webinar for etwinning ambassadors

1. A way to enter the eTwinning world?
Georgiadou Maria
eTwinning ambassador of Southern Aegean –Greece
European Programmes’ promoter of South Aegean for secondary education

2. Being fascinated by an eTwinning LE,
thanks to which I have learnt about
“ A hole in the wall” of Sugata Mitra,
I decided to create “my hole in
eTwinning”, by asking myself simple
questions, as he did!......

3. Etwinning is a successful story of
European school collaboration. How can
somebody have an idea of what it
means?
From the number
of registrations
From the number
of projects
Let’s see the statistics!

5. It’s common for all the countries that:
the number of registered users is much greater
than that of projects! Why?

6. You must have a project idea before searching for
partners! ETwinners have the possibility to find
ready made projects kits to use or to take ideas
from them. Let’s see how:
1) Project kits
2) Project
gallery

7. Project kits: search by 12 thematic fields

8. Project Gallery

10. 41/10 ( that means that 10 out of 41 are easy)
10/2
16/3
36/7
48/11
27/10
23/4
1/-
4/-
36/17
46/12
26/9
Three levels of projects: easy, intermediate, advanced. If an eTwinner
wanted to start with an easy one, how many easy projects would find in
eTwinning? Let’s have a look in every category

11. RESULTS
1) 75 out of 186 projects are “easy”
2) You can have the same project in
many fields.
3) The same kit may be included in
many different fields. For example,
the kit “Young entrepreneur” exists
in the follow categories: technology,
languages, economics and
entrepreneurship, culture. That
means that the number of kits is
much smaller.

12. Asking people who attended eTwinning workshops ,if
they started an eTwinning project, they answered:
3) I have no partner!
Although, many of them accepted to
participate to an easy project, started by a
new friend and old eTwinner!
1) I need time to understand
2) It’s too much things to manage!

13. What exactly is a project?
A project is an organized commitment of effort
to produce a defined outcome within defined
constraints of scope, time, budget, and quality
(Jim Hertzfeld)
Let’s consider as easy project ,that commitment
of short effort, that provides these defined outcomes,
described before.

14. Finishing, I would like to make some more…simple
questions:
1) “The beginning is half of everything” told Pythagoras.
Are mini project kits the secret of being involved in
eTwinning? ( speaking especially for the new etwinners)
2)Would be useful to create some of them?
3)How to proceed?
4)What about introduce this activity in the eTwinning
workshops?
5) Could Ted –Ed be a source of inspiration to create
project kits?

15. A way to enter the eTwinning world?
Trying to get answers.
Let’s begin with the 3 first questions:

16. 1)Are mini project kits the secret
of being involved in
eTwinning?
2)Would be useful to create
some of them?
3)How to proceed?

17. Starting by the fact that all new eTwinners would
start with an easy project, we take for granted that
mini project kits would really be of great support!
You can try, as an experiment, to propose an easy
project to the participants of your eTwinning
workshop! I think that most of them would meet
the project!

18. This is exactly what I did, when an
eTwinning friend,
Bastiaensen Ben, sent me a message about
joining his easy project, entitled "A European
Winter". ( Thanks Ben!) The idea was to collect
pictures and movies about winter in your
Country. Many of my workshop participants have
joined it! So, the answer to the second question is
…yes, it would be useful to create some mini
project kits and let’s see now, how we can proceed
for that.

19. It’s time to examine all the easy project kits that exist
in eTwinning, in order to understand their proper
characteristics and understand also, how to create
new of them.
.
Of course, we should mention that the
projects that we will observe are finished ,
done and closed, while we are speaking
about mini project kits, just in term of ideas.
So, with the term of mini project kits, we are
referring to the ideas that could become
projects and the way to develop them.

