logos created

by the partner schools. Then we will compile questionnaires on the topic, have them filled and evaluate the results.

Students will make interviews with local sportsmen and women, for instance with an ex-student of the school who became a successful athlete or an Olympic athlete of the city. We plan to organise an informal meeting with the athletes, as if our students have the possibility to speak personally with famous sportsmen and women, it can highly increase their motivation for doing sports.

We will gather information on Hungarian Olympic athletes, make presentations and create virtual and “real” posters, collaborative documents and a school booklet, all of which will be published on the TwinSpace and the project website.

In order to evaluate the results, comparative overview charts will also be used.3. Project work, Phase 2 (4 months) We will organise a Mini Olympics for the students to compete with each other in the

Olympic sports. The physical preparation for the selected Olympic sports will be done as part of the P.E. classes. One Game will last for maximum one week, depending on the certain sport. Students can try themselves in the main Olympic sports, after which their performance will be compared by evaluation charts. The sport types to choose will involve both individual and team sports, such as running, swimming, long-jump, handball, football, basketball.

4. Finalising work products, closing ceremony (1 month) It will involve a public announcement of the results, an exhibition on the work products

and the presentation of the video diaries. Project results will also be available in digital format: photo gallery, Glogster posters, vokis, video diaries and other documents. The closing ceremony allows for dissemination: local and other media will be welcome to participate in the event and report about the project.

The project work will build on collaboration between students and teachers, making use of individual work, pair work and team work as well. Co-operative techniques will be used to increase student motivation, where interactive learning resources will have a crucial role. Evaluation and assessment will be carried through check lists and evaluation and self-assess-ment charts.

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Activity ICT tools and internet services

Keep contact Video conference, chat, Skype, email, TwinSpace, social networks

Project documentationword processor,movie creator application,TwinSpacevideó

Join

t pro

blem

solv

ing,

ac

tiviti

es, t

asks

Collaborative tools and applications Search engines, presentation maker app,

TwinSpace

Present project results on the closing celebration

Video diaryExhibition of posters, leaflets

The main topics of the project i.e. sports and second language acquisition are life long activities. Students are taught – among many other things – to take care of their body and soul. Equally important, that students should be able to communicate as many foreign languages as possible. These facts will enable us to repeat the project with new students and maybe with new Hungarian/international project partners. Successful project delivery would be significantly increased if we could make the project a Comenius partnership so that the students could meet each other.

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Let’s experiment at home!

As a chemical technical school, we pay a special attention to Natural Sciences, especially Chemistry, and have several specially equipped classrooms and laboratories at hand.

Our school is fairly experienced in international relationships and collaboration. We have successful Comenius projects behind us and a sister school relationship lasting for over 18 years now.

Let’s experiment at home!With this project we would like to enable students to get to know their immediate environ-

ment, recognise nature’s rules in it and apply the information acquired in the school in their everyday life.

We believe that schools and classrooms are not the only places to carry out safe experi-ments, especially now in the Internet and media world, with the help of which we plan to design a series of experiments that can be delivered at home. Project work will be addressed in study group sessions under teachers’ instructions.

Students will make photos and videos about the testing, evaluate the process and the results and thus continuously improve the description of experiments. The final sets of exper-iments can be demonstrated in the classroom when dealing with related subject matter.

We are looking for partner schools that share our commitment to make students interested and committed about Natural Sciences. The schools will work on the experiments together and besides the national versions, we plan to publish our results in English as well. Every idea will be tried and improved by every group then the results will be compared and the most suitable version will be finally recorded in a video file. The videos will make it clear that the experiments are the results of continuous collaboration between the groups. We can also

Bárány Zsolt Béla

Secondary Technical School of Chemistry – Debrecen

www.vegyipari.hu

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create audio files to the videos in every related language. After this, the final videos will be ready to publish.

Age group: 14–17Expected duration: 1 school yearLanguage: EnglishSubjects, related areas: Biology, Chemistry, Design and Technology, Environmental

Education, Foreign Languages, Health Studies, ICT, Natural Sciences, Physics

The primary aim of the project is to develop students’ communicational skills, encourage team spirit and enhance language learning. We plan to design new experiments that are safe and easy to carry out at home. Both the equipment and the materials can be found at home or can easily be bought at low cost. The experiments involve some fields of Chemistry, Physics and Biology.

As we are close to start the project, we have already discussed responsibilities: Bárány Zsolt will be the project leader and also responsible for keeping contact and developing the experiments in Chemistry; he will be supported by Marchis Valér, in charge of Physical experiments and Nagy Attila, in charge of Biological experiments. Project documentation in English and Hungarian will be managed by Szilágyi Szonja. Students will participate in all the experiments and in the project documentation. Their tasks and responsibilities will be delegated in relation with the sub-tasks by the teachers in charge.

Activity ICT tools and Internet services

Keep contacte-mail (GMail), social networks (Facebook)TwinSpace – chat, Skype

Project documentation

make presentations (Microsoft PowerPoint, Google Presentations, Prezi)blog – TwinSpace, wordpress.comcreate websites (webnode), Adobe DreamWeavercreate/modify/publish photos and videos – Gimp, Adobe PhotoShop, Ulead VideoStudio, Picassa web albums + the project’s own website, TwinSpace – project diary, file archive

The project result will be a set of exercises that can be easily used in educational settings. It will be accessible to everyone, with all the additional multimedia functionalities involved. Our first results will be shown with presentations and on an exhibition to the audience. After closing the project, our project website will be available to everyone so that our experiments can be presented not only to the local communities but to the whole country and – thanks to the English version – to the whole world. We would like to show our activities to a large number of audience.

There are several work teams abroad dealing with similar experiments. Following their blogs, we think we can always come up with new ideas, which can result in new experiments to describe. Therefore, we hope to continue our activities after this school year, either with the same or with new partners or students.

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Könyvbe kötve – Bound in a book

Our school has been successfully running an English-Hungarian bilingual programme for 10 years. Each year some new projects are integrated into our core curriculum. Our school applies for grants to support the projects and find international partners to them. This project will be one element to make our teaching practice more colourful. The school offers a wide range of facilities (theatre room, craft nook, yards) for various project activities.

Könyvbe kötve – Bound in a bookThis project focuses on creative writing. Students will keep contact with each other, dis-

cuss tasks, exchange ideas and give tips to one another. All the decisions will be made in consent. Students will continuously upload their results to a common site and record their activities with a camera.

Age group: 12-18 – depending on the language levelExpected duration: 1 or 2 school year Language: EnglishSubjects, related areas: English, Literature and Grammar, Geography, History,

European Studies, Arts, Film and Media Studies, Music, Dancing, Drama Pedagogy

ObjectivesAll sub-tasks are carried through by the students under the teachers’ instruction. In this way

students can develop competences that will be useful for them later in the school and in their career. Besides developing writing skills and creative writing in a foreign language, they can have an insight into other countries’ literature and learn about other nations’ famous historic sites. They can perceive European history from a broaden dimension, develop intercultural

Besenczi Alexandra és Deákné Vass

Bernadette

Apáczai Cultural and Educational Centre – Pécs

www.educentrum.hu

14

awareness and learn tolerance to accept each other.Students will learn to argue for and against something or make proposals in English and

thus develop social and cooperative skills. Project activities will involve several other sub-jects, therefore other teachers can also participate in the project.

