The book of Arts in eTwinning

“The Book of Arts in eTwinning”

Picture: Elisabete Fiel, Portugal

eTwinning activities and projects by the Creative Classroom Group members

JULY 2014

2

Index Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………….5 1. Geometry and Art ………………………………………………………………………………….6 2. Art and CLIL …………………………………………………………………………………………….….9 3. English and Creative Dots ……………………………………………………………………………13 4. International Art Museum: Paint the world ………………………………………………..14 5. Living Paintings …………………………………………………………………………………………..17 6. My Art ……………………………………………………………………………………………………….19 7. Numbers in our life- project “The numbers travel around Europe” …………..23 8. Sweet Art and a European card game ………………………………….…………………….28 9. The story from the colours box-an eTwinning project ………………………………..31 10. We are the painters of the world ……………………………………………………………….35 11. Web 2.0 Tools in eTwinning Project ……………………………………………………………38 12. English language training ……………………………………………………………………………41 13. Drama Games …………………………………………………………………………………………….43 14. Let’s speak music …………………………………………….............................................45 15. Comics as fotonovelas ………………………………………………………………………………..46 16. Comics auf Detsch ……………………………………………………………………………………..50 17. Comics as stimuli and mean of engagement ………………………………………………51 18. Dangers all around ……………………………………………………………………………………..52 19. Traveling to beautiful places: the project “Travel and Languages” ……………..55 20. Let our nature shine …………………………………………………………………………………..59 21. My P.I.C. (My Place Is Comely) eTwinning Project ………………………………………61 22. Our illustrated story ……………………………………………………………………………………85 23. Collaborative Artful Storytelling …………………………………………………………………89 24. Sense Europe-our story ………………………………………………………………………..92 25. “Working on a radio project: “Time Voyagers” on the European School Radio”………………………………………………………………………………………………….97 26. ULYSSE 2014 : L'ODYSSÉE DU TWINSPACE …………………………………………….113

3

4

Introduction This year we talked a lot about Arts in eTwinning projects especially Drama activities.

This was the reason I suggested to create a book with your best eTwinning practices.

In the next pages, you will find interesting ideas regarding drama, arts, music, storytelling, photography and media activities. I have to say that this book is definitely the most colourful book, we ever did in the Creative Classroom group. All Arts can make us really creative and as Pablo Picasso said: “Every child is an artist.

The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.”

Thank you all for your valuable contributions and hard work and remember: “Creativity takes courage” (Henry Matisse) so just keep the courage you already have!!!

Irene Pateraki

5

1. Geometry and Art by ANIȘOARA IORDACHE (Romania) This activity is part of the "Circle games" Web address : cercului

http://www.didactic.ro/pagina-proiectului/despre/nazdravaniile-

Participants: students and teachers to "secondary school NO.6" Nicolae Titulescu ", Constanţa and School Holy Martyrs Brâncoveni,Constanţa, România Objective: The project aims to stimulate student interest in apps to discover the world around the circle of society; participation in the education of all children, promoting diversity and equality. The activity is Online and here are some of the final products: 1. In the "circle and art 'students have shown on the drawings the relative position of the circles: student-Mircea Rebecca

Gilan El yAZJI

6

STUDENT: Carol Gabriel

student: Ionescu Valentin Student:

Laoghin

Melisa

2. Students have applied symmetry in program designs: http://weavesilk.com/#_=_

7

3. Students used geometric figures in drawings op - art

4. Students have made Easter cards

8

2. Art and CLIL by Antonietta Calò (Italy) During the second year of the Comenius Bilateral Partnership , ART was directily involved in CLIL metodology: 1) Italian students presented places of interest in Naples to their Bulgarian partners on the eTwinning portal 2) Italian and Bulgarian students worked in small groups during our staying in Vratsa to create works of Art 3) Italian students presented places of interest in Vratsa to their Italian mates on the eTwinning portal

Comenius Bilateral Parterniship

English and Science conquer the new Spaces a.s.2013/2014 I.I.S. “don L. Milani” A.Calò - Italian Ambassador

Link:http://newtwinspace.etwinning.net/c/portal/layout?p_l_id=30311550&p_p_id=20&p_p_lifecycle=0& p_p_state=maximized&p_p_mode=view&p_p_col_id=column1&p_p_col_pos=1&p_p_col_count=5&_20_struts_action=%2Fdocument_library%2Fview& _20_folderId=30459888

9

Map 1. Piazza del Gesù 2. Chiesa del Gesù Nuovo 3. Basilica di Santa Chiara 4. St. Gregorio Armeno 5. Basilica di S. Lorenzo M. 6. Basilica S. Paolo M.

http://newtwinspace.etwinning.net/c/portal/layout?p_l_id=30311550&p_p_id=20&p_p_lifecycle=0&p_p_state=maximized&p_p_mode=view&p _p_col_id=column-1&p_p_col_pos=1&p_p_col_count=5&_20_struts_action=%2Fdocument_library%2Fview&_20_folderId=30311714

A.Calò - Italian Ambassador

LITTLE SCIENTISTS AND ARTISTS GROW UP!

A.Calò - Italian Ambassador

10

Students’ works of Art

A.Calò - Italian Ambassador

11

ENGLISH AND SCIENCE CONQUER NEW SPACES: THE SECOND YEAR Public link to this TwinSpace: http://new-twinspace.etwinning.net/web/p100488 BLOG http://new-twinspace.etwinning.net/c/portal/layout?p_l_id=28215165 Founder: Antonietta Calò (I.I.S. don L.Milani Gragnano- Italy) Founder: Dimitrina Georgieva (JELS- Vratsa-Bulgaria)

Places of Art in Vratsa- Bulgaria- described by the Italian students

The Regional Historical Museum

The Ethnographic Museum

http://new-twinspace.etwinning.net/c/portal/layout?p_l_id=30311550&p_p_id=31&p_p_lifecycle=1&p_p_state=normal

A.Calò - Italian Ambassador

12

3. English and Creative Dots by Reny Raicheva (Bulgaria) Countries: Italy, Bulgaria, Poland, Latvia Link: http://new-twinspace.etwinning.net/web/p98451 Description: The project is based on the popular method of drawing and painting through dots. The author is Canadian artist and illustrator Peter Reynolds. Young learners can improve their language skills and draw amazing pictures through colourful dots. The project aim is to develop children's language skills, creativity and talent through art. It will help young learners to be more confident when they draw, paint and study English. Project activities will include a lot of links and materials about this unique technique, dot - to- dot exercises, drawings, paintings through dots, creative clips and videos, work on the International Dot Day - 15th September, etc. Children can know more in English - letters, words, expressions. Pupils can draw, paint and create amazing products through dots. They can share their experience altogether.

Tools: You Tube, Photopeach, Kizoa, Picture Trails

13

4. International Art Museum: Paint the world by Elena Molasioti (Greece) As a person who believes that art can change the world I realized it was a unique opportunity this year to introduce students into the world of great painters and paintings through the program "International art museum: Paint the world". So immediately we responded to the proposal to become a partner of the project, and then co-founders. The program began in October and was completed in June. All these months since we have developed between partners and between children an atmosphere of respect, acceptance, creative pursuit and expression, all and I mean ALL students participating-and teachers-gained multiple benefits. We met several painters, the main currents, and schools, movements of art, the countries of painters, and the sociopolitical aspects of their era. We painted with many different styles, techniques, using a variety of materials. We made wonderful presentations on the lives and work of Artists, using many different ICT tools. We communicated and collaborated with our partners using all available ways. (Mails, emails, videoconference) We visited the National Gallery and the Municipal gallery of Athens. We used painting as a weapon against racism, like a 'tribute' in love and friendship, as this universal language commands. And all these by using abundant electronic aids both from the eTwinning and from many Artistic internet sites.

Have a look at all partners work in our blog: 14

http://new-twinspace.etwinning.net/web/p97953/homepage

AN ALBUM WITH 23 ART POSTCARDS FROM OUR PUPILS AND A DVD WITH ALL THE PROJECT WORK.

Painting in Sign Language

15

Our Artists

16

5. Living Paintings by Veronique Sarrere (France) It is commonly agreed that Art has no borders. Teachers and students imagined how they could “embody” some great pieces of Art and turn them into… Living Paintings.

