E-Twinning registration has begun

The folks at the central office and at our national office for E-Twinning were eager to see our project officially registered, so with Jackie's agreement I have begun the registration process. The Lycée Astier in France, and the Scoil Ui Mhuiri in Ireland are now officially registered. I will add all the rest of you as soon as I get e-mail or a comment here telling me you're ready to go all the way. Of course, there are still many details to work out, but I feel confident we can find common ground.

I want to also add that several of you have said you have another partner, and asked if that partner can join our group. I think the best strategy for the time being is to add everyone to this blog for the purposes of discussion, even if in the end we register separate projects through the e-twinning office. For example, some technical-oriented classes in my school will probably be doing a separate project relating in some way to their technical subject (electricity, mechanics, woodworking or aluminum) and we're still looking for specific partners for them. Some of you may have appropriate sections, but most are in general studies, like I am. I don't think this is a problem. We'll work out specific partnership details as we go along.

Please respond using the "comments" button below, and good e-twinning!
Cheers, --- Phil

Hi, villagers!

Thank you Philip for inviting me, I hope to give a hand to you and all the other villagers. As I told you in my e-mail I suggest " ... to concentrate on a topic and then develop all the contents related to it. We should consider our topic as a house which contains rooms and every month you'll visit one", a sort of map very useful for new born villagers as we are.

If all the villagers agree I can modify the image linked giving it a european dimension which could better represents us. Let me Know.

Have a nice day

Enza

A multi-site E-Twinning project

What we're trying to do is set up a large, multi-site project with one school in each of 4 or 5 different countries. We all have schools in the upper secondary level, with students around ages 15-19 (more or less).
Ideally, in each such school, we'd like to have several teachers and several classes involved, and have a strong commitment to the project. The exact number of schools isn't that important, but I think the level of commitment is important. Having multiple schools in the project helps avoid problems if one school suddenly drops out for any reason. It'll also give our students more exposure to a diverse European cultural base.

Some of the things we need to discuss are:
1) Does the project as I've outlined it seem like something you and your colleagues want to do? Do you think your principal or headteacher will get behind it, or is this just you and your own class or classes?
2) What media to use in exchanges: e-mail, forums, blogs, chat, etc.
3) What topics to discuss: we'll probably want several topics, maybe one a month. Or, we might want to concentrate on a single topic all year long.
4) What projects to work on: students could do research on similar projects and exchange their points of view, debate each other or somehow confront their ideas.
5) How to get started in September.

Enza Armiento, in Italy, suggestedwe use as our topic Living Spaces, including ideas about "geographical aspects, traditions, art and monuments and so on". This seems like a good topic to me, vast enough to work on many different aspects, while focused enough to keep from getting dispersed into "anything goes".

Gosia (Malgorzata Kulakowska) in Poland suggests: "we are interested in languages, literature, history, European heritage, healthy lifestyle, ecology, socialstudies, economics, computer studies including ICT." I think most of those topics could be made to fit under the Living Spaces topic.

Here is a list of potential participants to date. Let me know if I should modify this list.

- Gosia (Malgorzata Kulakowska) is in Poland
- Branislav Lanscak is in Slovakia
- Annamaria Karczagi (Axelero) is in Hungary
- Jiøí Hrubý is in the Czech Republic, and I hear he may have another partner school?
- Katerina Bavorova is at the e-twinning office, and she's been refering me a few potential partners. I'm including her in this mailing.
- Enza Armiento is in Italy, she was refered by Katarina.
- Jacqueline Matthews is in Ireland, her school is kind of in flux, but she's decided to participate as a full member.
- Bruno Boddaert is one my colleagues here in the Ardèche.
- Fabrice Foray is another colleague here, working in computer studies.
- Philip Benz, that's me, teaching English in the Ardèche (France).

E-Twinning: Village Europa

When two people are communicating over long distances, e-mail is a good tool. But when there are six or eight or more of us, e-mail quickly shows its limits. Let's use this space to discuss project ideas, describe our schools, and share what we really want to accomplish with a project e-twinning.

Cheers, --- Phil

Philip Benz
Lycée Astier
Aubenas, France