Project activities are supported by ICT tools.

Planned activities1. Choose the genre of the piece of writing.2. Choose the main character of the story. Each country’s students collect their favourite literary heroes, then introduce them to

their project partners and make proposals for the main character. 3. Chose location.4. Students share their famous historic sites and cultural heritage by creating a short film

or a simple photo report and give reasons for their choice.5. Students start writing the story: one country writes one chapter then hands it over to

another country to continue the story and write in their own character and site. They write the novel in a common blog where each post is an addition to the story and thus students can give tips to each other in comments.

6. After finishing the first chapters, there is a “twist” in the storyline: each country brings in new elements to the story such as relics, objects referring to their national identity or anything else they find important to involve. Students present these objects to each other and decide what to include in the novel. Then students start writing the last chapters.

7. The story is finished. Every country writes a finishing chapter to the story then partici-pants can vote for the best ending.

8. There is a competition to choose the title of the book.9. After finishing the writing process, students create illustrations to the book.10. If circumstances permit, we would like to publish the book in a printed version. Stu-

dents can also decide about the graphic designs.11. Students choose other ways to “celebrate” the book e.g. dancing, painting, composing

a song, etc.12. Each country organises a reading evening for the parents, teachers, students and the

local media.13. After the reading event students start working on a new work product: make the novel

into a play. They create the script and do every related task to set it on stage: make the scenery, costumes, choose songs. The work process and the final performance are recorded on video. Then the project countries share their video files and compare the different plays made from the same book.

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Activity ICT tools and Internet servicesKeep contact eTwinning TwinSpace, e-mail, chat

Projektdokumentáció eTwinning TwinSpace, blog, file archive

Collaboration, share content, documentation, present project products

eTwinning TwinSpace, photostory, video editor, blog, video conference video camera, digital photo machine, blog

The result of the project work is a book and a play acted on stage. In order to reach the widest audience we plan to invite all the students of our school, parents, press representatives and everyone else interested to our reading event.

The project can be repeated with a new story in a different genre or with a new group of students but it can also be reproduced as part of class work activities when students write a story using similar techniques.

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Single currency, various interests – In & over the Euro Sea!

Our school specialises in Natural Sciences but also offers advanced Mathematics, English, German and Social Sciences classes. We believe in talent management which is helped in our school by a complex workshop of Natural Sciences. We have a working partnership with the twin sister of Szolnok, Reutlingen (Germany) but are also open to other countries.

Single currency, various interests – In & over the Euro Sea!The project is about the common currency of the European Union and the second biggest

currency in the world – the Euro. It has been a keen desire since the mid 1900s of the EU to unite the peoples of Europe, and its great achievements – including the monetary policy

– are naturally woven now into our lives. Euro plays a crucial role in our international and everyday life, although the past years’ difficulties brought significant changes in the function and regulation of the Euro and how we look at it. This project thrives to strengthen and consolidate European identity among the participants.

Age group: 15-17Expected duration: 1 school yearLanguage: EnglishSubjects, cultural areas involved: Geography, Environmental Education, Euro-

pean StudiesThe general aim of the project is to explore and learn about the financial cultures of the

participating countries; the monetary and financial system of the EU; and the advantages and everyday aspects of the single currency. The pedagogic objectives involve gaining expe-

Farkas Bertalan Péter

Verseghy Ferenc Secondary Grammar School – Szolnok

www.verseghy-gimnazium.net/index.html

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rience about money with special attention to the single currency of the European Union, and finding out other countries’ attitudes towards it. Besides learning about their own countries, students will develop European awareness and European citizenship, become more open to international and global issues and become more conscious consumers.

Our main aim is to develop students’ cooperative and social skills through collaborative work, ICT and Web 2.0.

Activity ICT tools and Internet services

Keep contact Audio and video conferences (MSN Messenger, Skype); Email / Google groups; Google / Facebook chat; TwinSpace; common professional blog

Project documentation TwinSpace; Facebook group / Google+; common professional blog; Google Drive; Windows Live Docs (Skydrive)

Join

t pro

blem

solv

ing

and

task

s (o

ptio

nal t

ools)

Collaboration, share content, project documentation

PC / laptop / tablets

Interactive white board and software tools

Digital resources and atlases

Challenge each other, find the proof for thesis/antithesis, apply exploring and discovering strategies

Voting systems and devicesTools to carry out interviews

Present project products, share content, documentation, branding, etc.

PC / laptop / tablets

The project combines life long learning with the development of such important 21st cen-tury skills as critical thinking, creativity, initiative and entrepreneurship, problem solving, collaboration, risk evaluation, decision making and constructive management of emotions.

The project work builds on acquiring scientific knowledge, using exploring and discover-ing strategies and applying project pedagogy. Scientific knowledge and the development of related competences will help students learn new technologies, try new methods and schemes as well as watch and assess the world around them. Exploring strategies will help students develop strategic thinking and examine new phenomena. Project pedagogy allows for assess-ing resources and results, evaluating achievements and dividing the learning process into sub-tasks or mini tasks. Evaluation and assessment will be helped by self-reflection and col-laboratively developed evaluation sheets/charts.

Learning objectives (for students and teachers):1) Learn about their own currencies and those used by the project partners (their function,

role, history, related customs or superstitions, etc.).2) Get in and keep contact, share content (information), common knowledge building.3) Prepare project documentation and project products, online collaboration.As part of the project, participants will learn about the financial and monetary culture

of the project partners, find differences and similarities, learn new information and develop their skills through collaboration in a foreign language. Students will continuously record

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their results, present new information to their project partners, share documents, play team and team building games, design and create currency-related products and create many other project products e.g. customer guides, tutorials, tableaus, newsletters, etc. The work products, professional blogs/wikis and the involvement of the media will all facilitate project dissemination

The topic of the project plays an important role in the Hungarian and European educa-tion as the European Union and the Euro can be found in every European country’s syllabus. Therefore the pedagogic and educational results can be extended to other institutions as well and can serve as a model for those, who would like to initiate a similar project. The project results can be adapted by other schools and countries and can be used by many later on. The topic is evergreen but can lead to different results with every project partner and thus the ways for adaptation and development are unlimited.

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Water: A Natural Habitat

Our school offers English and Hungarian bilingual classes as well as classes with English, German and Mathematics specialisation. My colleague, Törökné dr. Bodzsár Mária, and I believe that subject integration is a very important issue in today’s teaching practice and we hope that this project will help us to realise it. This project will also give us the opportunity to specially motivate talented students. International project work will be a new challenge to me and I really look forward to seeing how different students from different countries and of different culture and mentality can work together effectively. Careful planning, continuous self-reflection on the students’ side and the development of 21st century skills will all have their shares in achieving our underlying goals: to develop students’ personality in accor-dance with the new expectations but respecting old cultural and scientific values.