This Art project was part of our Comenius/eTwinning Project entitled VIOLA (Values in Our Lives Always) between 8 countries (Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, England, Italy, Spain and Turkey).

This activity “Living Paintings” was divided into two parts: one had to be done in each school and the other one during our mobility in France.

1. Before coming to France in each school The idea of the project consisted for our students in choosing among their cultural heritage a piece of work and become actors for a short moment. Our students took a picture of “their new living artistic version of the piece of work”.

17

Our students were free to choose the piece of Art they wanted to work on and to use of make-up, costumes, simple settings or sophisticated ones‌).

They were all imaginative and had fun!

2. Workshop in France Our Art teacher teamed up all the students in international teams and they worked all together on a piece of Art chosen by the teacher. All the students worked in the same conditions (given time, material‌). At the end of the workshop they took pictures of each collaborative work, printed them and added them in our Exhibition room.

Our students wrote: it was a moment of friendship, of commitment, of sharing into a common activity.

Here is the link of their ebook http://www.calameo.com/read/0006575231df7bf00f28b?authid=Z4NmJC3ds68s

18

6. My Art by Célia Cristina Niza (Portugal) Education through Art-Painting Action Panting or Dripping Splashes in action - Pollock Artist: Jackson Pollock – Period: 1912-1956 Movement: Abstract Expressionism Technique: Painting Level of child - 3 to 5 years Agrupamento de Escolas de Aljustrel - Jardim de Infância de Rio de Moinhos The American painter Jackson Pollock is known for his experimentation in painting techniques and his abstract style. Pollock wanted his paintings were different from photography and experienced what he called "Action Painting" with your whole body involved in the movement. The painter put screens on the floor and quickly shooting and sprinkling ink was moving directly from the can to the screen.

Sometimes added other elements in his paintings as prints of their hands or their personal belongings. All these experiments raised several shapes, lines and colors that make up abstract painting. Pollock once said: "When I am painting, I'm not aware of what I'm doing, I'm not afraid to destroy the image because the painting has a life of its own."

19

Materials: -Sheets of paper -Brushes Paints Procedure: 1 - Place the sheets on the tables 2 - Start by wetting the big brush on the container with the paint you want.

3 - Hold the brush and sprinkle ink on paper, rattling his wrist in jerky movements.

Some movements are more "action" than others, but if controlled, also work out.

4 - Add more colors and more speckled.

Illustrative Example:

20

Work undertaken from the observation of 2 works Pollok

21

Work carried out by the group

Change in technical -Symmetries "Spring Butterflies"

22

7. Numbers in our life- project “The numbers travel around Europe� by Lica Mihaela (Romania) The world of the numbers is fascinating in the eyes of the children (6-8) years.

Each figure can be a character story. They create games with numbers, they draw on the computer houses, castles and cities of numbers become characters. They shape with the clay or paint a world of numbers.

The Romanian students make landscapes using figures, make figures in clay, draw castles, village for numbers, the family of numbers, numbers at work, geometric numbers; they create a collaborative games using figures, proposed to find the age of the man made from figures; make postcards on the computer and movie with Romanian students singing Carrols; tell stories about every number and ask to partner students to guess what numbers live in the houses which they made in clay; they learn a poem with numbers from the German students and sing this poem; they draw on the computer using geometric figures.

23

The students have the opportunity to learn about numbers by making drawings, using clay for modeling the numbers and houses for numbers, creating stories about numbers, learning the poems and songs about numbers , creating the houses for numbers using the computer, creating a collaborative game for to find the age of the characters made from figures.

24

The students develop language skills by creating stories about numbers, improve ICT skills by making drawings on the computers, improve calculation skills by creating games for to calculate the ages of the characters which they have drawn from numbers, successful collaboration in Art and Technology by modeling in clay, by learning and singing poems and songs about numbers, improving individual expression of creativity, establishing connection between math, literature, ICT and arts. They establish connections between mathematical concepts in the curriculum and common aspects of day-to-day life, especially by using measures.

25

We had a good collaboration in creating stories about numbers, in learning poems and songs about numbers, in creating games with numbers, in using ICT, in sharing experience and good practices in learning Mathematics. Pupils develop collaborative tasks with their partners from other countries, . Students use ICT for searching information, sharing results and communication. They make postcards on the computer and sent them to their partners, they use origami or geometry figures to create a character for each number, and they create a game drawing characters from figures and ask their partners to guess the age of these. They create stories about numbers and sharing results with their partners in a PPT presentation. They learn a poem proposed by partners’ students and sing it, making a movie. They learn about cultures of each partner country making movies with Carrols.

They make postcards on the computer and send to their partners, they draw on the computers the houses of the numbers; they make PPT presentation of the school and the city. Students use ICT for searching information, sharing results and communication.

We promoted the results of the project making PPT presentations of the activities, movies, posters, photo album. We involved in our project activities the students, the professors and the parents. The goal was to increase pupil’s motivation and interest for Mathematics, stimulate the investigative spirit and the collaboration between partners’ students, the creativity and curiosity by combining mathematical contents with daily activities, with Literature, ICT and Art, improve skill of communication, learn a foreign language. Final evaluation includes questionnaires, discussions and PPT presentation which can be a start for another project.

26

The students from partner schools of different countries conducted activities with commitment and motivation. They had a good collaboration with foreign partners, improved communication skills and foreign language. They learned about culture of partner countries, shared the interesting methods for to learn about numbers. They have created games with numbers, have modeled numbers in clay, have learned poems and songs about numbers which were proposed by partner students, and have painted on the computers the houses for numbers. They made movies with their activities, photo albums, PPT presentations, exhibitions with origami and handmade products with numbers, postcards for partner students The results of the project activities were described on TwinSpace. I think that the project „The numbers travel around Europe� increase the spirit of European Union, collaboration, friendship between partner students and teachers, using ICT with partners in other schools , develops good practices in learning Mathematics in school and in daily activities, curricular integration, and much, much creativity.

27

8. Sweet Art and a European card game by Andrea Ullrich (Germany)

What do you look like when you have got a sweet tooth and how do you butter somebody up?

You look like a cat (sweet tooth = Naschkatze) and you use honey for the latter if you are German.

One of the activities in our “Europe’s Sweet Tooth” project was to present proverbs and phrases related to sweet things or the word “sweet”. For that task I managed to get two colleagues into our eTwinning boat: a German teacher to collect the phrases and an arts teacher to visualize them with my year 6 students. We were one of the youngest teams in this project – in some countries my students would still count as primary school ;) - so their command of English wasn’t as good as the other participants’ but they tried hard and really were into all the arts activities.

Dealing with the topic in an artistic way offered also the students who aren’t that good at English a chance to contribute something they were proud of.

28

The same students also worked in the “Seven European Families� project where we were supposed to produce a card game depicting typical facts about our countries.

29

We created A-sides with pictures, B-sides with facts about the family and pet and a story.

We had some great discussions about our region and what to show, and we had fun creating the cards. That could have been a great project to teach intercultural competences if all partners had contributed their eight cards and we would have got a template to print the game‌.

30

9. The story from the colours box-an eTwinning project by Livia Dobrescu (Romania) Our project "The story from the colors box" started in one eTwinning activity special created to find partners. There I found one great partner: Marianna Martini from Greece, who was my great co-founder in this project.

In that time my pupils haven’t started to learn English at school so I was thinking they can be in touch with other pupils via drawings. By drawing and painting children express their feelings, emotions, needs, express themselves thus revealing their identity. Painting, drawing as it is a game, a dialogue between child and adult, is a means of communication. The drawing is always a way to describe the story that cannot be told in words. Colors, paper, chalk can stimulate your child to tell different stories, to reveal scenes from his life, which cannot express otherwise.

31

Activities are carried out monthly, we have a common theme and we compare the views of pupils from different countries about the same subject. Each activity is completed with one presentation material that we watch them together with our students. In this way our pupils can see what is similar and what is different in drawings of children of the same age in different countries.

Proposed themes were easily integrated into the national curriculum. Students learned new techniques so they could see how to approach a given topic, layout, and colors used. The themes were agreed by all partners.

