"Brick by brick, a wall of learning is constructed"

Each classroom, or at least the majority of them, has access to an interactive whiteboard, but because of slow internet speeds, a lot of teachers prefer to bring USB sticks with lesson resources uploaded on them. I'm one of the latter. Each school has access to a language laboratory, but only one the my schools has a modern one. The other school has prehistoric PC workstations for students and a very unreliable internet connection. So as you can see, the technological situation is very daunting, but that doesn't stop me from using smartphones, mine and the students, personal PCs or tablets, which teachers bring very often. It hasn't stopped us from doing many Comenius multilateral projects and nowadays, eTwinning partnerships, which have given us the satisfaction of winning 2 eTwinning quality labels, and last of all, a European quality label!

Below is a photo gallery of one of the Comenius meetings we hosted:

http://learningdesigner.org/

1) What was the added value of using technology for this teaching/learning task? What did it enable me/my students to effectively do?

2) Did I effectively integrate the technology into my lesson plan, linking it clearly to the learning objectives and syllabus?

3) Was the technology used to its full potential, and did I and my students have the sufficient digital skills to benefit from it? If not, why not, and how might I make sure this is the case in the future?

4) Did the technology support learner choice and personalized learning? Did students use the technology to manage their own learning, by choosing the appropriate resources or tools to support their work?

5) Did the way I use the technology allow the learner to be a co-designer of their learning, and not only a consumer but also a producer?

6) Did my use of the technology allow my students to go beyond learning traditional subject-based competences and develop more transversal 21^st century skills such as collaborative problem solving?

7) Did I allow enough time for students to work with the technology, and what could I have done to make the activity run more smoothly?

Please feel free to add any other reflections useful for your own learning and to improve your practice next time.

1) Why and how is self and peer assessment important to me?

For me it's very important because in the last few years I have been involved in various eTwinning projects and this makes you reflect a lot about student goals and outcomes apart from the overall quality of the project. I suppose without it being formalised, there is a lot of peer review among international colleagues which helps you improve your teaching methods and encourage you to use ever so complicated ICT tools!

2) When I have engaged in self and peer assessment about my professional practice in the past, what were the most useful benefits I gained from the processes and outcomes? To answer this question you can reflect on your short self-assessment you did in module 1’s learning activity, and any other self or peer assessment processes you have engaged in.

Italy's education system is very outdated with regards to types of lessons we give to students. There are too many frontal lessons, with very few teachers who use the support of ICT to gain their attention. After 5 or 6 hours sitting in a classroom, I think it impossible for them to keep their ability to interiorise information on any subject...this was the motivating force which led me to reflect on how to interest and keep the students' attention apart from the satisfaction of learning and giving me a professional development which I am now proud of. So now, no more boring frontal lessons where students are just passive audiences...ICT all the way, with an eye to integrating it into the syllabus, and student goal.

3) And what about the aspects I have found most challenging when engaging in self and peer assessment?

It isn't very easy to gauge the learning outcome of the student, and designing a lesson in detail may become awry in the real classroom due to too many things which may go wrong (interruptions; absence of internet connection; rowdy students; absence of electricity!) Self-assessment can become daunting, because not all problems can be blamed on oneself and maybe sometimes I may be too ambitious and don't take into account variables which may give the result of the lesson less than what expected. Peer assessment is nigh impossible in the same school, because there is only 1 type of teacher like me-and in Italy, peer review is a dream. Maybe with encouragement from the Ministry of Eduaction, in future this will be possible if guidelines are created (such as the one in Spain).

4) How often do I take part in self and peer assessment? What stops me from doing this more often (is this due to time constraints, to a lack of knowledge about the benefits or how to go about this effectively, or perhaps a school culture which doesn’t encourage this?) There can be many factors, but identifying what these are will help you think about how you might overcome them to allow yourself the opportunity to benefit more from self and peer assessment.

Self-assessment is a common situation in my classroom practice where I continuously innovate my teaching methods through involvement in eTwinning projects, online courses and exchanges with teachers in Europe (Comenius projects, now Erasmus+, teacher training etc.), but peer assessment isn't a continuous thing, which is missing in Italian schools.

5) Finally, what precise gains do I expect to receive from being involved in self and peer assessment, and how can I ensure I obtain them? And what are my biggest concerns and fears in this regard? How might I find ways to overcome these? Being involved in this course is a good start.

I haven't got any fears about being assessed, because I do my best to keep on top of the ICT world, and if I do get criticised (mainly some parents with well-meaning intentions), I'm not daunted, but my efforts become even more frenetic to reach the maximum quality of teaching practice. Enrolling in online courses such as this one, has been a confirmation that oustside of my country is the best way to put into practice my beliefs.

Self-assessment and peer reviewing offer instruments by which a teacher should be able to continuously improve pedagogical practices and so engage students and maximise lesson learning. Students go from being a passive audience where teacher passes information to students, to students being an active part of the learning process, such as in flipped classrooms.

I don't think there is anything useless about it because after all we are teachers and should be able to relatch the feedback given to our particular field of teaching. There can't be information for everyone, so it is a generalised version of advice given. Of course, sometimes it 's impossible to improve some areas of the survey, because of limitations of schools or countries, but generally I see there is good advice.

What did you find difficult or unclear, and why do you think that is?

Sometimes the decision between a level or another because of overlapping fields, so I think teachers generally choose the level below. Maybe this is good because if we complete every characteristic of that level, we will be improving anyway.

Were you surprised at the levels you reached?

No, I think I am well aware of my general TET proficiency...I don't leave my formation to chance.

Did you find the advice offered useful?

Yes, generally speaking, but as I mentioned earlier, some advice is simply impossible to achieve because of school infrastructures or country culture is lacking.

What will you concretely now do in order to act on this advice to improve your level?

Set yourself a target by when you will implement these steps and retake the survey to see if you have improved your level.

Some results of the Teacher mentor:

• Select two of these learning activities; one which you think required a low level of collaboration from students, and one which you think required a high level of collaboration from students.
• In your Learning Diary, describe each learning activity in no more than 300 words, clearly outlining the aspects related to student collaboration.
• In your Learning Diary, explain why you think each activity requires a low or high level of collaboration from students.

1. Understand what the Europeana Collections are and the benefits of using them in your lessons;
2. Learn how to search the Europeana Collections for relevant content, navigate copyright information and correctly attribute cultural records;
3. Explore Europeana’s curated resources (thematic collections, online exhibitions and galleries) and the possibilities for using them in teaching;
4. Continue to explore the learning scenario.

1. Ways of thinking (creativity, innovation, critical thinking, problem-solving, decision-making and learning to learn)
2. Ways of working (communication, collaboration and teamwork)
3. Tools of working (information literacy and ICT literacy)
4. Living in the world (citizenship, life and career skills and personal and social responsibility)