Teachers describe their most collaborative activity of 2012-2013

Creative Classroom Group

June 2013

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Introduction Collaboration is one of the most important factors for a successful eTwinning project. It is not an easy task and it’s quite difficult to have it. When they ask me what collaboration is, I usually answer like this: “When I start an activity and I need my partner’s contribution in order for the activity to be completed”. I advise teachers to organize fewer activities but collaborative ones, because collaboration requires time. An eTwinning project is not just an exchange of videos, pictures and documents. Teachers and students have to work together and produce common outcomes. Below you can see what teachers in the Creative Classroom Group consider their most collaborative activity for the school year 2012-13.

Enjoy!

Irene Pateraki Group administrator

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Table of Contents

1.

Claudine Chircop................................................................................................................ 7

2.

Renata Raicheva ................................................................................................................ 8

3.

Cornelia Melcu................................................................................................................. 11

4.

Andrea Ulrich ................................................................................................................... 13

5.

Paraskevi Belogia ............................................................................................................. 14

6.

Emanuela Leto ................................................................................................................. 17

7.

Marie-HÊlène Fasquel ..................................................................................................... 18

8.

Cristina Nicolaita.............................................................................................................. 21

9.

Maria Mauromati ............................................................................................................ 23

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Claudine Chircop

Title of project (part of which is the described activity): “Kids Around The World Let’s Celebrate” Title of activity: “Our First Video Conference” Teachers’ name : Claudine Chircop (Malta) Justyna Leska (Poland)

Schools’ name and countries : St. Ignatius College, Siggiewi Primary, MALTA SZKOŁA PODSTAWOWA nr 24 im. Jana Marcina Szancera w Częstochowie PRIMARY SCHOOL no 24 in CZESTOCHOWA Pupils’ Age: 9 - 11 Subjects: English as a Foreign Language Tools: Internet (flashmeeting), Interactive Whiteboard, Easy View Web Cam Aims: To get to know our partners better we decided to organize a flash meeting video conference. It took place on Monday 12th November 2012 at 1 o’clock in the afternoon.

Description: First we were a little nervous because we had never done anything like that before but as soon as our children saw their Polish partners and heard their voices the tension disappeared and came to be replaced by joy and curiosity and the atmosphere started to be very pleasant. We sang songs to each other, introduced ourselves as well as asked each other questions. All the children laughed and enjoyed this experience a lot.

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Work process: We agreed on a date and on how the video conference shall proceed (introducing each other, singing songs etc) through constant correspondence on twinspace.

Common Result/ Outcomes: Video conferencing is a very effective tool as it enhances distance learning. It was indeed a great experience as the children could interact face-to-face with one of the partners. We’re really looking forward to the next one.

Links/Photos of the activity: http://msclaudineyear4parrots.wordpress.com/2012/11/13/our-very-first-etwinning-videoconference/

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Renata Raicheva

Title of project: “Holidays and Mindmapping” Title of activity: “Let’s make amazing mind maps of holidays in Bulgaria, Italy and Britain!”

Teachers’ name: Reneta Raicheva - Darina Koleva from Bulgaria Gina Antonietta Mango and Mariangela Placanico from Italy

Schools’ name and countries: 36 Secondary School “Maxim Gorky”, Sofia, Bulgaria Scuola Primaria "A. Ciancia", Frankavilla in Sinni, Italy Pupils’ Age: 7 – 11 years old

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Subjects: Cross Curricular, Design and Technology, Foreign Languages, Geography, History, History of Culture, Informatics / ICT, Language and Literature, Music, Primary School Subjects, Religion, Technology Tools: e-mail, MP3, Other software (Power Point, video, pictures and drawings), Twinspace, Video conference, Web publishing Aims: Problem solving, outline/framework design, structure/relationship representations, anonymous collaboration, marriage of words and visuals, individual expression of creativity, condensing material into a concise and memorable format, team building or synergy creating activity.

Description: The aim of the project is using the Mind mapping as an innovative method in the classroom work in order to learn English. Holidays are an important part of our life so we decided to present them in a new way- through MINDMAPPING and BRAINSTORMING. We think that it`s a good way to motivate children to learn more about national and international holidays and to share their ideas with the partners from other countries.

