(Explee web 2.0 done by a group of pupils in SOFT - School Of Future Time eTwinning project).

Colaborative work and meaningful intercultural language learning is what eTwinning is all about! — at Parents Day @ E.B. 2,3 de Ancede, 2011.

I'm presently coordinating an Erasmus+ @ E.B. 2,3 de Marco de Canaveses on Financial Literacy - KIDS: Keep Invest Donate Spend.

Introducing tablets in classrooms is offering pupils with:

1. creative learning

2. inovation

3. quick access to information

4. motivation

5. communication

2. Effective time to handle research, produce/access content, create a school plan…

3. Financial resources for devices acquisition.

4. Stable and reliable technical support.

5. Wireless connectivity reliability.

6. Rearranging the classrooms environment since they're quite small and organised in an old fashion way.

1. Miriam Tapia- Spain

"I am using Edmodo in my English classes and I strongly recommend this app. It is a very good online platform and it is really easy to work with. Edmodo allows us the opportunity to communicate with our students and with their parents, to assign tasks and to post the marks in a private way. Students can contact us whenever they need to do it. I really like the fact that students can download the app in their mobile phone and they can be informed whenever there is something new posted. My students are quite happy with it too". 

"I have been using Edmodo for 2-3 years and this thanks to the SMILE's project I attended through European Schoolnet some years ago that made me discover this fantastic tool!!!

I think that Edmodo fullfils many needs of a class:

1. it is very appealing as it is a social media very similar from the iconic point of view to Facebook that is so loved by our students.

2. Therefore it connects the informal learning of our students with formal learning i.e. school.

3.It makes them discover that using social media only for posting selfies or for pocking is boring if compared to great ideas sharing, discussions you can have within a learning environment as Edmodo.

4. It is definitively amazing to create and use flipped classrooms therefore to activate an autonomous constructive learning environment both on an individual and group perspectives (depending on the activity the teacher wants to develop).

5. It keeps track of progresses and it helps students to get more and more responsible about their learning thanks to tasks and deadlines.

6. You can award them with badges who always makes them happy.

7. And....IT IS FREE!!!!!!!

8. last but not least: you can create your subject account but you can also create interdisciplinary accounts working together with other teachers, maybe more classes together if you have shared projects to work on. Simply awesome! Real collaborative learning!

Edmodo, for me, is always a good choice".

1.1 Anna Laghihna glimpse of the whole course: http://www.symbaloo.com/mix/eumooccreativeuseoftablet

2. Astride Hulsebosch: http://padlet.com/AstridVE/DIARIOWEEKONE/wish/57252505

2.1 Astride extra work: http://astridmastromauro.wix.com/my-learning-diary2

I have used them in eTwinning projects (collaboration) although we didn’t called them Learning Scenarios. That applies also to the 7phases named. In a recent project I’ve been involved called SOFT – School Of The Future Time we used the following phases:

1.  Project brainstorming with students

2.  Students’ research in cooperative groups several dimensions around the project theme

3.  Students’ research activities involve the making of enquiries and interviews to the local community

4.  Present their cooperative research work using Padlet

5.  Students in both countries express their views on the School Of Future Time, gathering the thoughts and ideas in a joint presentation using Explee.com

1.  Padlet

2.  Voicethread

3.  Issuu

4.  Explee

All content creation was done by means of cooperative work: pupils worked in small groups to research about their national school systems and prepare the questionnaires and interviews to be applied in their local school community. Then, data was analysed and the results expressed again in group work (www.surveymonkey.com/www.issuu.com). 

The collaboration between pupils from both participating countries occurred using Web 2.0 tools: www.padlet.com for students to register their findings regarding their schools’ systems and www.explee.com to express the final results of their project, as far as their views of the School Of Future Time.

While creating their own content, pupils’ learning motivation and enthusiasm, as well as the development of cooperative and social skills stand out in the whole project. They also discovered real, different and meaningful ways to communicate in English and became far more familiar with ICT.

I let Ss organize the groups by themselves (not more than 4 Ss each) bearing in mind they have to

be heterogeneous (most classes are in Portugal) and assure they all work together to accomplish the task (positive interdependence) and are in conditions to have any of them (individual accountability) presenting the work process and final product of the group.

- Set clear goals;

- Set clear topics;

- Set working approaches /strategies/resources;

- Set clear group roles;

- Set clear time limit for the assignments.

Process – ask and provide constant feedback / lead pupils to reflect upon their work process with the teacher and among themselves.

Evaluation/reflection -  What went wrong and what can be improved.

I have been an eTwinner since 2007 and I cannot think of my teaching practice without it, not only for the pupils’ benefits but also for my personal motivation as a teacher and all the informal learning and professional development that takes place. My experience in eTwinning tells me the key factors for a successful school-to-school collaboration are:

1.Involve Students in the planning process - students become aware that school takes into consideration their personal interests which provides deep changings into pupils attitudes towards learning, namely increased motivation and engagement

2.Thorough project description, project plan, project communication, project monitoring, project evaluation

3.Variety of tools/resources

4.Truly committed teachers willing to work over school hours

Long live eTwinning!

To overcome time, too many and overloaded classes I try to differ and use different approaches as often as possible, in class. At the same time I encourage pupils to develop a PIT (Plano Individual de Trabalho – a Plan for Individual Work) that represents 20% of their assessment  and takes a form of a Language English Portfolio that pupils carry out at their own space – schedules are set during the school term for monitoring – along with project work where they can choose and try different tools/resources.

I haven't try online portfolio with my 10 and 11 yrs pupils but that's something I am going to explore, now that I became acquainted with Edmodo in this course.

English Language Porfolios  are a very popular strategy among my 5th & 6th grade students and most of them endeavour great effort in this 20% of individual work.

A step forward is moving from paper to online eportfolios whose assignments could easily be set in Edmodo where both pupils and parents would keep track of their individual work and learning. From a quick research here are some tools to consider looking into further…

1.  -Easy Portfolio

2.  -Open School ePortfolio

3.  - Three Ring

4.  -Kid Blog

Learning autonomy is the nearest concept I can think of for ‘Flipping the Classroom’ a term that I am hearing for the first time…

Overall I find it very interesting and leads to autonomous learning, learning by doing, learning by meaningful experiences… the only problem I oversee regarding the Portuguese school system is the extremely long hours pupils spend at school – 8:30 to 18:30 most of the days meaning that pupils would hardly have time to check on the teachers contents for the next class. I don’t think parents would appreciate it either so before implementing it in Portugal the students timetables would definitely have to be revised.

TIME seems to be the main challenge of the Flipped Classroom…both for pupils and teachers.

You cannot have an approach as such when you spend most of the time at school teaching or going over paperwork and school meetings after school hours with little/no time to research, prepare/record/edit lessons, provide individual feedback… or pupils with full timetables leaving home at 07:00am and returning at 07:00pm. That’s understandable why parents complain about homework …

Flipped Classroom – great concept - has to start from the bottom meaning that necessary changes would have to take place, both physically and in terms of school educational mission/vision if Flipped Classroom was to be successfully implemented in the Portuguese full time school system as we have in public schools at the moment.