32

Similar project can be implemented in every school, small groups of interested pupils or the whole school can participate.

After the first year of the project, we have not closed it but we added new partners and work with new themes for our students. Subjects can be discussed using theoretical concepts, thus knowing each country’s curriculum regarding Arts. To develop other key skills (communication in English language) our pupils can add descriptions at their drawings in English.

All the project's activities were planned collaboratively, teachers contacted each other systematically. Comments under presentations show great interest and devotion of every project's participant. We were exchanging information using e-

mails, forum, blog and common space of TwinSpace. For Christmas, we send each other Christmas cards made by our students, our traditions about this event, how parents spent this time together in family.

We compiled multimedia presentations, slideshows, films, learned how to communicate via the Internet. Technology tools: a computer, a scanner, a digital camera. Programs and internet tools to make movies, slideshows, edit graphics, to upload presentations and documents online: PowerPoint, Word, Paint, FrontPage, Picassa, GoogleMap, YouTube, PhotoSnack, SlideShare, Kizoa, Smilebox, Smore, Slidely. The parents have access at this material on our school website or our blog for this project.

33

Drawings will form a virtual exhibition on TwinSpace and on schools' websites.

Drawings can be sent between schools and displayed in the corner of the project. In this way, young pupils can be part of eTwinning projects, they can learn from each other, they can be in touch with pupils of the same age from different countries of Europe and can share events, customs, what they like or what they do in free time.

Pupils and teachers open one box with colors and write one nice story: The story from the colors box!

34

10. We are the painters of the world by Maria Mavromati (Greece) This is the title of the eTwinning project that we worked this year.

Students drew on different subjects such as my place, my heroes, my dreams, fashion, portraits‌.Their work was excellent. I highlight the activity about my hero.

They drew their lovely heroes and practiced on creative writing. They wrote about them and practiced their English skills as well. The most important is that they cooperated with a Spanish primary school. Both schools chose two of their lovely heroes and wrote a story cooperatively .They used titanpad.com for this purpose.

You can read the text: How Picasso became famous A sunny day, MINAS came out for a walk with his beautiful cat GARFIELD. They were looking at the green trees, they were smelling the fragrant flowers and they were walking hapilly. As they were walking, a smell of lasagna pierced GARFIELD'S nose.

35

There was a restaurant nearby. Suddenly, GARFIELD cut off his leash strongly and ran to find lasagna.

But suddenly, the dog of the restaurant´s owner stand on the door and Gardfield looked scared. His eyes are open but he is really hungry....

The owner of the restaurant´s name was Pablo Picasso. He was a great artist and painter but he decided to open a restaurant because nobody bought his paintings.

His dog´s name was "Dove" DOVE started barking when he saw GARFIELD.PABLO PICASSO heard the voices and he went outside to see what happened. When he saw the cat he was enchanted by his beauty and thought to get him to his home to paint him in his paintings. Perhaps in this way , he could sell paintings.

While MINAS was desperately looking for his cat he listened to the voices and he turned into the restaurant.

When this hard working day finished, Picasso came back home and relaxed on his favourite sofa. He was watching TV when suddenly he got inspirited: he started to paint and paint to Garfield. He painted him with all kind of colours and geometrical forms. e painted millions of different Garfields: Garfield eating, Garfield watching TV, Garfield sleeping on the sofa. Picasso was really happy although Minas and Dove looked at him worried.

Next day, Picasso carried all his paintings to a near gallery and made a nice exposition there called: "The Catnica". It was great!! Everybody in the town visited it and bought a lot of his paintings PICASSO thanks to GARFIELD became one of the most famous painters in the world and gained a lot of money. He donated his restaurant at MINAS who will be cooking lasagna and feeding the cat that made him so recognizable over the world.

Afterwards they searched for Picasso in Wikipedia, they learned a lot about him and they worked on the worksheet that I had prepared about Guernica. It was an enjoyable and constructive process.

Guernica

36

 What colors do you see that dominate and what are the feelings they emerge?  What are the basic forms you figure out?  What animals do you see?  What do you think that animals and people do and how they feel?  Why do you think that they feel like that?

37

11. Web 2.0 Tools in eTwinning Project by Stamatia Stamati (Greece) Our eTwinning project: “Stroll in time, in a journey of history, culture, environment, full of Greece and Cyprus! Our vehicle: The stamp!” (in partnership with Cyprus)    

Communication language: EL Age of students: 12-15 Number: 30 Tools: General Use Software (Word, Ppt, Movie Maker, ImageEditor, Photos, e-mail, Web 2.0 tools

Aims The students will be able: 1) to explore the historic-cultural past, the society of yesterday and the environmental character of their landscape, of Greece and of Cyprus.

2) to develop their interest in Greek and Cypriot stamp and so to realize and evaluate the fact that the stamp is not just a simple piece of paper but a piece of paper with the spirit and soul of our nations.

3) to be acquainted with the influence of personalities, of facts and of other elements as well as the criteria of their portraying on stamps.

4) to learn how different schools can cooperate and promote the harmony and respect as far as the relations of their nations are concerned.

5) to develop the exchange of view and projects, with the contribution of New Technologies in groups, in person or through teleconference.

6) to get involved in activities which will provide the children with the qualifications in order to become active citizens.

Work process The project is materialized based on the experiential, cross subject, group cooperation method of project. The framework of the project includes brainstorming, aim setting, distribution of activities in groups, search of data (in libraries, printed and electronic sources, stamps) interactive exploration of the subject and of its subcategories, organization and critical processing of the material, continual internet communication of the two schools, in order to exchange viewpoints - projects and the production of the final product (through

38

teleconference, for example, or through e-mails, chat, forum, blog, wiki), evaluation through questionnaire, as well as the diffusion of the results in school and in society.

Expected results To give the students the opportunity, exploring the stamp, not only to recognize the course of their nations, but also to discover themselves developing communicative and creative skills. The final products are expected to be the TwinSpace, records PPT and word, poster (printed and electronic), works made with Web 2.0 applications.

Web 2.0 Tools Indicatively, several applications are utilized for a variety of targets. With these tools, we will communicate commenting and sharing opinions.And, also, we will create our own personal stamp.  Voki,  RealTime Board,  Kizoa,  Padlet,  Prezi,  SlideBoom,  ComicStrip Creator,  Youtube… etc.

39

40

12. English language training by Irene Confalone (Italy) The training of English language proposed was carried out in a Class 3 째 of primary school. The class consists of 25 students (15 males and 10 females) of which a pupil DSA, followed by the NS. supporting. The class does not have big problems, initially, therefore it was decided to proceed with a frontal lecture-type based on the Total Physical Response to give the opportunity for each student to be able to demonstrate the skills acquired with the involvement of all the senses and the whole body. The main goal of our course was to present to the class the alphabet in English Language.

After a slight difficulty from hearing and understanding of a song, always supported by flash cards, realia, audio media. Secondly substantial problems were observed, shown by a hyperactive student who does not unable to maintain attention, showing attention problems too limited. To this point was necessary to structure a type of design supported by ITC technologies designed to attract the attention of this student. Having said that, I have been privileged moments of oral interaction, undercharged the difficulties of the same student in both the mother tongue and the language is English spent with the teacher to support the involvement of the general class activities in a location more suited to free the student from certain psychological blocks that had always prevented from responding to the fear of making a mistake, it is decided to place the computer classroom chairs in a circle. The student who had appeared increasingly careless, he began to realize that each positive response was seen as a success. The type of work proposed, it was not seen as a question, but as a memory game so the student has launched its overcoming blocks emotional, fun to remember as many sounds as possible. In addition, I used of exercises taken from the web, submitted before the "tutorial", which showed a all students "how" to do the exercises and not so much "how" to learn use, so the "learning by doing". One of the methods, which are more used, was the co-learning, which has always combined the needs learning of the English language with the need to memorize and repeat posts in L2. Here's to follow one of the cards laid out proposals in the class with the LIM give the opportunity to the whole class to see, observe and secondarily complete the didactic. Appreciated was the following form for submit letters of the English alphabet supported by the images of objects words already known to be associated with the class, easy to store and repeat after the voice of the "native speakers". The English alphabet with imagination.