Water: A Natural HabitatDuring the project work students will carry out various activities: take measurements,

make field and lab experiments, perform classroom observations, etc. • The physical and chemical properties of water such as temperature, density, colour,

smell, consistence, hardness, splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen, evaporation, preparing solutions.

• The role of water in living systems (from cells to organisations), diffusion, osmosis.• The role of water as an abiotic factor in ecosystems.• A general review of aquatic habitats, a thorough understanding of local aquatic ecosys-

tems and habitats, drawing conclusions based on local observations.Age group: 12 évExpected duration: 1 school year

Kalocsai Ottó

Török Ignác Secondary Grammar School – Gödöllő

www.tig-godollo.hu

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Language: EnglishSubjects, related areas: Biology, Chemistry, PhysicsThis project aims to develop 21st century key competences such as social, digital and

scientific competences along with language learning and communicational skills. We would like to teach our students to observe a given phenomenon from different angles and keep to this attitude in all aspects of life. Besides, students will develop environmental awareness, learn to use online tools and collaborative methods as well as improve collaborative skills.

Activity ICT tools and Internet servicesKeep contact digital camera, Skype, e-mail, forum, TwinSpace

Project documentation students’ individual diaries, blog, check lists, multimedia CD-ROM

Join

t pro

blem

solv

ing,

ta

sks a

nd a

ctiv

ities

g,

Define, share and keep track of common tasks

Monthly chats to discuss project progress

digital photo machine, digital camera compatible with microscopes

skype

Evaluation chart or graph to measure project progress against the schedule Excel sheet

Video conferencePresent project products, share content, documentation

prepare an interactive CD-ROMTwinSpace

Main activities:• Plan and deliver experiments, note down and exchange results, compare results• Field work (collect water samples, take on-site measurements: temperature, hardness, pH) • Classroom studies of the samples to learn about the biological diversity of the habitat and

evaluate results in a digital format• A large scale, complex final evaluation at an agreed time, presentations for parents and

the whole school community

Project work integrates three individual subjects, which allows for summative evaluation besides formative evaluation, i.e. students can get marks for their work products in the rel-evant subjects. In this way individual progress is measured hand in hand with group work and collaboration. Self-reflection has a crucial role for both students and teachers.

With this project students can meet European peers, use modern technologies and have fun while learning new information and sharing them with their European partners through posters, presentations, short films, interactive CDs, photo galleries, etc.

I think this partnership can last for several years among the schools. In the following years the experiments can be repeated by new students of the same age, which can give interesting stimuli to make comparisons with the previous years’ results and to draw conclusions.

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The Secret of Pepper

In 2004 I took part in a Leorardo Mobility project in Raahe, Finland. Our partners were students from the Raahe Business College. During the 3 weeks of the project we saw and tried new teaching and learning methods supported by ICT. Our students learnt together with their partners and every work product was the concrete result of collaboration – it was an overwhelming experience for everyone. Therefore, I felt highly motivated to get acquainted with eTwinning and create this project plan; and I hope that I will be able to find partners to realise it.

The Secret of PepperProject partners introduce to each other the role of pepper in their culture. When choos-

ing the topic, I was looking for a theme which has a direct connection with students’ everyday life. During the project work they can make use of information gained outside the school walls and this topic is linked to their home country and region as well. My aim with this project is to show the students that pepper is not only a spice and an ingredient to our food but plays an important role in our eating/national culture and can provide a link for us to other cultures.

Age group:16–21Language: EnglishSubjects, cultural areas involved: Biology, Foreign Languages, Home Economics, ICT

This project enables the students to learn about their home country, region and other countries’ eating culture, traditions or folk art through valuable personal experiences. Stu-dents are encouraged to search and exchange cultural values and collaborate with peers

Kispéter Zoltán

Móra Ferenc Secondary School for Adults – Szeged

www.mffsz.hu

while developing organisational, cooperative and adaptive skills. Students acquire new learning techniques through the use of ICT, which can highly

increase their motivation. While experimenting with web 2.0, they can also improve com-municational skills.

Main activities:Project planning:

• Define activities• Define the tools to the project activities• Get in contact with the project partners• Students finalise project activities and make the scheduleProject work: (may be changed or extended by project partners)

• Explore the origin and history of pepper• Explore the use and processing of pepper• Visit the Paprika Museum in Szeged and Röszke and then a pepper harvesting• Create a trilingual glossary• Collect and share recipes, cook some food in groups• Find similar foods in different cultures• Present the active ingredients of pepper and their non-food uses• Collect sayings, metaphors and complete literary work of arts regarding pepper; illus-

trate them by drawings • Collect and sing folk songs about pepper• Create an online photo album• Close the project, present results

Activity ICT tools and Internet services Keep contact TwinSpace, e-mail

Project documentation group diaries, blog, calendar, school homepage

Join

t pro

blem

solv

ing,

ta

sks a

nd a

ctiv

ities

A projekt előkészítése, a tevékenységek Project planning, define activities e-mail, TwinSpace, blog, chat

Project activitiespresentation, TwinSpace, e-mail, online timeline, fotoalbum.eu, school homepage

Student learning is enhanced by formative assessment. After defining the expected out-come of each activity, collaborative check lists are made to ensure reliable means for assess-ment, self-assessment and peer assessment. Peer assessment or peer feedback plays a crucial role in this project, unlike to traditional classroom situations.

During the group work students write a group diary and a blog to keep track of the results and the problems they have encountered. Teachers can continuously monitor the work pro-cess and intervene when necessary.

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The project tries to prove that such a seemingly insignificant plant as pepper can play an important role in a nation’s culture. The project structure allows for other topics to be built in so the project can be repeated with a new topic after minimal changes.

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Be aware of how to behave

I first heard about eTwinning a year ago. I found it a new challenge and as the leader of a kindergarten – Nagyné Szabó Etelka – I thought it could serve an excellent way to make new relationships and expand our teaching repertoire. That is why we applied for the e3 project.

I plan to carry out this project with our “Cinege” Group with the help of two colleagues: Szépné Vinczencz Katalin and Földesi Zsigmondné.

Be aware of how to behaveThis project aims at developing young children’s behavioural culture. It is an evergreen

topic that can be made interesting and attractive for children by using ICTs. Both children and adults can acquire new information about behavioural norms and how people behave in

Nagyné Szabó EtelkaSzépné Vinczencz Katalin

Földesi ZsigmondnéCsicsergő Kindergarten – Budapest

w3.enternet.hu/csicserg/

certain situations. We can have an insight into other countries’ way of thinking, learn about their moral values and try out new ICT tools.