Work process: We intend to use MINDMAPPING through the learning process in the classroom especially for representing holidays and celebrations. We are going to motivate children to draw their own pictures and drawings and use different ICT tools- software, power-point presentations, videos, e-mails, exchanging drawings, pictures and ideas. Students are going to develop their language skills and interests.

Common Result/ Outcomes: Developing language skills, learning more about Holidays, using ICT, solving problems, successful collaboration and communication, working in School Teams, individual expression of creativity.

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Links/Photos of the activity: http://new-twinspace.etwinning.net/web/p80896 Useful links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_map http://www.edrawsoft.com/freemind.php http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page http://www.thinkbuzan.com/us/ http://www.mindmeister.com/ http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newISS_01.htm http://members.optusnet.com.au/~charles57/Creative/Mindmap/ http://www.worldmemorychampionships.com/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Buzan http://www.tonybuzan.com/ http://www.tonybuzan.com/about/mind-mapping/ http://www.text2mindmap.com/ http://www.spicynodes.org/

https://bubbl.us/ http://answergaden.ch/create/

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Cornelia Melcu

Title of project: "Twinbus" Travel Agency/ TTA The aim of the Project is learning about places worth to visit in countries of partners.

Students present to partners places typical or important for their country, capitals, places interesting for holidays, places they live in. They also learn about history, legends, food, monuments, architecture..typical for chosen places. They create a virtual travel agency and as travel agents want to attract partners-travelers to visit their country.

Title of activity: “TTA TRAVELING GUIDE AND DICTIONARY”

Teachers’ name, Schools’ name and countries: George Konstantinou- Δημοτικό Σχολείο Δάσους Άχνας "Φώτης Πίττας" - Primary School "Fotis Pittas", Δασάκι Άχνας, Cyprus Jolanta Okuniewska -Szkola Podstawowa nr 13, Olsztyn, Olsztyn, Poland Maite Elejalde- CEP Virgen de la Guía, Portugalete, Spain Maria Alice Moreira Maia Neto-Centro Escolar de Portela , Penafiel, Portugal Stavroula Makaronopoulou-5TH PRIMARY SCHOOL NEAS SMYRNIS, Nea Smyrni, Greece Valerica Danaila- Scoala Gimnaziala Nr.5,,Elena Doamna,,, Tecuci, Romania

Pupils’ Age: 7-10 Subjects: Art, Foreign Languages, Geography, History, Informatics / ICT, Language and Literature, Mathematics / Geometry, Pre-school Subjects, Primary School Subjects

Tools: e-mail, Other software (Powerpoint, video, pictures and drawings), Twinspace, Video conference, Web publishing Aims: To exchange information about children's living places, to practice their communication and collaboration skills, to work in group, to improve their emotional intelligence skill, to prove critical thinking and autonomy, to become familiar and attracted with other European cultures and enhance the understanding and knowledge of them, to encourage pupils to

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learn to know and respect each other, to broaden minds due to online cooperation between the schools Description: Children have been working according to their interests and young age. They knew about their partners living places; they communicated with their partners and shared experience.

They organized a virtual trip and they had fun. They learnt English words and basic structures in their partners language related to the topic of journeys.

Work process: First step was meeting online each other using skype or google hangout. Than we made a virtual trip - Students travelled virtually in their partners places. They planned the exhibitionwhat they should pack, find means of transport to go to this place, check real cost of tickets, count...they planned what to do there and when.

Valerica, Romania- visited Spain Cornelia, Romania- Portugal Poland- Cyprus Portugal- Greece Spain- Cornelia, Romania Greece- Poland Cyprus- Valerica, Romania The final product was a Travelling Guide- created using Google docs than uploaded on issuu: http://issuu.com/makarono/docs/visiting_places?e=7852722/1986773 They shared their opinions using a Twintravel Journal made using Google docs. The common journal was turned into an eBook using issuu: http://issuu.com/congeo/docs/ttajournal.

Finally we used Google docs again and made a common dictionary. Students recorded some basic words in their mother tongue and than in partners’ language using vocaroo and quizlet. The final product is a basic multilingual dictionary in Greek, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian

and

Spanish.