Also, being myself enrolled in a European portal for sharing projects with member countries of the 'EU, we proceeded to research projects for the involved primary school pupils also. The portal is www.etwinning.net. From this portal we have used many of those activities that always surprise my pupils. They produced 41

works that were then uploaded to the portal to be shared with other participants in the group. In March, having joined the project "The tree full of birds spring" we created 50 paper birds and sent to as many schools scattered throughout Europe, then received the same number, which we then hung on a large branch at the entrance of the school. At the end of this cycle of lectures supported by structured exercises with completion of games to completion and drag the correct answers, all in a pleasant atmosphere it was found that improvements were noted both educational and behavioral. Seems to confirm that detected during the series of lessons assisted by the (dialogue, conversation and discussion) the difficulties encountered were largely overcome. Besides that the entire class has learned to master and apply fundamental knowledge in different situations related logicalsyntactic organization of the simple sentence. The class has learned to master some of the functions of the European portal, such as wikis, blogs, and chat. The materials used were basically structured learning resources were drawn either from the habitual learning from websites and materials so structured or semi-structured (multimedia presentations, lectures made using authoring software.) The expected results were largely achieved because the student has had the opportunity to appreciate its improvements and touch what he had learned, playing with his friends using the foreign language. The student were also asked to use the structured games for learning other subjects. The whole class has benefited from this type of activity.

This is an example of our tree full of spring birds from all over Europe.

42

13. Drama Games by Muresan Loredana Anisoara (Romania)

When I started this project I has just changed schools, so all my students were new and very energetic. I was trying to get their attention and concentration towards English, and due to this project I succeeded.

The purpose, at the beginning, was to make them focus and interested. Then I proceeded in building up teams. When they started to work together, things began to work. I used these games as warm-ups, and when they started to enjoy them and to want more I used them as reward for their efforts in learning during the English classes.

The shy students were reluctant at first, but in time they blended in quite well. The students who don’t master to many English words fit so well in these activities, and after a while, they started to ask me how to pronounce some words, how to name certain things in English, how to organize their process of learning English grammar and vocabulary.

My students are more confident now, they like to work together and in the near future we intend to take these activities to the next level, so to say, and insert in the games specific vocabulary items and grammar, as well.

Students use English language more than they used to, they told other students about these games and played them with others, even at home, they made some posters with ideas and impressions about some of the games. They didn’t express a preference for one of the game, they liked them all, and they ask when it will be the next activity and what it implies. One of my student collected some ideas, thoughts and opinions from her colleagues and she is writing an article about it, in order to let the others know the things they liked and learned during the project. We also made an “eTwinning corner” in our school with things and pictures related to the project and from the project.

This was my first eTwinning project, so I’m grateful that this site exists and that it makes our profession more enjoyable and creative; I thank my partner for his

43

patience and guidance and to all our participants in the project that shared with us ideas and opinions.

44

14. Let’s speak music by Primary School of Thermi, Lesbos (Greece) Research in the evolution of language and music has proven that they share common bases, interact and support each other. The audio capability, the perception of sounds, imitation and creation are essential skills in both language and music. The combination of the two can create powerful incentives for students to develop their skills. The aim of "Let's talk music" is to incorporate musical interactive activities in the primary education language levels and an interdisciplinary approach to education. The musical activities and games encourage young students to engage in pleasant repetitions, which may enhance the memorization of sounds and structures of new languages. The learning approach through music activities can reduce language barriers and contribute effectively to the social integration of students, especially in rural areas, problematic border regions, where the possibilities for students are limited. The project aims to contribute to the development of confidence and self-expression, as well as the improvement of intercultural understanding, and will also highlight the contribution of music as a cultural phenomenon. Click on the link below!

Link: "Let's Speak Music" Project Activities

45

15. Comics as fotonovelas by Cristina Nechifor (Romania) Our eTwinning project: Many people, one continent in partnership with Spain

    

Communication language: English Age of pupils: 11-14 Number: 30-50 Subject: citizenship Tools: other software (ppt, videos, pictures), e-mail

Aims      

To reinforce students’ creativity and innovation; To utilize a range of ICT applications for communication and the production of materials; To raise the value which pupils place upon language acquisition related to their ability to communicate in a foreign language To teach tolerance and understanding among different European nations; To develop pupils’ awareness of their place in local, national and European communities.

To enable pupils to share experiences of their lives, languages, schools and communities and to work in an enjoyable, productive and purposeful way

Work process    

1st term till 23rd December: stories from photos for students to introduce themselves (fotonovelas), -2nd term till the end of March: power points about the places where they live, their countries.

-3rd term till the end of June: videos about Europe and citizenship, comparing the two countries, places, especially after the two terms they will get to know each other.

-and all along, chats, e-mails.

46

Expected results   

Stories from photos (fotonovelas) Power point presentations of places and countries Videos of Europe and citizenship

Comics as fotonovelas To tell their stories from photos, called fotonovelas by our Spanish partner, our students used different web tools to create original and funny comics. For this they took pictures of their families, their homes, their friends. Even if not all the students know how to use web tools those who are good at computers helped the others and had a lot of fun creating their fotonovelas through comics. They also had the opportunity to work in teams, in a funny, pleasant, creative way. They played with their photos, different colours, shapes and sizes to create their stories. I think comics were a proper way for our students to express themselves, to present themselves. Moreover, even if not all the students speak or understand English very well, the comics were a very comprehensible way to communicate their stories. The Romanian students have experience in telling their stories to English and French students by writing letters, but comics are more attractive and creative as they use their favourite tool, the computer. Students learned that computers can be used for different purposes that they can play on them but constructively. They really enjoyed doing all these especially with their colleagues from Spain. Here are some comics as fotonovelas:

Mirabela’s fotonovela

47

Sabin’s fotonovela

48

Paula’s fotonovela

Teachers can also be creative and have fun with comics.

This is London episode from my fotonovela,

49

16. Comics auf Detsch by Carolina Velasco Lozano (Spain) Age of the pupils: 13-14 years old Subject: German Website: http://www.etwinning.net/de/pub/connect/browse_people_schools_and_pro/profil e.cfm?f=2&l=en&n=100617 Our students have written comics in German in order to practice some simple expressions.

Here you can see some examples: http://new-twinspace.etwinning.net/c/portal/layout?p_l_id=33566891

50

17. Comics as stimuli and mean of engagement by Petros Michailidis (Greece) The use of comics in education is based on the concept of creating engagement and motivation for students. The effectiveness of comics as medium for effective learning and development has been the subject of debate since the origin modern comic book in the 1930s. Sones (1944) notes that comics "evoked more than a hundred critical articles in educational and non-professional periodicals.

It has been noted that the use of a narrative form such as a comic "can foster pupils' interest in science" and help students remember what they have learnt and providing a means of fostering discussion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comics_in_education) Since my first project, back in 2010, comics, in one way or another, was one of the fundamental components of the development of my programs and remains until today. The role that comic had to play, in the majority of its use, was for pupils to depict, as one of the project's activities, a situation or to be the final product of one of the activities. This use of comics, although served projects' targets very successfully, it's a kind of one dimensional approach. So, in my this year project I decided to reverse the whole approach and the comics to be created by me in order, not only to be used as stimuli and mean of engagement in project’s activities for my pupils, but to introduce the whole project concept as well.

This way, the whole project was developed following the chapters of the comics book, sometimes in a formal approach and some other times in a funny way suitable for my pupils' age. What is more, activities were introduced through brainstorming on the comics’ images preparing that way pupils to accept to be engaged with them. The whole comics can be found following the link: Mars – A Space Adventure Here are some pages from the comics:

51

18. Dangers all around by FIna Vendrell (Catalonia) Project: powerfulnaturekingdom.et Schools. 1st model Elemental primary school, Alexandroupolis, Greece Sant Josep school, NavĂ s, Catalonia Grade: 5 primary Teachers: Angeliki and Fina Vendrell Smoke, rubbish, polluted waters, animals in danger, forests disappearing... the nature is very powerful but what about the power of the man? Is the man using his power in a good way? Is everybody decided to let the planet die or is there someone who wants to do something to save it? Yes, we are here to do all our best. We will analyze the worst dangers for the nature and we will see what can we do to avoid them.