Age group: 3–7Expected duration: 6–8 monthsLanguage: Hungarian, EnglishSubjects, related areas: Games, Tales, Poems, Nursery Rhymes, Music, Drawings,

Arts, Handwork, Handicraft, Movement, Knowledge of the external world through activities

Objectives:• Learn about the behavioural culture of Hungary and other participating countries, find

similarities and differences.• Develop moral values, understand and comply with customs and norms. • Learn to express oneself clearly and effectively in speech and through ICTs.• Effective collaboration with peers through various activities.

Main activities:As the first activity, children create a world cloud, make it into a poster and place it in the

school corridor.The next two months is about collecting information on the topic. Children, teachers

and parents collect pictures, proverbs and phrases about good and bad behavioural patterns.Parents and grandparents tell at home about “good children” and “bad children” of their

times that children share with the group in the kindergarten. We will go for little study tours, observe peoples’ behaviour on the street, underground, playground, etc. and discuss it according to a list who behaved right and who behaved wrong in the certain situations and why. Finally these data will be turned into a diagram.

Group gamesRole play: Teachers act out certain situations and children have to find out if they were

examples for good behaviour or bad behaviour. Students discuss how these behaviours could be improved. Then they act out situations following teachers’ instruction and the others have to find out what the instructions could be.

Greeting game: Participants impersonate people of different ages (based on pictures), introduce themselves and the others have to find out who they are.

Telephone game: Children introduce themselves on the phone and tell stories according to pre-set criteria.

The partner institutions send each other an introductory letter with photos of the kinder-garten and the group on the first week of the project work. Later they keep contact on the Internet sending reports of their activities and results with pictures. Children exchange ideas about the materials received from the project partners.

A common taleWe will use e-mails and Skype to create a common tale with our project partners. Chil-

dren start the tale then the teachers forward it to the partner group. The partner group, in turn, makes amendments to it and sends it back according to pre-set criteria. After finish-

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ing the tale both groups act it out. Teachers help the children to assign the roles and share responsibilities and record everything in a picture checklist

As the participants are very young children, we will use mostly pictures and drawings for feedbacks, assessment and self-assessment. We will create a project diary and a filing box for children’s drawings and stickers for instance and provide self-assessment sheets to every subtask that children can complete with drawing. Parents can use the notice board to follow up with their children’s performance. We will prepare a time map in the group room to keep track of the tasks already delivered.

When setting and delegating tasks we will pay special attention to children’s individual needs and treat children of special needs, from disadvantaged or severely disadvantaged background as well as talented children according to their needs and abilities. Forms of learning will involve miming, imitation, following patterns, problem solving, guided and spontaneous experience.

Activity ICT tools and Internet servicesKeep contact Skype, e-mail, TwinSpace

Project documentation TwinSpace - File archive

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Word cloud Wordle.com

Share the poster and pictures online gallery – PicasaTwinSpace – Image gallery

Video films video editor application – Movie makerTwinSpace – Image gallery

Create a taleword processor application

Project results will be of various kinds: invitations, costumes, photos, video films, memory cards, puzzle, board game, photo album, etc. We will organise an exhibition from the work products and present the tale on a special event where we will also show our photos and pic-tures to the audience along with a short film of the project work.

We plan to start the project with one group only but would like to involve the whole insti-tute later on. Our aim is to gain experiences first and then apply for a Comenius grant. We would also like to promote eTwinning as an excellent new experience for kindergartens and as good practice for our colleagues and teacher trainees.

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Let’s dye it & Give it new life

Our school believes in addressing individual needs and thus works hard to integrate stu-dents over 12 with special needs, learning disabilities or severely disadvantaged backgrounds into the society. It is one of our primary goals to help such students catch up with their fellow students and learn a profession to start their life with. We have already organised some proj-ect days and other school events and this gave us the idea to launch an international project which can provide new stimuli, new motivation for both students and teachers, help students familiarise with the professions taught in the school and prepare them for the new challenges of the 21st century. The eTwinning project is managed by a team of 4: Nemes-Nagy Erika

Simon Attila, Nemes-Nagy Katalin Erika, Kádár Zsuzsa, Sipos Éva

Technical, Vocational and Primary School of Szeged, József Attila Member Institute – Szeged www.jaszeged.sulinet.hu

(Biology and Chemistry), Kádár Zsuzsa (English and German), Sipos Éva (Geography, His-tory and English) and Simon Attila (social worker, leisure event organiser).

Let’s dye it & Give it new life?The project is about natural textile dyeing. Students will learn about the history of dyeing,

typical characteristics of dye plants and dyeing techniques. When deciding about the topic, we tried to involve as many age groups and vocational students as possible.

Age group: 12–18Expected duration: 2 school yearsLanguage: English and/or HungarianSubjects, related areas: Chemistry, Biology and Science (Man and Nature), ICT,

vocational introductory subjects (for ornamental plant growers, dressmakers, textile product assemblers, carpet weavers) and foreign languages (technical)

In this project students will learn about the culture of the project partners, their dyeing techniques and professions related to dyeing; and get support to try and choose a profession that suits them. It will be an excellent opportunity for disadvantaged students to develop ICT skills and catch up with their fellow students. Students will also develop their technical English through communication with the project partners.

Students will learn about the history of textile dyeing, special characteristics of dye plants and dyeing techniques and then prepare brochures describing various plants. We will visit the annual Dye Plant Exhibition in the local botanic garden where students can learn about the topic through games: there will be a competition where students will have to use GPS to find their ways from station to station and perform certain tasks at every station in return of QR codes. Back in the school they will develop a leaflet with maps, based on their earlier tasks. Then we will go for a botanic excursion to collect dye plants and create a collection report on it.

Students will also visit some folk craftsmen and make interviews and mini documentaries with them. After collecting the plants students will learn about dye bathes, choose recipes, create their own dye bathes, analyse them and finally dye fabrics and yarns. The whole proj-ect work is documented; students continuously consult with their project partners (through the project homepage, videoconferences, TwinSpace) and share their opinion. The dyed products are sent then to the partner school by post or are exchanged on personal meetings.

By the end of the project each partner school will prepare their own marketable products (during the vocational classes). Students will also create virtual plans of their future dye gar-den in groups, the best of which will be used when actually creating the mini dye garden in the schoolyard.

Project materials will be presented on a special bilingual webpage or blog, which will be edited together with the project partners. Every activity will be recorded by photos or videos, which will be made into films, photo stories or presentations. We plan to have monthly video presentations to share results, otherwise students will use the bilingual blog and the TwinS-

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pace to meet each other, communicate with each other, show their work and share their ideas and tips about the project.

Activity ICT tools and Internet servicesKeep contact email, chat, video conference (Gmail, Skype)

Project documentation Google Docs, Google Calendar, homepage, blog, TwinSpace

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Collaboration, share content, documentation

Google Docs, Microsoft Office Publisher, blog, homepage

Assessment, evaluation Voting system, Google Docs Form, Quiz platforms (Quizrevolution, Proprof )

Collection report Google Docs Spreadsheets

Present project products, share content, documentation Google Docs, homepage, blog, TwinSpace

Every year there is an open School Day in our school. We plan to time the project exhibi-tion and the closing event to coincide with it. Besides, our products will be presented on the local fair, on the school’s homepage and in the local media.