It

is

published

on

issuu

too:

http://issuu.com/congeo/docs/ttadictionary__3_

Common Result/ Outcomes: Mini travelling guide Basic multilingual dictionary Web page- blog- for TTA- our touristic agency

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Links/Photos of the activity: TTA blog http://new-twinspace.etwinning.net/web/p85980 TTA flyer

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Andrea Ulrich

Title of project: “Across the miles to you” Title of activity: “Our Poem”

Teachers’ name Andrea Ullrich Marie-France Munar Giovanna Zancanaro

Schools’ name and countries Gymnasium Georgianum Hildburghausen, Germany Collège Kerallan Plouzané, France Liceo „G.Dal Piaz“ Feltre (BL), Italy Pupils’ Age: 10-14 Subjects: English Tools: Blog wordpress, image and video editing programmes Aims: Reflect on a year of activity on a collaborative blog in a creative way to express team spirit and a feeling of togetherness

Description: Creative writing activity of the three active teams on a five-country blog, who create a poem together

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Work process: Team Italy created the first stanza, France and Germany added their ideas All teams created drawings of owls flying across the miles (referring to a part of the project with a toy owl as protagonist ) Team Italy arranged and edited the poem The steps of creating the poem can be followed on the blog

Common Result/ Outcomes: Our blog’s poem published on our collaborative blog

Links/Photos of the activity: http://acrossthemilestoyou.wordpress.com/2013/05/12/our-poem/#comments http://acrossthemilestoyou.wordpress.com/2013/06/08/our-e-twinning-poem/#comments

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Paraskevi Belogia

Title of project (part of which is the described activity): “A school over the Rainbow” Title of activity: “Team up with your correspondents” Teachers’ name: Paraskevi Belogia (Greece) Isabelle Bonnassies (France) Nikolaos Aimilianos Papadimitriou (Greece) Stanisława Czerezdrecka (Poland) Artemiza Lovin (Romania) İnnap KAYA (Turkey) Narine Baghdasaryan (Armenia)

Schools’ name and countries : Collège Jean Lacaze, France Junior High School of Oichalia, Greece 50. Yıl Ortaokulu, Turkey Sc. Gimn. Nr.29 Galati, Romania Zespół Szkół w Dąbrowie, Poland Junior High School of Farkadona, Greece 14

Vanadzor Special School of Mathematics and Natural Siences ("Evrika"), Armenia Pupils’ Age: 12-15 Subjects: Foreign Languages, ICT, Language and Literature, Music, Art Tools: - http://primarypad.com/ - http://www.drawitlive.com/ - TwinSpace (forum)

Aims: -

To form transnational groups

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To help students introduce themselves to their partners

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To teach them how to work collaboratively

Description: This activity was designed to help students form transnational groups and get to know each other better. Once these transnational groups are formed, at the beginning of the project, students work collaboratively with their partners on all the activities that follow. Forming transnational groups is the ideal way to make students get personally involved in the project and never give up, so, in my opinion, it’s a really important stage in a project and although it might be time-consuming, it’s worth a try!

Work process: Within each partner country, students team up in 10 national groups.

A forum category is created by teachers in twinspace, for each one of the national groups.

Using these documents they select a) personality adjectives that characterize them ( http://helpyourself.fractalweb.fr/galeries/506fractalh/cd88c3af28fd68459133bb72edd7ca04/photos//personality-37adjectifs.pdf http://www.my-teacher.fr/images/cartes-mentales/1vocabulaire/1-humain/3-personnalite/2-personnalite/personalitydiscussion.pdf ) and

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b) a list of hobbies (http://helpyourself.fractalweb.fr/galeries/506fractalh/ad20d8dd5a66ec415fada23364a0c46f/photos//VocabulairesSportAn glais.pdf http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wroVAdKZJCU&feature=channel http://helpyourself.fractalweb.fr/galeries/506fractalh/ad20d8dd5a66ec415fada23364a0c46f/photos//sliding-skating-andcycling-9-activities.pdf and write short collaborative presentations of their national group and post them in the forum category of their national group. Students read each others’ presentations in the forum and contact potential correspondents in partner countries and question them to determine common characteristics and hobbies. They can email each other, use the forum or chat online in order to form groups with two or more members from each country. This activity is essential to the success of this project. The goal is to form 10 transnational groups in total.

Once students have questioned each other, and they have found partners from each partner country, they appoint a leader of their transnational group and he/she sends a list of the names of the students that are members of the new transnational group to their teachers. When all of the students complete this process, 10 new transnational groups are formed.