Activity: During Christmas holidays children have been taking photos around just to catch the best images which tell us what is happening in our world. Forests, animals, air, everything is in danger because of humans activity. is that fair?

WHY DON'T WE TAKE CARE OF THE ANIMALS? WHY DO WE POLLUTE OUR SEAS? WHY DO THROW RUBBISH ON THE SOIL? WHY DO ALL GOVERMENTS ALLOW CARS TO THROW SO MANY SMOKE IN THE ATMOSPHERE? With our photograph research we have discovered hundreds of things that humans cannot do if we want to save our planet.

Here are some samples of the photos we took during Christmas holidays.

52

After the exhibition the other pupils from other grades voted their favourite one and the winner got a small gift as a prize.

ALL THE PHOTOS were exhibited on a card at the schools but on twinspace they were posted using: PICTURE TRAIL AND CANVA web tools.

53

We created a Glogster with the best results of the photograph competition.

During the activity there were also some interviews done from pupils to adults just to know their opinions about the dangers in our planet, some of them are inside the Glogster too.

54

19. Traveling to beautiful places: the project “Travel and Languages” by Lica Ovidiu (Romania) What is more exciting than to spend time traveling?

So students from many countries have tried to describe, photograph and present beautiful places in their countries to convince you to visit them.

Romanian students sought information and images about the culture, traditions and customs of the Romania and made a presentation. They communicated with each other, have collaborated and cooperated in making the final product. They made Easter cards that have posted various wishes for their partnerships from other countries. They take photos and have described the most picturesque places in Romania, to persuade their foreign colleagues to visit these places. They show the Christmas Romanian traditions and other customs from the winter. They painted ceramic pots for to show the traditional art of ceramic pots.

They made postcards on the computer for to wish “A nice summer!” for all partnerships.

Christmas Traditions in Romania students

Ceramic pots painted by the

The students and teachers had the opportunity to find out about the most beautiful places from other countries and practice foreign languages. The Romanian students tried to convince their partners to visit these picturesque places. To accomplish this goal, they studied and searched for information about Romanian history, art, tradition and habits. They created PPT presentations and they described those beautiful places by using English language. They used imagination and drawing

55

skills to paint the ceramic pots. They created the postcards, by using computer skills and creativity for to write the good wishes for their foreign partnerships.

Postcards made by students

The students developed foreign language skills, they improved their ICT skills (drawings, PPT presentations, Word, Gif, e-mail), they made geographical and historical connections when they presented the picturesque places from their country.

Photos and descriptions made by students

56

All partners of the project responded to a questionnaire where they chose the most beautiful city in each country participating in the project and made a graphic to show the most picturesque city. Students made pictures, videos, PowerPoint presentations and tried to convince their partners to visit these beautiful places. They made postcards and they wrote their good wishes for colleagues from other countries. They taught each other words, expressions and phrases in the language of each country participating in the project and they wrote into a table all these phrases in many languages.

Questionnaire: sentences Subject: Interesting places in our country

Vocabulary: words and

in many languages

The students created postcards on the computer, they drew on the computers, wrote, made PPP presentations. They used Paint, PowerPoint, World, Gif, e-mail. They used ICT for searching information, sharing results and for communication.

57

We promoted the results of the project (PPT presentations of the activities, photo album) among the students, the professors and the parents. Final evaluation had included questionnaires, discussions and PPT presentation. This experience stimulates us to begin a new project.

All students were involved and participated in the project with seriousness and joy. They found a nice way to learn about the history, geography and culture of each country. They described the wonderful places in each country and they were documented to write interesting things about them. They have practiced the ability to communicate in a foreign language and made new friends. At the end of the project, every student decided which the next place for to trip is. They improved the ability of communication, the collaboration, friendship, computer skills, develops good practices in learning foreign languages and creativity.

We are sure that students from different countries have learnt about other countries in a pleasant way. They have realized that learning a foreign language became easier when you have the joy to meet new people. We expect that the virtual travel will become real and the friendship will increase the tolerance and the European Union spirit. The project work and its results will be described and documented on TwinSpace and the Websites of the schools.

58

20. Let our nature shine by Fina Vendrell (Catalonia) Powerfulnaturekingdom.et eTwinning Project Alexandroulpolis, Greece Navàs, Catalonia Grade 5 primary This was an activity developed on 5th June, The Environmental Day, the same day when we celebrated our Great Celebration Day with parents, teacher and pupils.

Goal: wake up how the nature influences our feelings.

Activity:     

Find our as many photographs as possible about nature elements.

Select them in colours.

Group work: each group works with one colour of photos and sticks them all around a black card Finally, they write the words about the feeling the images bring to them ( Music background helps to bring out more feelings)

59

Here is the link: http://new-twinspace.etwinning.net/c/portal/layout?p_l_id=26091473

60

21. My P.I.C. (My Place Is Comely) eTwinning Project by Ana Belén Gómez Muñoz (Spain) “My Place is Comely” is an eTwinning project run since January to June 2014. This project has the nature as the principal topic. The objectives of the project are:     

To learn about our climate, vegetation and landscape and improve the competence in knowledge and interaction with the physical mean.

To learn about the climate, vegetation and landscape of other places in Europe.

To analyse how the climate affects in the vegetation during the year.

To meet students from other parts of Europe.

To improve the linguistic competence in a foreign language (English) using a CLIL methodology

For this purposes we have developed activities based on the nature of our countries. Some of the activities have included pictures taken by the students and drawings done by them.

The first of them required our students to take pictures of their favourite nature spot of their region or country. Here are the results:

61

62

63

64

65

66

67

68

69

70

71

72

The second activity consisted on drawing one of the plants or flowers of their regions. They used free technique to do it. They created their pictures in the arts and crafts lessons with the help of their teacher. Here are some of their final work arts:

73

74

75

76

77

78

79

80

81

82

83

84

22. Our illustrated story by Catargiu Tania-Cristina (Romania) Our project in a few words: exchanging myths and tales and dramatizing them, connecting them to each country's culture, finding similarities between them, writing and illustrating a book with them, connecting them to historical buildings or monuments.

Within this project more than 5 countries have participated (Romania, Greece, Turkey, United Kingdom and Czech Republic). I represented the “Ray of sun� kindergarten from Sacele, near Brasov, Romania.

AIMS: Our goal is to help children "learn how to learn" about other countries' cultures through myths and traditional tales and not through the usual school learning process. The more they get to know them, the more they love them. Also, another goal was to learn how to be cooperative with foreign students.

TOOLS TO BE USED: Chat, e-mail, Forum, Other software (Powerpoint, video, pictures and drawings), Project Diary, Twinspace platform Video conference, Web publishing.

WORK PROCESS: 8 month project 1st and 2nd month: First of all, we introduce to our students the schools we are going to work with using maps and share any information they might know about these countries. Schools exchange myths and traditional tales giving any details that may exist connecting them to the country's culture. Also, it would be very interesting to share stories concerning monuments or historical buildings of the countries. This way, students would learn about some historical facts, too. Stories or myths connected to countries' religion would also be quite interesting, so that children would learn about different religions. After working on each country's story, we try to find similarities with stories or myths from our country.

This first activity was very interesting and also very productive because all the involved teams created wonderful presentations about their countries and schools.

85

After the school presentation, all partners exchanged their traditional stories in English and mother tongue.

I have chosen to present “The legend of Martisor”, a story that talks about the spring’s arrival, the snowdrops and about our traditional trinket, story that was dramatized by the students of Primary school of Kallianos, Greece. This dramatization can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XagGx6g41o

3rd and 4th month: Choose a myth or a traditional tale of another European country and dramatize it. We can then exchange videos and see the result. Alternatively we can create a song about the story.

I chose the story “Nasreddin Hodja and his cauldron”, a story from Turkey.

With two children from my class, Alex and Elif (actually Elif has Turkish ethnicity) we dramatized

the

Turkish

story.