Project products by the students: presentation and quiz on the history and techniques of dyeing; brochures and quiz on the plants; progress diaries, project homepage; mini docu-mentary about the craftsman and the experiment; collection of pressed plants with a collec-tion report; dyed yarns and fabrics, products made of them and related product commercials; dye garden, geocache.

A garden will be created with dye plants in the schoolyard so that vegetable dyes will be at hand in the following years. We plan to extend the project in the future and continue it in a Comenius partnership.

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Baroque Castles across Europe

Our school operates as an individual professional and organisational unit to perform public education tasks under the name Szent János Greek Catholic Vocational and Gram-mar School.

As a foreign language teacher, I find it vital to participate in international projects as it can be a very effective aid to motivate children and to enhance their language development, independence and creative thinking.

I have never participated in a similar project so I have decided now to try it.

Baroque Castles across EuropeThe central topic of the project is the Baroque period with its habits and behavioral norms.

Students will also have an insight into the everyday life of a Baroque castle.Age group: 15–17Expected duration: 1 school yearLanguage: German/EnglishSubjects, related areas: Foreign Languages, ICT, History of Art, History of Culture,

Music, Art, History, Literature

The project enables students to collaborate in numerous activities focusing on students’ hometown and exploring neighbouring castles with their historical and cultural relevance. Students perform both online and onsite research work. Most of the project work will be addressed during the Literature, English/German and History lessons and the castle visits.

Thanks to the project activities students will know the cultural similarities and differ-ences between the partner countries. They can learn about European cultures and nations,

Németh Mónika

Szent János Greek Catholic Vocational and Grammar School – Edelény

www.sztjg.hu

improve foreign language skills and digital competences as well as develop motivation and self-dependence

Main activities:1. Phase 1: Introduction to the castle and its cultural relevance Students explore the Baroque period and collect its typical characteristic features. They

familiarise themselves with the Baroque style then search for and present Baroque gestures and ornamentation in a selected castle and its interior. Students share their results with their project partners then find differences and similarities. Student work is helped by relevant checklists

Creating Google Earth Path (2 months) Students create an itinerary to the presented castles with all relevant information and

pictures, using project materials collected by the partner schools.2. Phase 2: Life in the castle – Now and then. What typical Baroque charac-

teristics can be found in present time? Students work in groups to learn about Baroque art, literature, music, fashion, clothes,

court etiquette, etc. They talk about their favourite music/musicians, sing or play on a musical instrument and search Baroque musical adaptations. They write then act out a short play set in a Baroque salon or castle.

They make presentations, video documentations and share them on the TwinSpace. Finally they watch each other’s work products, evaluate them and look for similarities and differences.

Activity ICT tools and Internet services

Keep contact Chat, e-mail, TwinSpace

Project documentation In the TwinSpace: wiki, file archive, Prezi, video, image gallery

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Collaboration, share content In the TwinSpace: wiki, file archive Glogster, Google EarthPrezi, online office software

Present project products, share content, documentation

Publish content on TwinSpace

During the project work teachers help students’ work by proposing topics and problems, posing questions, creating checklists while also facilitating students’ learning, progress evalu-ation and self-assessment skills. Monitoring, problem solving and decision making are helped through by personal discussions and group discussions. Students can use a project review chart when organising work or evaluating results..

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The final project product will be a brochure on a selected castle to introduce its cultural and historic relevance and provide an insight into the fashion trends and etiquette norms of the period.

Students will create photos and videos that can be used for the brochure and record their first impressions in audio or video files.

The final documents will be presented in presentations and on an exhibition to the peers and the school/local community

Due to the complexity and the importance of the Baroque period in our cultural history, we can only address a small fraction of it in one school year so the topic can be continued in the following years. However, it is also possible to explore another period later with similar methods.

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Spring on the Danube

In our school students have increased number of Music and Arts lessons. The proximity of the Danube, our desire to speak a foreign language and our membership in the Hungarian Eco School Programme had all had an important role in choosing this project topic.

Spring on the DanubeThe project aims to observe changes in the river channel, explore its course from the head-

waters to the sea, search large floods and learn about the fish species native to the Danube.Age group: 10–13Expected duration: 1 school yearLanguage: GermanSubjects, related areas: Natural Sciences, Foreign Languages, Arts

With this project we would like to enable students to collaborate with their project part-ners, solve certain tasks, document their results and work products and finally publish them on the Internet.

Main project activities:1. Where does it start and finish? Students discuss the flow of the river in group work. After testing students’ prior knowl-

edge, we use questionnaires for learning new information. Each country compiles a questionnaire and shares it with their project partners. Students make presentations on the Danube. All the project materials are presented in a blog launched with the children. In the school assembly hall we create a scale drawing of the river with the

Pintérné Horváth Rita

Homoktövis Primary School – Budapest www.homoktovis-suli.hu

most important details marked.2. Floods on the Danube Students talk about water levels and floods then collect and record old and new terms

related to the topic. They collect pictures and stories about large floods according to certain criteria and then create presentations on them. They compare their presenta-tions with those of the project partners. We discuss the size of the floods in the given countries and the damages they caused. The dates and photos of the floods are also placed on the big poster, along the river course.

3. Typical aquatic animals of the river The new words and technical terms (gill, fin, webbed feet, etc.) are recorded in the prog-

ress diary. Students shot pictures and short films at the river bank, enlarge certain details and share them with their project partners who have to find out the name of the animals. After this students chose a type of bird and fish in groups to work with. They collect infor-mation on them, create a quiz for their project partner, make drawings to complete photo details and finally create a collage in group work.

4. Towns and cities along the river Students present their hometown or a town by the Danube to their project partners. It

can be a short film, a digital photo album or a presentation as well. These presentations are sent then to the project partners along with some questions about the project part-ner’s hometown. Students make an interview with a shipmaster. They draw a postcard about their project partner’s hometown and finally they can vote for the best cards in the blog.

5. Measurements: temperature, water levels Project partners agree on a date when they can measure the temperature of the air and

the water and take pictures. Students create charts and graphs based on the given data and compare the results to find out at which part of the river nature awakens first.

6. Animal tales After filling in a questionnaire to activate prior knowledge of water breathing and air

breathing aquatic animals, students select the main character of the story with their project partners. They draw a picture of him/her and then start to work on the storyline together with their partners: one group creates the drawing and the other group creates the text to it. Students can act out the tale for the school or for the parents or they can shot photos or films on it and upload them to the school homepage and the common file archive.

7. Sounds at the waterfront Students record different sounds at the river bank (splashing water, seagulls’ and ducks’

voice, etc.), which the project partners have to find out. Students create a story to the sounds collaboratively and make a radio play to present it in the blog, school radio or school homepage.

