Saving our planet

We are Justyna and Agnieszka from Poland and we have been participating in the project "Saving our planet". We and our students have been communicating with the students in Châteauroux, France and and we had an opportunity to exchange ideas and opinions about such vital global issues such as endangered species, pollution, recycling and oil spills. Our students could learn that their peers from France have the same opinions about how important it is to save our planet and they had a chance to realize that the discussed problems are not only local but , first and foremost, they concern all the citizens in the world. Finally, the project made them ponder what actions they could take to make the world a better place for future generations.

Evaluating an E-Twinning project and planning for the next step.

Bonjour,

Well, Agnieska and Justyna and their students in Kielcach, Poland have been communicating with my students in Châteauroux, France since November 2007. We've had a few rough spots coordinating our writing efforts, but all in all it's been a very positive collaboration, and one that we're hoping to expand for next year.

We've been using Viva, the Virtual Village, for our exchanges between students. Viva has been live for nearly ten years now, and although it's a very simple, low-bandwidth forum-based interface, it's still a great tool for encouraging students to write to each other in their target language. You can see most of this year's student writing and exchange in the "Forum Europa" and "Science Lab" forums.

Our general topic has been "Saving Our Planet", as explained in an earlier blog entry. Our students have exchanged or written on topics like endangered species, pollution, recycling and oil spills.

Now, with the current school year winding to a close, I'm looking for new partners in other countries to add to our project. I've already gotten favorable responses from Ana in Romania and Marina in Italy, and am waiting on a few others. If we can get students at five or six different sites all communicating on the same topics, I think we'll see a very favorable group dynamic developing.

More soon, --- Phil

Projetice at the EduCorsica conference

Projetice, the teachers' association that promotes educational uses of ICT, was present at the Salon EduCorsica, the first regional educational conference in Corsica, the 29th and 30th of April 2008 with several activities:
- At the Projetice stand, demonstrations of EdTech projects, teaching projects and resources available to Projetice members.
- In workshops, with classes of primary and middle school students.

Amongst the many resources and services that Projetice provides, you can find:
- Project mentoring
- Training in EdTech methods
- EdTech equipment loans
- Advice for setting up projects (international projects, EdTech equipment and so on)
- Access to online resources like INA, Edu.maxicours.fr and EduMedia.

For those who were present at the EduCorsica conference, you saw the HP "chariot mobile" at the Arrobox stand, two of our industrial partners. We have two HP "chariots mobiles" that we loan to a school for one, two or three months for specific projects with students. On the Projetice website, you will find an example of one of these projects, as well as a short video featuring elementary students at work at the Simine Thoulouze elementary school in Carry-le-Rouet (Bouches-du-Rhône).


At the stand, I presented (amongst other things) the e-twinning project "Saving Our Planet" between the Lycee Pierre et Marie Curie in Chateauroux (France) and the Lyceum Ogólnoksztacce, in Kielcach in Poland. We use the Viva village to communicate on different environmental topics, and in class I use the EWB (Electronic Whiteboard) e-Beam from Speechi that allows me to write directly on webpages, powerpoint presentations or on other sorts of documents, and to have students come to the board to write, or to distribute copies of our lessons, for example.