This

dramatization

can

be

found

at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjHS78NVL3U 5th and 6th month: Creating a book, written and illustrated by students. Each team chooses one or more of their stories and writes it in both mother language and English. In this activity, we created a book, in English and in mother language: http://issuu.com/tania_24/docs/nasreddin_hodja_borrows_a_cauldron_/1?e=11929 288/7810013

86

7th month: Each school selects one or more of another country's story and children draw pictures of parts of several parts of the story. In the end, we share and gather texts and pictures and create a book written and illustrated by our children.

Here are some drawings from our illustrated story, the Turkish story:

8th month(June): Evaluation : If any partner thinks that time is not enough we can extend the project period of course.

The favorite story was “Nasreddin Hodja and his cauldron”, who received 46% from all the votes and it was on the 1st place. The “Legend of Martisor”,our traditional story was on the 2nd place chosen by favorite illustrated story and also on 2nd place at favorite presentation of the shared story.

87

I think we have done a great job, I am very proud of my children and we can’t wait to go on, into the next eTwinning projects.

88

23. Collaborative Artful Storytelling by Elisabeth Morin (France)

Age of pupils: 15-18 (can be adapted to younger pupils)

Language: English (can be adapted to any language)

Tools: -

twinspace www.storybird.com Moviemaker or prezi (or other videos software)

Partners: 4 countries: Greece, Czech Republic, Poland and France (minimum of two countries, no maximum)

Duration: 6-7 months (a whole school year)

89

Process: the project starts with the creation of small groups in each class and then of European teams. After this the students starts writing stories on a round-robin fashion on the website www.storybird.com. After this step, some of (or all) the stories are transformed into videos with the voice of the students reading the stories, images and even music if they want!

Link to the twinspace blog: http://new-twinspace.etwinning.net/c/portal/layout?p_l_id=20460519

Example: extracts from the story “Pig Romance� created by the students:

Cover:

Page 1:

90

Page 2:

Last creation step of the project: the videos which are posted on the TwinSpace.

91

24. Sense Europe-our story This is one of the three etwinning projects that I worked with my class this school year. In this project children had to use their five senses to discover, act and learn about the European partners countries.

We used our imagination we made draws, we sang we smelled we tasted and finally we had to write a common story a kind of fairy tale using our five senses.

This is the story that the pupils of the seven schools who participated to this project created.The last part is our part.We have also illustrated it and finally we made an ebook.In the end of the story we wrote a small song and they sung it.We recorded it using vocaroo tool.Here is the link: Hhtp://vocaroo.com/i/s1G03eZZ0Oh We hope you will enjoy our story.

Once upon a time there were seven Friends: Greece I, Greece II, Romania, Latvia, England, France and Poland. They lived in a small beautiful village.

In the village there was also a small castle. The Queen whom the Friends loved very much lived there.

One day the Queen disappeared. It was said she had been kidnapped by a dragon.

The Friends decided to find and free her.

They went to a wizard to get special weapons. The wizard who lived in an old tower told them that they would have to go through five gates: Smell, See, Taste, Hear and Feel and in each of them they would have to solve some puzzles.

And so the journey started….

The friends went through deep forests and over high hills. It was difficult at first, but friends helped each other.

After two days they came to the first gate “SEE”. It was locked. How to open it?

Suddenly the friends saw some pictures on the gate. What were they? Greece called out: “These are our flags!” The gate made a strange sound, but it didn’t open.

“Oh, we have to name the countries of the flags!” exclaimed Romania.

The gate made another strange noise, but it didn’t open.

“Look! These are our friends from France!” Latvia pointed to some pictures.

92

The friends found the pictures of each other and clapped their hands.

Suddenly the gate made one more sound and it opened.

“We can continue our journey!” And friends entered the gate and continued their journey.

Suddenly 7 trumpets started to play and a voice came out of nowhere. “For this challenge, you have to recognize the different languages and national anthems of each country.”

It took a while for them to work out each anthem but they worked together as a team and started to figure them out. They were all doing very well until they got stuck on one. Nobody knew the answer so the Voice suddenly boomed, “Look around you for some clues.” They found some letters hidden and some chamomile. They played about with the letters until it spelt “F-R-A-N-C-E”.

“Your final challenge in order to open this gate,” explained the Voice, “is to look at this globe. When you hear the words, you must point to the country.

“Bonjour!” The children easily guessed that it was France and the first of the six locks on the door opened.

“Salut!” One of the young boys knew that was how to say hello in Romanian and they searched for the country on the globe. At last they found it and the second lock opened.

“Czesc!” The children scratched their heads wondering until they saw their Polish friends grinning. “Look here is Poland on the map and this is the capital, Warsaw.”

Now they had opened three locks and were half way there.

“Yassu is Greek,” shouted the twins. Excitedly they looked on the globe and found Athens and Chakidiki.

The Latvian friends jumped for joy when they heard “Sveki”. “Where is your country?” asked the Greek children. “Look, we are here, between Estonia and Lithuania.”

Just one more challenge to go. “Hello.” The children quickly found the UK on the map and the last lock turned slowly. Everyone skipped through the open gate, singing the National Anthems.

93

The 7 friends had been walking for hours, when they entered a magic forest. It was full of lollipop-trees and ice-cream flowers. At the end of the forest, there was a big gate with the sign “The Gate of Taste” on it. After eating lollipops and ice-creams, the 7 friends tried to open the gate and continue their quest, but it was locked and a voice was heard “When you taste and find the food, the lock may change its mood”.

Suddenly, a huge wooden table appeared with lots of food, sweets and drinks on it. In a basket there were 7 flags. The voice was heard again “Find the food and stick the flag, otherwise I’ll get mad”. The friends got scared, but Greece I said, “Don’t worry!

We have to concentrate and save the queen!”. “Yes.”, replied Romania, ”We can do it if we work as a team”.

Romania grabbed the Romanian flag from the basket and searched the table. “There!

There is a Romanian Christmas cake on the table!”, exclaimed France. Romania smiled and put the flag on the cake.

France got the French flag and started looking when she found the Yule Log. She was so excited that she cut a bite and ate it.

At this time, Poland saw the meat soup next to the fish, grabbed the Polish flag and stuck it on the food. The friends clapped.

Latvia with the Latvian flag in hand looked at the table. Immediately England jumped “Come here! Here is your gingerbread!”. “Well- done my friend!”, said Latvia and put his flag there.

Then, England took her turn and easily found the scones and tea. The 7 friends liked the scones so much that everyone ate one.

The twins were the last to go. Each of them took one of the two Greek flags and smiled when their friends pointed at avgofetes and melomakarona.

Immediately, the lock opened with a loud noise and the 7 friends, with the taste of their favourite food in their mouth, continued their journey.

As they were walking on a path in the forest, they found 5 small perfumed packets on the floor.

They wanted to open them, but it was written: “Do not open it if you want to see your beloved Queen again!”. So they took them and continued walking. When they reached the next gate, they saw a big sign and it was written: “Be careful! Do not open your packets! Use your smell to find what there is in each packet!” They realized it was time for the next challenge.

Greece I took one and declared: “I know it’s honey, we love this smell in our country!”.

Poland was the second and said: “What a lovely smell!

For sure, there is gingerbread in this packet!”. It was the turn of Latvia. They smelled

94

the packet several times but couldn’t find.

So Greece II helped them and they all shouted happily : “ Of course, spring flowers!

There are tulips, daffodils and lavender”.

Then, France took another packet and exclaimed : “It smells like vanilla! We often make cakes with it in France”.

Finally, England took the last packet, smelled it again and again, but couldn’t find what there was in it. They were all sad and started crying. At that moment, a voice told them: “This is your last chance! Do not forget you‘re an amazing team. Try again!” and a packet fell from the sky. Rumania decided to help England, they picked the packet, exchanged ideas and replied : “We have the answer! It smells like a yummy fresh doughnut!”.

The gate opened, they were so happy and shouted: “We’re a fantastic team! Let’s go! ”.

Suddenly, they heard their beloved Queen: “Help! Help!” and they saw the dragon flying with her far away in the sky …

95

The journey wasn’t over. They took an air balloon and followed her. The dragon reached a secret cave.

“If you want your queen back there is one last challenge. You must recognize the natural phenomenon that dominates in each country.”

And the sky went black.. It started to rain heavily. Our English friend step forward .