20. A project kit contains information about:
1) Details (description of the project)
2)Pedagogical objectives 3)Process 4) Evaluation 5) Follow-up 6)Links

21. 1)As we have seen in the first part, 75 out of 185
projects are classified as easy, but in fact their
number is much smaller, because the same
project can be classified in many categories or
thematic fields.
2) We observed that , apart from the objectives
that are directly connected with the subject
(pedagogical objectives), there some other that
could be used in every project. For example,
concerning the description of the project , or the
general objectives, we could refer these ones:

22. to know each other and become friends
develop pupils’ abilities to communicate
in a foreign language
enhance pupils’ ICT skills
 enhance pupils’ understanding and
knowledge of different cultures and
cultures
Overcome prejudices and increase
tolerance
- stimulate creativity

23. 3) About the work process, we observe that the
activities are classified by month or by different
steps , such as: -starting activities
-consolidation
-conclusion
4) THE MAJORITY of the easy projects are of
short duration ( 1 , 2, 3, or 6 months, even 1-3
weeks as the project “ four seasons”, for example!

24. As I told you in the beginning, Sugata Mitra was
my inspiration for these thoughts.
• Thanks to Anne Gilleran’s Learning
Event about 21st century skills
• I saw the video“ Build a school in the
cloud”
• and I knew Sugata Mitra and
• TED Ed. What a pleasure!

25. My question ( not BIG!....) is: WHAT ABOUT IF, APART FROM
ETWINNING KITS,MODULES AND PROJECT GALLERY, WE USED
TED ED,AS AN INSPIRING MEANS FOR CREATING MINI ETWINNING
PROJECT KITS?

26. A mini project kit, as we described before, is a project idea,
with a small description of it and with the general and
pedagogical objectives. The other parts, concerning the work
process, or the evaluation would be developed by all the
partners.
In the eTwinning workshops or webinars, I would like to put this
idea into practice:
1. Show participants how to look for project ideas via eTwinning
and Ted ed.
2. Ask them to complete their kit by adding the subject description
and some general or pedagogical objectives
3. Every kit will be added on a padlet, sent
to the new eTwinners in their mails , hoping that just after the
workshop/webinar, they will have their mini project kits!

27. Let’s see now, how we will explore Ted -Ed
and what exactly it is?
1.At first it was TED : a non profit organization
devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading., created in
California ,26 years ago.
2.After that, TEDx , created in 2009, gives
communities, organizations, libraries, universities
and individuals the opportunity to stimulate dialogue
through TED-like experiences at the local level. The
philosophy is always the same: ideas worth
spreading.
.

28. 3.TED- Ed: using engaging videos on TED-Ed,
you can create lessons worth sharing and amplify
the voices of the world’s greatest educators.
Does these created
lessons could be a
source of project ideas,
leading to mini project
kits?
Let’s explore TED’s
environment!

29. TED offers great ideas through its videos

30. There are also video lessons filtered by
content or duration!

31. You can even create your lesson ,
using TED videos,or yours!

32. Let’s see an example:
1. We go to http://ed.ted.com/lessons ( to find lessons) or
to https://www.ted.com/talks/browse ( to have access to all the talks)
2. To the search engine , I write what I want, for instance “physics”

33. I choose my video and I start working on it. If I have a
gmail account, I can insert my video at
www.videonot.es, which will permit me to take notes
while looking at the video.

34. Maybe, some of you, would ask this question: “ Why to try to create
a project kit, if it’s easier to find a partner first and work on his
project idea? In the Tricider, 18 out of 23 said that new eTwinners
prefer that for many, many reasons.
I agree. But I believe that trying to find your personal idea and develop it
with your partner(s) is a very fruitful procedure, enhancing enthusiasm,
creative spirit and self-confidence! It’s the first contact with your future
project and …..as you know, the beginning is the half of everything!
( Pythagoras again!)

35. But even if you work on your partner’s fresh idea, you
can look for a TED video, related to your theme , in order
to get it more interesting! You can also use it in the
classroom!

36. Everything you write is saved at google drive. You can also
share the link or invite your partner( if you have already
found) and work together, watching the video at the same
time!
Etwinning gives great opportunities to take project ideas
and create your mini project kit, which will be developed
by you and your partners. With Ted-ed, this opportunity
gets bigger and maybe with more social character.
This webinar was inspired by an eTwinning Learning
Event + a Ted video. So, this is the proof that this
combination gives inspiration!

37. My next webinar will be based on the SOLE TOOLKIT
of Sugata Mitra,again!
(SOLE= Self Organized Learning Environment)

38. http://www.ted.com/prize/sole_toolkit
We could work on that and present our
results in the next webinar, if you find
it interesting!

39. Thank you for
your
attention!