8. Picture gallery After talking about paintings of the Danube, students create digital posters. They paint

pictures by using blue colours only then collect stones on the river bank, paint them and create mosaics from them. They use the blog to vote for the best masterpieces. At

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the end all the products are shown at an exhibition in the school assembly hall.

Activity ICT tools and Internet servicesKeep contact e- mail, TwinSpace

Project documentation progress diary, blog

Collaboration, share content, documentation

e- mail, TwinSpace, digital camera, photo machine, digital voice recorder

Present project products, dissemination

presentation, short film, photos, digital storybook, radio play, school homepage

Project activities can be done on language lessons and after-school classes (two occasions per week) while some of the art tasks and on-site measurements will be addressed at out-of-school events. Plenty of creative art tasks can be done as part of the Arts specialisation in the school. I would like to use the proximity of the Danube to make students explore it and love it. As an eco school I think it is important that we deal with environment protection, which can be only done through exploring the environment first.

The project work could be continued later in the direction of water resources or drinking water issues. It could be useful to create guidelines for a more economic use of drinking water at home and at schools or we could also work out a water-saving plan for the school.

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„Sounds Colours Tastes – Smells”

Our school participated in a Comenius project in 2007 which was about writing and performing a play under students’ instructions. Besides gaining tremendous experiences students became more self-confident during the project and more positive about language learning. That is why we decided to take part in similar international projects in the future.

„Sounds Colours Tastes - Smells”This is a project against stereotypes and preconceptions..With my project I would like to help the next generation to become more tolerant and

more open to differences and new experiences. This can only be achieved through getting to know themselves and their environment and accepting differences. Self-knowledge has a crucial role in knowing other people and seeing ourselves in others. Thanks to this, students may have the forces to deliberately defy stereotypes.

Age group: 13–14 Expected duration: 3 termsLanguage: GermanSubjects, related areas: Ethics, Home Economics, Foreign Languages, IT, Law, His-

tory of Culture, Environmental Education, Media Education, Arts, Language and Literature

Introduction phaseWhat does it mean “to be different”? (mind map) What makes somebody different from

others? Are these our habits that make us different? What does it mean: “stereotypes” or “preconceptions”? (short wiki)

We will do brainstorming to survey students’ existing knowledge. Students will work in

Ruff Katalin

II. Rákóczi Ferenc Primary and Hungarian-German Bilingual School –

Miskolcwww.rakoczisuli.hu

small groups to collect 5 relevant questions they could ask later from private people or organ-isations.

Awareness postersStudents create awareness posters about our special events (e.g. afternoon movie, discus-

sions with the representatives of minorities and disabled people) to raise the local commu-nity’s awareness of our project topic.

Self-portraitStudents compile an “About Me” folder with pictures, words and adjectives typical of

them.Students introduce themselves on the TwinSpace then connect to each other (MeinSteck-

brief ).Students “exchange personality” with “different” people”: they spend a school day blind,

deaf or in wheelchair with the help of another student so that personal experiences will enable them to see the world from a different viewpoint.

Sounds – Pictures – FilmsAfter watching a mutually selected film, we will discuss in what way the characters were

“different” from others and what sort of preconceptions could be seen in the film. Students share their opinion and ideas in a common blog. We will prepare portrait photo montages and comment on the works of arts then present them to the audience on an exhibition. We will make presentations on the music of our local minorities/nationalities and share them with our partner schools.

Colours – Fashion trends „Do clothes make the man?”We will deal with teen clothing trends and how they affect first impression and more. We

will create a fashion catalogue with students wearing typical teen clothes. After this, we will upload the catalogue to the TwinSpace and compare it with other countries’ fashion brochures and catalogues.

We will discuss the meaning of “varicoloured” or “varied” and explore the meaning and effects of colours then present our results in a collaborative piece of art.

Tastes – SmellsStudents prepare their typical foods in groups e.g. German, Roma, Bulgarian. Joint cook-

ing helps to break down barriers and get to know each other. Students choose together a typical phenomenon of their town/region and create a com-

mercial on it. Students prepare a typical food of their partner school’s and record it on video. (Unser-

eKochshow) They share their impressions on the common blog.

A test of tolerance

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Define the meaning of “tolerance” – with a mind map.„How tolerant is your school?” Students create a tolerance test with their partner groups to

survey how tolerant their local community is. They create diagrams to evaluate the results and compare their findings with the partner schools.

Activity ICT tools and Internet servicesKeep contact e-mail, Skype, TwinSpace, Facebook

Project documentation TwinSpace

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Come to a common opinion, Discuss key issues and concepts blog, wiki, bubble.us

Share presentations and music compilationsTwinSpace, YouTube

Present project results, share content, documentation, branding, etc. (dissemination) TwinSpace, YouTube, Facebook

During the project activities students consciously evaluate their own work and that of their peers. Before starting the project work, mind mapping and brainstorming will be used to survey students’ prior knowledge. We agree in advance about the deadlines and evaluation criteria that students will have to bear in mind during the work process. Student develop-ment can be monitored by their individual project diaries. At the end of the project we will jointly evaluate the work products such as music and photo montages, posters, short films, etc.

Project activities will be documented in a common blog and a file archive containing all the ideas, tasks, templates and work products (e.g. short film) of the project.

This “folder” can help other schools to carry out the project. Later on the project can be extended with new topics and new partner schools where new schools/countries can bring in new ideas, new viewpoints to the project.

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eLEARNING TOGETHER!

Our school has been dealing with disabled children since 1980 with physiotherapists, con-ductors and pedagogical assistants helping our work. In addition to this, our school provides advanced English, German and IT classes for the students.

I have been responsible for coordinating international projects since 2003 and have already participated in three Comenius projects. Our first project Flowing together-water in life and fantasy! received the European E Quality Award in 2006.

The eLEARNING TOGETHER project will be the first eTwinning project in our school. I plan to carry it out with my 7th grade students with whom I have 5 English les-sons, 2 IT lessons and 4 Maths lessons per week. They are ready for new experiences and really enjoy working together. I have read that project pedagogy makes learning fun for the students and this is exactly what I would like to prove to them with this project.

eLEARNING TOGETHER!During this project students will develop relevant learning resources to an e-Learning

System. Content developed by the students will involve new information, practice/games and assessment sections in every module.

Age group: 13–14Expected duration: 1 school yearLanguage: English/HungarianSubjects, related areas: Foreign Languages, IT, Mathematics, Citizenship

The project will enable students to develop independent learning techniques and learn to acquire and process information independently through individual and collaborative activi-

Skultéty Zoltánné Rusai Katalin

Bársony-Hunyadi Primary School – Miskolc

www.hunyadi-miskolc.sulinet.hu

ties. The development of new learning resources will help them to improve cooperative skills, creativity and critical thinking. It is also important that the project activities should care for students’ individual needs and abilities.

Main activitiesThe new website/learning content will be divided into modules, each of them covering a

certain topic such as introduction of our hometown, description of the Scratch application, building learning games, the results of the London Olympic Games, etc. Children will cre-ate a mini encyclopaedia (interactive book) to each module with practice quizzes (puzzles, crosswords) and assessment tests.