“Its my country, England”. Then the rain turned into snow.”Its my country Latvia” The Latvian friend shouted happily. Then a strong mountain air begin to blow.”Its me Poland” jumped the Polish friend. Suddenly they were surrounded by tree leaves and could feel the rustle of the forest.

“Its my country France” said our French friend and step forward.

Then a chilly wind blew and a roar from the river was coming near them. “its me Romania” said our Romanian friend really excited. But the weather changed rapidly. They felt hot air on their faces together with an ocean breeze, “Our country” exclaimed Athens and Chalkidiki.

All friends were excited. Their beloved queen will finally be back with them.

They were ready to begin their journey back home.

The dragon saw them leaving and waved them goodbye. He was so sad . He started to cry.

“I meant no harm. I Lost my baby dragon and I wanted her as a friend to stay with me. Im sorry.”

The friends looked at each other and shouted all together. “So come with us. There is always a place for a new friend.”

So they jumped on her back and flew back together singing : Together as one we ll be friends for ever we help everyone and hold hands together.

96

25. “Working on a radio project: “Time Voyagers” on the European School Radio” by Natalia Tzitzi (Greece) Introduction This article is about my radio experience as a teacher and my students’ experience as radio broadcasters. For two years I had worked with a class of thirty-three 6th Graders and they had proved to be very creative, productive and reliable. We had made videos together, we had prepared theatrical performances, and they had created and recorded songs and worked on European issues as part of European and world competitions. We had done it all and, as a result, both the children and the teacher needed a change, something new, something challenging. So, when we received the invitation to join European School Radio in November 2013, we couldn’t but accept it.

As part of their work for the Foreign Language (English) and Project classes during school year 2013-2014, the current 6th Graders worked on two projects.

(1) “Family Ties”, an eTwinning project focusing on the issue of Reconciliation of Family and Work Life

97

and (2) “Time Voyagers”, a Cultural Project focusing on aspects of the life of the children’s parents in the 70s and the 80s when the parents were children and teenagers themselves.

The second project was combined with the eTwinning one and radio was the medium used for the students to communicate their findings and the results of their work.

Goals & Objectives of the radio project Having fun and getting to know a medium which is relatively unknown to children nowadays were the primary goals of the project. In addition, the following objectives were set for the students:  to improve their pronunciation, enunciation, rhythm, stress and intonation both in their native language (Greek) as well as in the Foreign Language (English)  to improve their ICT skills, namely to learn how to use software related to radio projects (audacity) and practice using other software such as word, powerpoint, online tools (smilebox, YouTube), the internet  to study radio history  to cooperate with others  to get involved in the production of an online radio show  to decide the topics of the radio shows based on the main theme given to them  to use different sources (questionnaires & the internet) to collect information on the topic chosen by the group  to combine pieces of information to produce radio texts in MT and in FL

98

Brief History of the European School Radio European School Radio, ESR for short, is a web radio station broadcasting 24/7 throughout the year. If you click on the link http://blogs.sch.gr/esrblog/, you can visit the ESR website. The European School Radio started back in 2008 as the innovative project of a public school in Northern Attica, Greece. In 2009 the whole project was undertaken and promoted by a Northern Greece public school, Kampanis Junior and Senior High School in Kilkis.

Later on, it became the main idea behind a Comenius project bearing the title “European School Radio: The voice of Young Europeans�.

99

In 2012 the project partners turned to eTwinning and made the most out of the eTwinning platform available. In 2013, schools from Norway, Portugal, Italy, the Czech Republic, Germany, Bulgaria, Belgium, Turkey and Greece participated in the ESR project. During the school year 2013-14 more than a 150 kindergartens, primary schools, junior and senior high schools mainly from Greece but also from other European countries joined in and broadcasted shows on European School Radio.

Today the web radio station operates under the management of ESR which is a nonprofit scientific society.

We’ll see how a teacher with his/her students can contribute radio shows to the ESR programme. Before that, let’s see what types of shows teachers create for ESR with their classes.

Types of Radio Shows on ESR Radio Shows on ESR are classified either in terms of purpose and content or in terms of duration.

1. Types of Radio Shows in terms of purpose and content.

What’s the purpose of the radio show? Does the teacher want his/her students a. to share school news, local or world news, b. to entertain ESR audiences with a music show or with children’s songs and fairy tales, d. to talk about what they did as part of a school subject or class, e. or as part of a school project (a mainstream or a Foreign Language one)?

By Foreign Language school project, we mean eTwinning and Comenius projects.

There is a special time zone for Foreign Language Radio Shows on ESR. Let’s see some examples of the types of radio shows outlined above. A news item the “Time Voyagers” prepared is available for you to listen. It is about an international penfriend project the 6th Graders worked on last year. They prepared this news item right after a Skype meeting with their Argentinian penfriends.

It is in English. (click on the audio file http://www.mediafire.com/listen/aa3o8pqf74spadj/ArgentinaEn.mp3 to listen to it) The students prepared a similar news item in Greek and a third one about our school joining Earth Hour last March. Both of them are in Greek. Even if it is all Greek to you, click on the link to listen to it and get an idea of a radio news item on ESR. http://www.mediafire.com/listen/c712vz2bzf4o73e/earthhour14.mp3 You may have noticed that some of the children do not pronounce everything clearly not even in their native language. They are just 11- and 12-year-olds who 100

are actually under a lot of stress because they feel they have to do well since everything they say is recorded. In order to make them feel at ease, I told them what I was told by an ESR Coordinating Committee member. “Joining the European School Radio isn’t the same as entering a competition. You don’t compete against anybody. You just do your best and enjoy the experience. This is what is expected from the students on ESR.” Having noted that, let’s go on with the rest of radio shows.

2 . Types of Radio Shows in terms of radio show duration.

How long is the radio show going to be? How long should it last?

In terms of radio show duration there are spots, brief radio shows, one-hour radio shows and special shows. a. Spots. As radio producers, teacher and students need to prepare spots to advertise their school, their show, a special event. For example, our students recorded two spots at the beginning of the project (a) to let everyone know that the 10th Helioupolis Primary school has joined ESR http://www.mediafire.com/listen/17cmlwredrb4b47/SchSp.mp3 and (b) to advertise “Time Voyagers” Radio Show. (c) They made a third one a few months later to let everybody know that our school was going to participate in the 1st Pan-Hellenic School Radio Festival which took place in Kalavryta (a picturesque village in Southern Greece) in April 2013. (Spot in Greek about our participation in the 1st Panhellenic Student Radio Festival. http://www.mediafire.com/listen/msh7tosn6qny2jm/ESRfestival.mp3 It should be noted that spots should be shorter than a minute. Let’s say they should be 55’’ long.

Apart from spots, there are also b. Brief Radio Shows which last less than 15’ c. one-hour Radio Shows which should last less than 57’.

Duration of the show should be paid attention to because, if the time limit is exceeded even by a fragment of a second, you won’t be able to upload your show onto the ESR platform. Just to be on the safe side, prepare shows that are a few seconds shorter than the time limit.

One-hour radio shows usually air once a month on a fixed date and time chosen by the teacher who needs to cooperate with Coordinating Committee on fixing time and date. Our show “Time Voyagers” was on on the third Friday of every month from December to May from 8 till 9 in the evening.

The one-hour radio shows should cover a specific theme. For example, as it has already been mentioned, our show was about the 70s and the 80s. Each one of the 8 shows aired dealt with a different aspect of teenage life within that period of time. For example, the first “Time Voyage” which was in Greek was about 101

education and fashion in Greece and the world while Radio Show No3 was in English and it was about Education in the countries of our eTwinning partners in the ‘80s.

d. Finally, there are also “special shows”, namely one- to three-minute productions whose topic is suggested either by ESR member-schools or the Coordinating Committee.

Click on the link http://www.mediafire.com/listen/a0rhh780bcbgsaf/FireIceF.mp3 to listen to one of the English poems the students-radio broadcasters prepared for the World Poetry Day Radio Special on March 21st, 2014

Registration and Production of a Radio Project At this point we should turn to the process of getting involved in a radio project.

What should you do in case you want to start a radio project? You should follow a number of steps.

IMPORTANT!!! Greek teachers should follow Steps 1 and 2a before proceeding to Step 2b. Other European teachers should start with Step 2b.

