"Saving Our Planet," a new E-Twinning projet for 2007-8

We're just beginning a new multi-site project encouraging student interaction and communication around the theme "Saving Our Planet", loosely modelled on the project "Our Way to Save the Planet" that's been on the E-Twinning website for the last three years.

What I'd like to set up is a project based in participating schools in at least four different countries. I've already got a tentative agreement from Justina Tracichleb-Lichosik in Kielce, Poland, and I'm exploring links with schools in Ireland, Andorra and perhaps even Morocco. Ideally, I'd like to get several other European countries on board, but that will depend a lot on answers to my emails.

I teach English in the Lycée Pierre et Marie Curie in Châteauroux, France, near Orleans and Tours. My students are mostly aged 16-18, and several of my other colleagues teaching English, Spanish, Italian and German are also interested in participating. I also have two colleagues in "collège" (lower secondary level) with students aged 13-15 who would like to join the project and who would like correspondents at that age group.

My students have already done classroom projects on saving endangered species and on questions of immigration that I thought might be good starting points for exchange with other classes in this project. Here is a list of some other topics I'd like to explore:

Topics: pollution, renewable energy and recycling, overpopulation, famine, natural disasters and international cooperation.

I'm exploring new communication tools, but one of the easiest to use is the Viva Virtual Village, and you'll find other messages in this blog about how to participate.

I envisage the communication and exchange to work like this: Students communicate in a common target language, English, and also in their native language, or an alternate target language, with each message. For example, a student in France would write in both English and French, a student in Poland in both English and Polish, while a student in Ireland might write in both English and in a second language they are studying, such as German or French.

I'm very open to other ideas about communication tools, and would like to explore possibilities for visio-conferencing, and perhaps in future more ambitious projects like Comenius and Socrates so that participating teachers and students can actually travel and meet each other.

For the time being we're just in a discussion and brainstorming phase, but my students are ready to start writing about some of these topics on Viva. I'm going to jump right in with colleagues in Poland and in other schools here in France, and hope to get our partnerships registered at the E-Twinning site as soon as possible.

Please contact me if you're interested or have other ideas to share. Although I've got many of my own ideas, I'd really like to work together with partners to develop a project we can all take a part in shaping.

Cheers, --- Phil at philipbenz@yahoo.fr