The partner school will work parallel with similar activities. The final work products will be shared on the eTwinning TwinSpace and on a Moodle site. After the hometown module students will team up into mixed groups and collaborate on the learning content with the partner countries.

In our city there is an annual Competition Day when participants (families, school groups, etc.) solve funny quizzes while walking around the city to demonstrate how much they know about Miskolc. This gave us the idea to create a similar playful activity for our project part-ners to get acquainted with our hometown, which could be used later on with other project partners as well (e.g. in Comenius partnerships).

Advanced IT students learn to use the Logo programming language in our school so the use of Scratch will make the similar activities more appealing and more interesting for them. We will also create – in cooperation with my colleagues – fun Math quizzes for the 1st and 2nd grade students.

Advanced English students learn about the capital city of the UK as part of their studies. They will show the city life and the most famous sites of London from their special point of view. London hosted the Summer Olympics in 2012, which is a good opportunity to deal with the history and sports of the Olympics. In addition, partner countries can also present their Olympic champions to each other.

Activity ICT tools and Internet services

Keep contact Blog, progress diary TwinSpace – Pupils’ corner, Staff room, chat

Project documentation Blog, progress diary, TwinSpace

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CollaborationShare contentDocumentation

Teamup (to form groups), Google DocsTwinSpace – Activity pages

Present project results Prezi.com, FlipSnack (flipbook)EclipseCrossword (crossword) BlogMoodle

Teachers act as facilitators/mentors during the learning process and provide students with templates and checklists at every module.

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Regular feedbacks with the checklists and templates provided at certain project phases will foster self-assessment skills in students. Furthermore, they will keep a progress diary on the blog where other students can leave comments and feedbacks.

At the end of the project we will ask some external classes to pilot our learning materials so that we can eliminate errors and perform the necessary changes.

The e-learning resources will be uploaded then to a CMS for public use (Moodle) with the final modules: city competition, Scratch, London and the Olympics.

E-learning is an excellent way to draw students’ attention for lifelong learning and to take responsibility for their own learning. The website content on the CMS can be extended later by new topics depending on students’ ideas or a new project theme.

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Mouzzle – MozikirakóA puzzle of movies

Most of our international relationships came from Comenius partnerships. Presently we have nine partner schools from seven countries as the result of three Comenius projects.

In the past few years proposal writing became slowly a stable part of my everyday work both as a teacher and a school leader. I submitted my first applications around the Millennium for IT infrastructure development. They were a success and I thought this would always be the case. I was eager to dig into proposal writing and now I submit proposals on all topics related to my work e.g. talent development, ICT workbook, etc.

I work as an ICT teacher. When planning my lessons, I try to find connection points with other subjects as well as students’ everyday life and problems.

For a couple of years now I also use project pedagogy in my teaching practice. As I can see, students are much more motivated and enthusiastic about learning if they can see the actual results of their work.

I have been planning to set up an eTwinning project for a while so I was very happy to read about and apply for the e3 initiative.

Mouzzle - MozikirakóThe main activity of the project is to create a film based on students’ ideas and the scenes

shot by them.Age group: 12–14Expected duration: 1 school year Language: English and/or Hungarian

Tóth Imre

Bocskai István Primary, Secondary and Art School, Pedagogical

Professional Services – Hajdúnánáswww.bocskai.net

Subjects, related areas: ICT, Media Studies, Arts, Law, Design and Technology

The project aims at creating visual culture; building up a conscious attitude towards the world; developing picture comprehension skills in order to enable students to manage the information load coming at them day by day; and also at fulfilling students’ needs for playing games and having fun.

In our information-based world it is very important that students should be able to under-stand pictures and movies and should be able to gain and select information from multime-dia content. Understanding written texts is no longer enough to get by on the Internet or in the real world. Therefore, the development of students’ picture comprehension skills is just as important as developing reading comprehension skills or promoting good reading habits.

Main activities

National activities European collaborationBrainstorming: collect students’ ideas about the basic story, place and characters.

Agree about the basic elements of the film

Movie script: turn the story into a script in small groups

Comments on the scripts, choose the best ones

Search and select film locations, casting, find movie props

Shoot the scenes

Editing: select and join together shots to create the film

Show the films

Collect tips and opinions and modify/recut the movie accordingly

Show the final movie

Teachers are first and foremost facilitators in the project. All the important tasks (e.g. finding out the scenes) are carried through by the students; teachers only help them with creating and sustaining an environment where they can fully unfold their creativity. Some of the activities run parallel in the partner schools. Most of the work is done in group work but some pair work and individual work is also used when writing the scripts.

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Activities ICT tools and Internet servicesKeep contact TwinSpace: e-mail, chat, Staff room, Pupils’ corner

Project documentation TwinSpace, Project diary

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Brainstorming to define the basic conditions

Collect ideas online (Corkboard, Wallwisher)Voting: Student Response System, interactive voting (Socrative)

Brainstorming to find out the story Group forming: TeamUpVote for the top 50 (Google Docs)

Movie script Online and offline word processing apps (Google Docs)

Project documentation Blog, TwinSpace – File archive

Shoot the film Video cameras, photo machines, telephones, tablets

Cut the film Movie Maker, Windows Live Movie Maker, VirtualDub, Lightworks

Join the shotsSend film scenes to the project partners

Transfer big files (Mammutmail)Share film scenes : YouTube, Indavideo, Comments

Create posters Graphics programs: Paint, GIMPOnline graphics program: Pixlr

Assessment/self-assessment is helped by check lists at certain points of the project work. The final product is a film shot and edited by the partner classes.

The project idea can serve as good practice for teachers of these fields to set up a similar project in their schools.

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European Youth – Similarities and Differences

Our school participated in the project called “edTWIN – Education Twinning for European Citizenship” from 2008 to 2011. Since 2011 we have had a twin school in Ger-many with which we share a professional trainee exchange programme.

I am very much keen on starting an eTwinning project and luckily the school manage-ment also promotes international relationships. My colleagues and I think that cooperating and collaborating with European peers can be an excellent motivation for language learning, since using a foreign language in authentic situations is an overwhelming experience for both students and teachers. Besides, students participating in international projects become more self-assured, more pro-active and more cooperative in general.

Along with the students and their teachers, the partner schools and the local communi-ties can also profit from the school projects if they are open to new information and ready to apply new methods.

European Youth – Similarities and DifferencesThe first activity of the planning process was to find out the central topic. I wanted to

choose an interesting and relevant topic for the students, which is not very new to them and not very “schoolish”.

Students, therefore, will examine certain fields to reveal values and preferences within their age group and outline basic trends.