Teachers create a table with the newly formed transnational groups and the members they belong to them from each partner country. They also create 10 primary pad files, one for each one of the groups.

The students have to work together and write a short description of their group members, where they refer to common personality characteristics, common interests and hobbies, what they like to do, what motivates them to participate in the project etc Students also have to agree upon a name for their group and draw together a symbol or an emblem (tool: DrawItLive) for each group.

Common Result/ Outcomes: The collaborative group descriptions, along with the names and the symbols of each transnational group are published in the twinspace and in the blog of the project.

Links/Photos of the activity: http://gym-farkad.tri.sch.gr/aSchoolOverTheRainbow/index.php/get-to-know-eachother/transnational-groups

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Emanuela Leto

Title of project: “Far yet near: A project for European year of Citizenship” Title of activity: “An International Travel agency-role-play activity” This is one of the most collaborative activities as the whole project has been challenging and involving Teachers’ name: Emanuela Leto Isabelle Dingil Sonia Carrillo Schools’ name and countries I C laura lanza -Carini (Italy) College du Revermont-Bourg en Bresse (France) CSG_Calvijn Vestiging Groere Hart ,Barendrecht (the Netherlands) Pupils’ Age: 13-14 Subjects: English as a foreign language-European citizenship Tools: Skype-webcam recorder-smilebox Aims: to encourage group work in eTwinning projectto promote interactive international cooperation through video chats activities to learn about each partners' country -to acquire technical vocabulary Description: Two students from France school and one from Italy or Two students from the Netherlands and one from France exchange this role-play activity-travel agent and customer on localities chosen by the students belonging to each one's country- They ask all the tourist information they need to travel to the locality and the travel agent gives the answer-all at the same time through videoconference via Skype Work process: 17

The students have been matched by the teachers -Each student having the role of travel agent prepared and uploaded a poster of the chosen place to visit on the TwinSpace- each students being the customer uploaded his /her questions on the TwinSpace-the fixed date they met via Skype and performed their roles while the French teacher filmed the event.

Common Result/ Outcomes: Involvement and improving of fluency in oral skills sense of participation in a common projectacquisition of European dimension-future school orienteering Links/Photos of the activity: http://new-twinspace.etwinning.net/c/portal/layout?p_l_id=24883446 http://new-twinspace.etwinning.net/c/portal/layout?p_l_id=24745983

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Marie-Hélène Fasquel

Title of project: “Creating an online ebook about environmental issues and sharing it with other countries' students, commenting on their own creations”.

Title of activity: “Creative writing and collaboration to defend a cause, the environment”.

Teachers’ name: Marie-Hélène Fasquel, France Melike Husniye Yilmaz ASLI ÖZBAY Livia Esposito Sema Uslular

Schools’ name and countries: Lycée Giraux Sannier, France Schools in Turkey & Italy: Toli Ortaokulu, Turquie Aydinlikevler Ticaret Meslek Lisesi, Turquie Manisa Doga Koleji, Turquie Soke Hilmi Firat Anadolu Lisesi, Turquie, 18

Liceo Linguistico e delle scienze Uname “Erasmo da Rotterdam”, Italie

Pupils’ Age: 14-16 Subjects: English. (ESL)

Tools: Many online tools: -

Issuu (to create ebooks)

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Prezi to share presentations

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Google docs to work collaboratively

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Titanpad (collaborative writing too)

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Bitstrips (to create online comics)

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Glogster (to create online interactive posters)

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Google forms (to create suveys)

Aims: To defend the environment together through online tools & creativity.

Description: Creative writing project: being creative to defend the environment.

Each teacher promoted the project in her class and we kept exchanging on the Twinspace and sharing our students’ work & commenting on it.

Work process: We all had our students create logos, write articles, short stories, and comics and commented on the work of all the students.

The feedback of the partners was part of the process.

Here is the major task the students had to fulfill: Major task

You are going to make an ebook using pictures, videos and texts to discuss environmental issues.

The ebook will be divided into different parts : -

The analysis of your own pictures and videos,

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Your ideas about the topic, what you want to say about the problems,

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Poems (acrostic poems for instance, using online tools),

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Short stories about the environment.

