Keep Calm and Teach English

"eTwinners Behind the Scenes" is an eTwinning project that has exploited the power of the theatre as an investigative tool to make our pupils discover the cultural background of the partner countries and develop creativity, critical thinking skills, and the ability to work together in the process of writing an original drama. After considering several outstanding stories, pupils chose to dramatize Renata Fonte’s story and worked in transnational teams to write a 3 act play about this passionate mother, teacher, and advocate for women's rights and environmental justice. This topic made them appreciate the values of justice, activism, and community engagement as crucial for achieving the SDGs outlined in Agenda 2030.  We worked with students from two schools in Italy: Scuola Secondaria Statale di I Grado “Materdona-Moro” di Mesagne and Liceo Statale “San Giuseppe Calasanzio” and two schools in Spain: Fundación Educativa Jesuitinas Pamplona and  Colegio Internacional Eurovil...

The past school year was a difficult one for teachers and students. We had to adapt to new ways of doing things in a very short time. However teachers who have been involved in eTwinning projects all these years, have probably adjusted to the new reality more easily. eTwinning projects gave students and teachers the opportunity to collaborate from a distance using digital online tools way before the quarantine!  During this ordeal and, most importantly, despite it, we managed to complete our project "Green entrepreneurs" with schools from Turkey, Italy, Croatia and Romania. Our project logo The aim of the project was to encourage students to act for the good of the planet, to become "Green Entrepreneurs" and to realize their responsibilities towards nature and the world. Through this project, we wanted our students to look at their daily habits and realize how they affect the environment, to learn what the causes of climate change are and what they can do to stop th...

Our eTwinning project is coming to an end. In the course of this project we exchanged postcards with our partners and learnt a lot about Wroclaw, a beautiful city in western Poland. Our final mission was to co-write a story. We chose to write a love story between one of Wroclaw's city trademark dwarfs, and our own "Daughter of Veroia", a small statuette of a young maiden, found in our city. We then  narrated and recorded the story in a joint video:

In the course of this year's eTwinning project "A Tale of Two Cities", we had a Skype meeting with our Polish partners on 16th December. We faced some connection problems but we had real fun!

Last year's eTwinning project: "Most Wanted: A detective tour over Europe" was awarded with the European Quality Label, which is a second mark of success (after the National Label) meaning that it was proposed by at least one National Support Service after screening. A very big thank you to Kristell Lansonneur, Anna Eisler, Vanda Ramalho, Zuzana Korineková and Loredana Popa for our excellent collaboration. Special credits must go to Kristell in particular for coming up with this original idea of having mascots travelling from country to country looking for stolen artifacts, and for designing the whole project. My students and I had a wonderful time and learned a lot about our partner countries.

This year my students and I are taking part in two eTwinning projects. One of them is with A2 class of the 5th Junior High School, aiming at making up a detective story concerning various important artifacts stolen from our partner's countries. For example the Embleme du Roi Soleil from Versailles France, the Castle of Count Dracula in Romania, the Armada Frigate from Portugal and the Golden Larnax from Vergina. What is really exciting is that our toy detectives are going to actually travel around these countries, trying to find clues to solve the cases. And we have just learned that our detective, Mr Owl Holmes, has arived in Portugal and is going to spend Christmas with our friends there!

Congratulations to the students of the 3rd High School of Veria who worked for last year's eTwinning project. It was fun and educational at the same time. We worked with 12 other countries from Europe: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Croatia, Georgia, France, Fyrom, Moldova, Poland, Slovakia and Ukraine. We learned a lot about our partners' history, geography and traditions through each country's national symbols (official and unofficial) and made new friends. The Quality Label is an affirmation of our efforts! 

Last year I attended an eTwinning webinar on using collaborative activities and web2.0 tools in eTwinning projects. The short collaborative activity on breaking the ice among partners, designed by Emilios Papadimitriou and me on blubbr.tv , is included in the guide below:

For this year our school has embarked on an ambitious eTwinning Plus project together with 12 other countries from Europe: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Croatia, Georgia, France, Fyrom, Moldova, Poland, Slovakia and Ukraine. As the name suggests (The Chest of Symbols) students will learn about partner countries through symbols. It will help them understand and respect differences among people, but also to cherish and appreciate similarities. National symbols, not only the official ones, but especially those existing outside the official factfiles of the country tell us more about a country's history, culture and traditions than we can expect. Symbols and their literal or metaphorical meanings constitute part of our cultural heritage. Through studying symbols students will also learn about geography, biology and art. They will collaborate through a wide range of ICT tools to deepen their digital competences and find new ways of expressing themselves. One of the final products fo...

Our newspaper project has been awarded the National Quality Label. Congratulations to the students who worked for it and a thank you to our partners from Italy, France and Spain.

Following our Italian friends' example, and since it is not possible to upload large files on Twinspace (they should really look into that) we started a blog where we share our school news and projects. Pay us a visit at  http://etwinningnewspaper-gr.blogspot.gr/

Our eTwinning project for this year is an attempt to publish a collaborative european newspaper with schools from Spain, France, Turkey and Italy. Our Italian friends from the Panella-Vallauri Industrial Technical Institute in Reggio Calabria   have prepared a blog where they upload their school information and news. 

We are really proud that our work was awarded a European Quality Label.

We are very proud that our 2012-13 eTwinning project was awarded a quality label. Congratuletions to all the students who worked for it.

Our eTwinning project has slowly come to its final step. The song that inspired us was " Χέρια σαν κι αυτά " by Locomondo. The Greek team adapted the lyrics into English and our friends from Poland made their own version of the song. Lucyna managed to conduct a brilliant choir with herself on the piano. Our cover of the song was much plainer due to the fact that we are in the middle of our final exams, but still it was worth the effort! Special thanks to everyone who devoted their time on the task.

Part of our eTwinning project is a joint presentation of our countries' pop music. We gathered basic information about popular singers and songs during our chat and we continued with a research for more information, photographs, music and lyrics on Google and Youtube. It took us some time but we finally managed to produce short videos on Windows Live Movie Maker which we uploaded on Prezi. Here are our presentations:

On the 21st March the Italian, the Polish and the Greek eTwinning teams arranged to meet on Twinspace for a chat and an interview on pop music. At 19:00 local time (18:00 for Italy and Poland) about 15 students and their teachers, Ms Lucyna Dlubak and Ms Alessia Marcon, had the opportunity to use English for real communication, to get to know each other better and come closer. The chat lasted for more than an hour and a half, and although it was an "after school activity", and even "exhausting" for some, we all agreed that it was a unique experience. Many students made new Facebook friends and even came back for more the next day! The students who took part were awarded with a special certificate in recognition of their work.

Our first mission in our eTwinning project was to answer the question "What does Music mean to you?". So what did we do? We brainstormed words and concepts that came to our minds hearing the word Music. We put most of these words in our poster. Recently I've heard about Wordle an online application that generates "word clouds" from words you provide. I put all the words we came up with in it and this is the result: The wordclouds are editable (you can change the font, the direction of the words and the colours) and they are printable. They make a cheap and fun way to decorate the classroom and can help students recall and consolidate new vocabulary.

The students of B4 in the Philipeio-1st Gymnasium of Veria are currently working on an eTwinning project titled: Where Words Fail, Music Speaks. We have teamed with Publiczne Gimnazjum Nr5 in Kluczbork, Poland and Scuola Media Statale in Pianiga, Italy. The students have introduced themselves, their schools and their towns using Powerpoint Presentaions. Kluczbork Pianiga