102

ESR Registration Application Step 1: Register with the European School Radio. For school year 2013-14 the teacher-applicant had to fill in the application above with his/her name, school name, email address & type of show he/she is interested in.

After submitting the application, the teacher receives an email message similar to the one above which contains the ESR Skype address (european.school.radio), ESR email address (esradio@sch.gr ) and the days and times the Coordinating Committee members are available to answer your questions live on Skype.

103

ESR participation guide (in Greek) Step 2a: Browse the ESR participation guide. After following the instructions given in the guide your school becomes a full ESR member. You are also given instructions as to how you can plan your shows (in terms of date and time) and upload them.

Step 2b: Start or join a radio eTwinning project. At least one school-member of the project should be Greek and the Greek teacher involved should be a registered member of the Greek School Network (Πανελλήνιο Σχολικό Δίκτυο). They should have also completed Steps 1 and 2.

104

Step 3: After collaborating with the other school members and deciding the theme and title of your show, duration and frequency of broadcast, you should prepare a short text in the project language with information about who you are, what your show is about etc. Use the text as a blog entry for the ESR blog and prepare a spot to let everybody know about your school’s participation. Here’s our blog entry …

(Note: Blog entries of cooperative radio project should be in the project language) (Our school participation spot was also included in the Spots section above) http://www.mediafire.com/listen/17cmlwredrb4b47/SchSp.mp3 Step 4. Ask your students to prepare a logo for your show and the project schools’ participation in ESR. Here’s our logo.

105

It consists of our school logo, the ESR logo, the title of our show in Greek & in English as well as our radio show theme i.e. the two decades (the 70s and the 80s) we meant to explore through our project.

Step 5. Ask your students to prepare a spot advertising your show and providing information about it that would be useful to the listener such as broadcasting date & time, radio show topic.

Click on the link http://www.mediafire.com/listen/cgurbbjwpc07y71/ShowSp.mp3 to listen to the our radio show spot. It is in Greek. However, spots and radio shows prepared as part of eTwinning projects should be made cooperatively and be in the project language.

Step 6. Get ready to record the radio show. To prepare the text for the radio show the students worked in groups of 4 or 5 which they formed based on their preferences. Those who were interested in fashion in the 70s and the 80s, they formed the “Fashion Time Voyagers” group, those who were interested in Music in that period of time, they formed the “Music Time Voyagers” Group. Each group prepared a list of questions on the topic, they threw a “Parents’ Event”, they invited their parents over to tea at school and they asked them the questions. Parents didn’t come to the tea party empty handed. They brought along photos, objects, memorabilia and even clothes from the 70s and the 80s. The students took photos of all the items as well as their parents and they prepared two digital slideshows, one in Greek and one in English.

(Click on the link http://10dimilioup.att.sch.gr/index.php/2012-02-02-14-32-07/2012-06-19-08-46-14/206parentsevevent to watch the slideshow in English) Later, in class, the students turned their parents’ answers into texts, added more information they found through surfing the Internet, mainly visiting the wikipedia site, and they suggested relevant songs from the 70s and the 80s they had come across on YouTube.

106

Above you can see part of a Radio Show text (it’s actually the beginning of Radio Show No8) where references are made to the sources of information used as well as the topics of previous “Time Voyages”. In addition, right from the beginning of the show the students make it clear what the topic of the show is going to be. For example, the topic of RS8 was rock music and ballads of the 70s and the 80s. Finally, those blank spaces at the bottom of the first page are meant for the students to fill in their names. They didn’t use their real names but stage names instead. They did so for two reasons. First, during the interviews their parents told them it was illegal to run a private radio station in Greece in the 80s so those who did run a radio station they didn’t use their real names so as to avoid getting arrested. This piece of information came as a thrill to the students who thought that using stage names actually meant working ... undercover. Second, parents felt at ease because their children did not have to reveal their real identity on air. In general, parents were very comfortable with the radio project because neither names nor pictures of students were made public.

Step 7. Record the radio show. The first 3 radio shows were recorded at school which meant staying over after school so as to avoid noise which was rather unavoidable because there were street noises, too.

107

However, thanks to the Municipal Library of Helioupolis (that is the name of the town where the school is located) and its newly acquired Media Lab we managed to record 5 out of our 8 radio shows in a sound-insulated studio. For the recording, the students worked in groups of 8 or 9.

Step 8. Editing the recorded material and adding music. The last three activities namely recording, editing and adding music in the form of MP3 files were done with audacity which is free, open source, cross-platform software for recording and editing sounds.

108

First, the teacher needs to download and install the software. For those who are new to Audacity, there are many online tutorials for Audacity available on YouTube. The tutorial noted here is very easy to follow.

Above you can see the edited material in the upper channel and the music mp3 files on the lower channel just before they are merged into a 56-minute mp3 file, which is the Radio Show No8.

Step 9. Upload the audio file.

The teacher who is a registered member of the Greek School Network, uses his /her network user’s name and password, clicks on this link http://esradio.mysch.gr/upload.html and signs in onto the ESR platform. As soon 109

as the information boxes are filled with name of school/s, radio show title, and the radio show mp3 file is uploaded your show can be broadcasted on the assigned date and time.

After uploading the audio file, a blog entry should be submitted to the European School Radio blog with a few words about the uploaded radio show such as name of school, radio show title, some information about its content as well as the names or stage names of the students/radio broadcasters. Below you can see the blog entries for our English speaking radio shows. You can also find the link to the audio file of the show.

Our first English speaking Radio Show aired on January 17th and it was about Education in the countries of our eTwinning partners in the 70s and the 80s.

Click on the link http://www.mediafire.com/listen/b1l4n6hkjz7axrj/RS3.mp3 to listen to the show.

110

Our second English speaking Radio Show aired on April 25th and it was about European Film Festivals, Eurovision Song Contests, UEFa & EuroBasket Championships which took place in the 70s and the 80s. Click on the link http://www.mediafire.com/listen/34wj77au9pwj9g9/RS6.mp3 to listen to the show.

Our third English speaking Radio Show aired on May 23rd and it was about rock and hard rock hits and ballads of the 70s and the 80s. Click on the link http://www.mediafire.com/listen/bkihqijkgjd81dd/RS8new.mp3 to listen to the show.

111

Some advice If you are interested in working on a radio project, 1. make sure you start small with 3’ news items. You could start with nursery rhymes and songs with your first graders or you could have older students narrate/read aloud fairy tales or stories etc. If you work with teenagers, you should start small, too but you could involve them in the production and editing of the show which requires some (not much) practice.

2. If you need more information or support, contact Eftychia Touliou through the eTwinning desktop. Ms Touliou has created the eTwinning Teachers Room “European School Radio- take part in the radio programme” and she is always available to provide information and support.

3. You could also contact the ESR coordinating committee members who are very friendly and prompt on answering questions and they would be very happy to welcome you to the ESR family

4. It goes without saying that for information, advice or… an eTwinning Radio project partner, you could contact the writer Natalia Tzitzi ntzitzi@sch.gr I would be very happy to answer any questions you may have on the subject and I would very much interested in a radio project for next school year (2014-15).

112

26. ULYSSE 2014 : L'ODYSSﾃ右 DU TWINSPACE By Maria Georgiadou (Greece)

Public link to this TwinSpace: http://new-twinspace.etwinning.net/web/p96888 1) Participation details: 49 teachers, 182 pupils, 10 countries, 26 schools 2) Subject: Every school created a collaborative story with Odysseus as a hero.

Principal aim: To study the Odyssey of Homer and use it as a starting point in order to create a story.

Objectives: -

To communicate with other schools To collaborate with other students/teachers To use ICT To use imagination To make curriculum more interesting and fruitful To learn by having fun To use ART

One of the activities was to choose a scene of the story and try to create a clay animation. Very enthusiastic the students used clay to create Odyssey and the Hawaii island! Finally, they suggested putting our hero into the real world, by the sea!!! And they did it!

Some photos here:

113

Animation using movie maker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voYhYRMchP4 The same animation as a digital story in Greek, used in the ICT course, in order to explain how to record our voice and create wma archives: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orsszSVoiM8

114

115

116