International Projects
Bringing people closer together from around the world almost always has a beneficial effect. In this spirit, at the BETT12 exhibition in London in January teachers and learners from other countries came together to find out about each other’s schools and ways of working in order to gain new insights. The events was run by members of the World Ecitizens charity which was set up by teachers in the MirandaNet Fellowship to give a web voice to learners all over the world. Teachers and community leaders send all kinds of artefacts for publication, for example: peace posters from six year olds in England; Chinese theatre makeup from children in Beijing; and, concerns about pollution from Russia. When they publish each young learner receives a World Ecitizens certificate as an award for reaching out. You can read about the sessions in Developing global publishing opportunities for teachers and their pupils in curriculum exchange projects, by John Galloway.
Anne Gilleran and Claire Morvan eTwinning Presentation
Glenys Hart Global activites undertaken by Special Schools
Katya Toneva Flat Classroom Project. Further details of Katya’s projects can be found here:
International Flat Classroom Project (1)
International Flat Classroom Project (2)
E-safety project blog (International Community School – London)
International Projects and their Influence on Learning: Notes from Andree Jordan
Andrée Jordan is International Coordinator, Head of Faculty, Social Sciences, Ravensbourne School
Working together with pupils around the world increases motivation. Ask me to prove it – that is another matter. It is obvious when watching any pupil who has been involved in an international project that their outlook has changed, their work ethic has improved, and that their motivation has increased. Putting all that into a form using quantitative data is a challenge.
Use of ICT to connect pupils around the world has been and continues to be the way forward. In our increasingly global community we need to share what we have – shared work spaces on line enable pupils to work collaboratively e.g. – Schools on line Sub Saharan African project: See the link to our website.
Zimbabwe, Nigeria and UK. UK teachers’ visits to Zimbabwe and Nigeria made us aware of their lack of ICT infrastructure. Our whole project is on sharing arts and crafts. The schools wanted to use ICT: the Nigerian school was given a thin client set up room. Zimbabwe has one laptop. Everyone had flip videos.
The biggest challenge continues to be teaching the staff the technology so that we could use flip videos and upload or post the videos to each other.
eTwinning project – Many Hands Make Light Work
This is a project on volunteering. It uses twinspace to upload the work we have done. It also has space for pupils to “chat” about their work, and work together across the miles, collaboratively. –
my twinspace – if you want to have a look at a live eTwinning Twinspace, follow the public link to my eTwinning project TwinSpace “Many Hands Make Light Work“:
In other countries, the use of video conferencing is an excellent way of linking pupils. In my East Asian connecting Classrooms Project, the termly use of video conferences allowed pupils in 30 schools (10 in each of three countries) to work together. This is still going despite the official “end” of the project last July. See the following link (if it will let you see it): http://schoolsonline.britishcouncil.org/node/1059
David Obst Interactive Whiteboards in Germany
Using MindMeister
The interactions in the MirandaMod and the FlashMeeting are further augmented by the use of MindMeister, a collaborative mapping tool being used to create and store knowledge created in real time. During the sessions at BETT12 – and after – contributors from across the country built this concept map.
During the sessions people followed the proceedings on Twitter, using the hashtag #MMAfA.
MirandaNet would like to thank the students from the University of Bedfordshire, who provided invaluable technical support for the team throughout the sessions. Their details can be found here.