Fields of investigation: physical appearance, personality (life and career, self-assessment,

Vámosné Kapitány Gabriella

Szent-Györgyi Albert Healthcare and Social Vocational School – Győr

www.szentgyorgyi.hu

traditions) / social connections (family, friends, school/workplace) / consumption (buying, eating, entertainment)

The project tries to find answers to the following questions:• What are the most important or most influential events in our lives?• What are the things we would like to know about the other country’s culture?• What are our cultural inheritances? • What kind of global trends affect our lives?• Will future bring good things to life?• What are the most popular free time activities among the youth?• What makes us different from other generations?• What do we need to feel satisfied? Age group: 15-17Expected duration: 1 school year Language: GermanSubjects, cultural areas involved: Foreign Languages, Man and Society, Sociology,

ICT, History of Culture, Health Studies, Life and Career, European citizenship

As an overall objective, students will get to know and understand the most important values that their European partners live by.

Learning objectives: • develop language learning skills• develop ICT use• familiarise with project documentation and web-based collaboration, learn media skills • learn about European cultures, acquire intercultural skills• learn to appreciate their own cultural and ethnic heritagePedagogical objectives:

• develop critical thinking and compromising skills• develop the need for continuous self-reflection and self-assessment• improve responsibility and social sensitivity

Activity ICT tools and internet servicesKeep contact e-mail, blog, skype, eTwinning TwinSpace

Project documentation eTwinning TwinSpace, project diary, overview chart to the project

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Before project workTwinSpace, File archive, project diary, forum,online questionnaires

During project work

TwinSpace, online questionnaires, Google docs, graphic programmes, wikis, project diary, newsletters, overview chart to the project, feedback report (online)

End of project work, present project products

TwinSpace, project diary, video diary, newsletter, presentation, final evaluation report, media documentation

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After assessing prior knowledge, students are divided into groups of 3 or 4, where they do some research work with different questionnaires. Then a final questionnaire is compiled from the group questionnaires, which gives an overall review of the project work (very impor-tant that every pupil should contribute to the work and they should take a common respon-sibility for it). Finally the unified questionnaires are made into a Google form and circulated in the widest possible audience.

Students create summaries, make comparative analyzes and create graphs/charts to draw conclusions and understand the differences and similarities between the countries.

Assessment and evaluation are carried out through project diary, presentations and reflec-tive essays. The project owner and the assisting teachers are continuously checking student progress and are trying to help and encourage students as their “mentors”

Thanks to the school profile, some content of the project work can be addressed in the classroom – as part of Health Studies, Life and Career, Sociology, Foreign Languages or Social Studies, for instance.

Besides, our school has several annual events – health day, dispute day, pupils’ day, vol-unteer work in nursing homes, peer training – that helps us to implement other content of the project.

Project work can result in various products:• Video diary, project diary and presentation made for students, teachers or parents.• Website, blog. • Newsletter to the school magazine and to the annual school report. Articles published in

the local press, radio and TV interviews in the local media. • The final analysis, essay and graphs presented in a bilingual publication.

During the project work students can gain friends, pen friends and memories for a lifetime. The project can be extended to other relevant topics or fields of investigation. Maintaining the common blog and creating articles to later school events can mean follow-up activities to the project and – in case of a fruitful cooperation – the partner schools can agree about starting student exchanges through Comenius programme, for instance.

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A 21st Century Tale

The history of Comenius partnerships goes back to several years in our school. My stu-dents and most of the parents are very motivated and look forward to new experiences and challenges. After gaining the possibility to work in e3 Project I told them about my project plan and they can hardly wait now to actually start it. The project will also teach them to work in teams.

Important characteristics of the school: Language learning (English, German and French) starts in the 1st grade; it is a member of the Hungarian Eco-schools Network and the Talent Support Programme.

A 21st Century TaleThe project is about exploring and re-discovering the world of tales. The novelty of the

project comes from combining new, easy to use and easy to access ICT tools with old tales so that students can place these stories and their favourite characters in the 21st century.

Age group: 11–14 Expected duration: 2 yearsLanguage: FrenchSubjects, related areas: Arts, Drama, Foreign Languages, ICT, Language and Lit-

erature, Media Education, Technology

The main aim of the project is to help students re-find the world of tales – which is getting less and less important in children’s life nowadays – and enable them to examine the language of humour and understand the moral lessons involved in them.

Students will furthermore learn to apply existing knowledge, store and sum up newly

Zongor Klára

Hriszto Botev Primary Schoolwww.botev.hu

acquired information, express themselves clearly and effectively in writing and in speech, work in teams and take common responsibility to reach common goals. They will also devel-op flexibility and compromising skills.

1st Semester – ExplorationAfter presenting the project to the parents on a common meeting, the participants fill out

a questionnaire about their attitudes and expectations. This will allow for making changes in the project plan if needed.

We start the blog and learn to use the TwinSpace. Questionnaires and special tasks will help to assess students’ knowledge about literary fairy tales. This is also the time when they can choose the French and the local tale to work with. We will have a teddy bear called Twinnie, who will “help” our project work as a narrator. He will be responsible for the monthly newsletters for example (with the help of our students). We will also encourage our project partner to create a similar stuffed animal.

In the project the students will have the main or the “active” role; therefore it is important to share the tasks and responsibilities right at the beginning, which will be sealed by a real

“contract” among the participants. Teachers will be responsible for coordinating the project work, meeting deadlines and ensuring assessment, self-assessment.

2nd Semester – AnalysisStudents will examine fairy tales and analyse and compare their most important char-

acteristics. They will collaborate with their project partners and continuously record their results. By the end of the semester each student compiles a presentation. During the semester we will also visit a puppet-show.

3rd Semester – Create a fairy taleThe second year is about present fairy tales. Students will collect ideas about a tale of their

own, and then gradually build in everyday features to get a real 21st century European fairy tale. The main activities focus on creating the tale – Twinnie will inform about the current progress. In the meantime, students challenge each other with little quizzes on tales. At the end of the year students will be ready with their common tale, which will be published in the blog.

4th Semester – Create an animated filmThe fairy tale will be made into an animated film. The project partners will share the

scenes among each other. This will be the time to finalise earlier mini products, then the students and the parents will fill out a final questionnaire and finally we will say goodbye to Twinnie.

Assessment will be based on students’ individual progress diaries throughout the project. They will use the diary to record new information, work products, tests, diagrams, question-naires, etc. Besides self-assessment, students’ performance will also be measured by tradi-

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tional tests and quizzes focusing on writing skills in French.

Activity ICT tools and Internet services

Keep contact e-mail, blog, TwinSpace, social networks (Facebook), chat (Skype)

Project documentation digital camera (YouTube)

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Collaboration, share content, documentation newsletter, poster (Glogster), Google documents,

upload photos (Picasa )

Carry out individual activitiesonline polls (Doodle), create word clouds (Tagxedo)

Present project products, share content

Presentation (Prezi), (YouTube)

We plan to close the project with a special event where we can show the project phases and the results to the public. We would also like to present the animated film in the local television.

Thanks to the richness of the topic, the project work can be a “never-ending story”. The tale can be continued, and the project can be transformed into a Comenius partnership later on. It will also allow us to involve other local institutions (television, theatres) and can pave the way for a wide dissemination in the community.