You will make it together, using collaborative online tools.

The next step will be to share it with classes from other countries and to ask them to comment on your work, ideas,...

They will also provide their own projects which we will discuss as well.

This project is an online collaborative project.

Common Result/ Outcomes: Ebooks & presentations Our collaborative & international ebooks (Turkey / Italy & France) http://issuu.com/mariehel2/docs/our_fir st_international_ebook http://issuu.com/mariehel2/docs/collaborative_ebook_2_-_june_2013 Links/Photos of the activity: http://issuu.com/mariehel2/docs/defending-the-environment Burรงin's e-book: http://prezi.com/hz-fd-oig6s7/untitled-prezi/ Furkan's e-book: http://prezi.com/zpsnlw9sdszs/untitled-prezi/ Erkam's e-book: http://prezi.com/lmjmbwsw2dw6/untitled-prezi/ Afacan's e-book: http://prezi.com/hbfbmfgj-rlk/untitled-prezi/ Umut's e-book: http://prezi.com/cf-na1pezcqz/umuts-hope/ Cennet's e-book: http://prezi.com/ocjtxgg129y9/untitled-prezi/

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French students

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Turkish students also working on the project.

Cristina Nicolaita

Title of project : “OUR IDEAL EUROPEAN NEIGHBOR” Title of activity: “Module 1: Let’s get to know each other” Teachers’ name : Cristina Nicolaita Vasiliki Pelekouda Rana Yoldas Schools’ name and countries: Şcoala Gimnazială Gh. Magheru, Caracal, ROMANIA; 36th primary school , Athens, GREECE; Cebesoy İlköğretim Okulu, Adana, TURKEY Pupils’ Age: 10-13 Subjects:

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Art, Citizenship, Cross Curricular, Economics, Environmental Education, European Studies, Foreign Languages, Geography, History, Informatics / ICT, Media Education, Politics, Social Studies / Sociology Tools: qrstuff.com, the-qrcode-generator.com, classtools.net, smilebox.com, picovico.com, glitterfy.com, kizoa.com, satisfaction.com, answergarden.ch Aims: Students develop the idea of neighboring starting from their familiar area to the European one. First module was our students’ favorite one, except the final farewell party on skype.

Description: Students write their biographical profiles/ personal blazons. Teacher prepares worksheets and QR codes (small digitized squares used for storing encoded information into a small, two-dimensional space that can be read by Smartphones and other handheld devices, such as iPads, web cameras, or QR readers) are used for partners to get to know their partners.

Work process: •Using a raffle tool the pairs are made randomly. Students try to guess their partners’ appearance, school preferences, and hobbies and dreamed future carriers by studying their blazons. Descriptions are put into forum and commented by the students.

•In the meantime other schools activities are shared into the project blog, using different tools for presentations.

Common Result/ Outcomes: http://www.slideshare.net/cristnycol/neighbor-module-i-review http://answergarden.ch/view/46688

Links/Photos of the activity: http://new-twinspace.etwinning.net/c/portal/layout?p_l_id=21191171

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10. Maria Mauromati Title of project: “Global days” Title of activity: “To maternity Teachers’ name: Joanna Lissel Katerina Stamatopoulou Anna Vouzouka Ioanna Tavridou, Anna Galstyan Chrisanthi Mintosi Emel Ustun

Schools’ name and countries: Sweden, Heraklio Crete Greece, Draviskos Serron Greece,Armenia, Triandria Thessaloniki Greece, Ismir Turkey

Pupils’ Age: 9-10 Subjects: Art Tools: befunky kizoa Aims: to learn how painters of their country honored the maternity through their paintings and how foreign painters did the same.

To come close to art To share their feelings Description: Find paintings, study art, edit through befunky, and share with the partners, paint.

Work process: Firstly all the partners found on the internet painters whose paintings are dedicated to maternity. Students learned about the painters, expressed their feelings and made 23

comments on the subject. Afterwards we exchanged the paintings with the partners and students painted them with their own colors.

Common Result/ Outcomes: Students are able to recognize national painters, to interpret foreign painters, to analyze emotions, to express their emotions, to speak for their mother with love Links/Photos of the activities http://www.kizoa.com/slideshow/d4582323k9424603o1/to-maternity-by-greek-andswedish-painters

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