eTwinning
The European eTwinning Prize Competition 2013
The European eTwinning Prize Competition 2013 will award eTwinning projects in 3 categories by age (pupils age 4-11, age 12-15, age 16-19), as well as 6 special categories.
eTwinning is the community for schools in Europe. It promotes school collaboration in Europe through the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) by providing support, tools and services for schools. Over 5,000 projects involving at least two european schools have been developped since the project was launched in 2005.
A Taste Of Maths, best eTwinning project 2012
eTwinning Prizes 2012: Winners announced!
The eTwinning CSS (Central Support Service) portal is the official online European contact point for everyone interested or involved in eTwinning. It is a virtual meeting point for the exchange of information between schools, and it provides all the tools and services necessary for schools to find partners, resources, advice, help, and information, and even to build eTwinning projects in partnership with each other.
The aim of the European eTwinning Prizes competition is to highlight best practice in collaborative school projects using Information and Communication Technology (ICT).
The winners of the three age categories and three special categories were announced on the website. This year another prize was offered, the Best eTwinning Project 2012. This prize is chosen from among all the winners in all categories, by vote of all the National Support Services.
See the list of all winners here.
The European Chain Reaction
Thirteen teachers worked together in this eTwinning project. They were each given access to the blog and everyone could upload their own video, the children could then watch the new entries on their digital school board or at home. Through entering, the children learned about science (creating the chain reaction), ICT (filming, blogging, ...), languages (commenting in English when their mother tongue was non-English) and other cultures (when watching the introduction videos of the other classes).
How eTwinning can boost skills at school
Teachers involved in eTwinning, the European online community for schools, met with local and national policy-makers in Genoa to discuss how linking up with other schools can help improve teaching quality and pupils' skills.
The conference took place alongside ABCD, Italy's most important education fair, which attracts over 40,000 visitors. Participants discussed ways of integrating eTwinning into education policies by using it systematically as platform for teachers to develop innovative practices and forge new ways of developing their professional skills.
In a video message the European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth, Androulla Vassiliou, encouraged participants to "explore the contribution that eTwinning can make to your own national, regional and local priorities for improving the quality of learning, for encouraging cooperation between teachers, and for promoting school improvement."
Last week, school leaders from across Europe met in a similar event near Berlin to look at how they can make specific use of eTwinning to raise the profile of their school, get an insight in modern trends of educational leadership and find partners in Europe (To know more).
Background
eTwinning is the European online community for schools involving already 145,000 teachers across Europe. eTwinning is funded by the European Commission as part of the Lifelong Learning programme.
The eTwinning platform (www.etwinning.net) offers opportunities for teachers to meet and interact with each other in school projects, special interest groups and online forums. It also offers teachers many opportunities to develop their professional skills via online learning events.
"At the end of my first project, when summing up the results and my pupils' feedback, I started to think that eTwinning could be more than an extra project and could be fully incorporated into teaching. eTwinning is the most flexible tool of my teaching that allows my pupils and me to learn, improve, have fun and make friends." Maria Doria, teacher from Italy
More information: www.etwinning.net
Follow the event via its joint blog with the Experts Meeting in Education Networking (Eminent): http://blogs.eun.org/eminent/
Schools Awarded the eTwinning European Quality Label, October 2011
The 1172 schools awarded the European Quality Label are already listed. In addition to the school name (and teacher name) there is information on the project that got them their Quality Label.
eTwinning Quality Labels are granted to teachers with excellent eTwinning projects. They indicate that the project has reached a certain national and European standard. For this reason, there are two labels: the National Quality Label and the European Quality Label.
The European Quality Label is a second mark of success and is awarded automatically by the Central Support Service to schools in a project where at least two partners have already received the National Quality Label. As of October 2009, the European Quality Label is awarded only once a year and featured through the eTwinning Portal.
The European Quality Label is required to participate in the European eTwinning Prizes competition.