EUROPEAN SCHOOLNET TEACHERS' NEWSLETTER #54
November 4, 2001
Stuttur útdráttur
á íslensku er hér.
Harpa Hreinsdóttir |
eSCHOOLNET
Practice and Innovation
Resources and Spider
Activities and Resource Creation
Collaboration and People
Training and Learning
NewsESCHOLA
Launching of eSchola 2002EXPLORA
The new Contest for PupilsCALLS FOR COLLABORATION
Netd@ys Kultur
Netd@ys Australia 2001
Repairing Friendships
Guide for Tourists Contest, Virtual School
Artists, Arts and Culture
« Courir La Francophonie »
Il Mondo di Fantasia - 3D Educational Magazine
World Schools Discussion GroupEUROSCOPE
European Schoolnet Conferences and Events Page
A lot is happening on the European Schoolnet front!
Our website was getting too complicated and users had difficulties finding their way around it. So the web team, lead by Santi Scimeca, our Sicilian Internet manager, worked all summer on this issue. We have now launched a new portal especially designed for teachers. Each person responsible for one area will introduce you to the content of this new web site in this very special newsletter.Now, teachers of Europe and beyond, if you are looking for international resources, examples, training or collaboration, this is the page to bookmark:
http://www.eschoolnet.orgBefore I get on with the news I would like to congratulate a colleague from Israel: Edna. She is one of the winners of the Israel Ford Foundation Awards for her “Children Teaching Seniors” programme. She has organised sessions where primary school children teach ICT skills to senior citizens. She is now trying to set up a youth radio station project with children from Israel and Palestine. She has great difficulties as we can imagine. If you can help her with ideas for funding, contact her, she is doing wonders in a very hard social and political context.
Edna Aphek, edna@telhi.co.ilAll the best to you all :-)
Brigitte
brigitte.parry@eun.org
_________________ eSCHOOLNET ___________________
www.eschoolnet.org The Bookmark of European Teachers
_________________________________________________Absolutely all areas are open to your contributions, feel free to contact the people responsible for eSchoolnet and share!
………………………………………………………………………
Anna Maria Fichera (speaks Italian, German and English)
annamaria.fichera@eun.orgIn this area we desire to spy what really happens in schools when they use ICT in education, but also in administration, management, for communicating with parents and with communities and so on!
Often we find recommendations about exchange of “best practices” in many fields aiming to innovate and especially to innovate thanks use of ICT.
What has already happened is presented as a model. But in the application of ICT, practices are more than just a model. Communication tools and media are invented not only by scientists, but also by users and innovative uses illustrate what is possible to accomplish through ICT in the close future. Practices help to imagine which achievements schools can reach, which tools are more useful, which have to be improved, which supports schools still need, how to use or how not to use ICT educational resources.
Our tour through “practices” is organized as a tour in a great library;
First you meet the catalogues’ room, the database of best practices promoted by many national educational authorities or agencies. This is the “good practices area”.
Then you have access to the shelves for taking in hand books and leafing through them. Here we let school directly tell their own practices in “Every day life at school”. Please contribute with your own experience, present your school and its ICT achievement!
Finally you go the “textual criticism” room, where you can read what experts say on the books you liked and you can get a deeper insight in them. This is the sub-area “ICT spotlight”, we present issues on ICT in education and we discuss with researchers their results.
Only in the first room you will find the expression ”best practice”, it is used in the national database. We have tried to find unambiguous evaluation criteria, till now we haven’t succeeded! Maybe can you help us?http://www.eschoolnet.org
_________________________________________________Magnus Saemundsson (speaks English, Icelandic and Swedish)
magnus@eun.orgat eSchoolnet.org you will notice that the top bar is made by close-ups of famous paintings, sculptures, photographs, drawings.
Do you recognise them? Sometimes it is obvious even without being an expert you can spot the artist who created the featured masterpiece . Sometimes you really need help.
Just click on the picture and you and your class of pupils if you are in a teaching session will be brought into a web page giving the full-scale photograph and plenty of details about the image.
If you study arts, or history, or photography, you can easily organise “spot the artist” contest.
The educational top bar highlights museums, cultural institutions, exhibitions and more.The top bar will also be a link to educational content. A micrograph of a molecular structure, a satellite photo of the earth, a monument or a famous square are all elements which could be used in educational contexts such as a classroom, or a multimedia lab.
The eSchoolnet portal will always provide a path to find more information about the subject of the top bar, and maybe you can tell us how you use it with your pupils! We would be very happy to feature the best examples of pedagogical use of our top bar on our web site. Just contact Magnus Saemundsson at magnus@eun.org
Link to http://www.eun.org/eun.org2/eun/en/Resources_eschoolnet/sub_area.cfm?sa=760Resources area:
URL: http://www.eun.org/eun.org2/eun/en/Resources_eschoolnet/entry_page.cfm?id_area=77In the resources area you find resources for teaching different school subjects, as well as cross-curricular and thematic topics. You find the material in mainly three different sections:
First of all you find all the teaching resources in the EUN database organised by subjects. Most of these resources have a European or international dimension and are multilingual. These resources come from two different sources. Some of it is material produced or selected by the teachers in the Virtual School, myEUROPE and the other EUN teacher networks. Other resources have been selected by and recommended by the national educational portals.
URL: http://www.eun.org/eun.org2/eun/en/Resources_eschoolnet/sub_area.cfm?sa=582Secondly, by using the EUN spider, you can search through more than 120 000 items, learning modules, articles etc. from all over Europe. The Spider searches through selected link collections created by the different national educational portals.
URL: http://www.eun.org/eun.org2/eun/en/Resources_eschoolnet/sub_area.cfm?sa=790
To know more what a Spider is go to http://www.eun.org/eun.org2/eun/en/_News_search_news/content.cfm?oid=9096&id_area=109&lang=en&ov=9096Last but not least you find very interesting and personal collections of resources in the Favourites section. They have been selected by experienced teachers, teacher trainers and researchers. You can also read about those who have selected their favourites and about their contributions to education and ICT developments. There is a new ‘Favourite’ every week.
URL: http://www.eun.org/eun.org2/eun/en/Resources_eschoolnet/sub_area.cfm?sa=651__________________________________________________
Activities and Resource Creation
Petru Dumitru (speaks English, Romaniain and French)
Petru.dumitru@eun.orgThis section provides short-term activities using easy ICT tools to be used as such or integrated to a broader framework around a specific topic. This is a simple way to bring the use of new technology to daily work in school according with your pedagogical environment.
This is a collection of activities running on the European Schoolnet portal's sites while ‘International Activities’ is a short list of activities run by different educational institutions and teachers from different parts of the world:
http://www.eun.org/eun.org2/eun/en/Resources_eschoolnet/sub_area.cfm?sa=711myEUROPE is closely linked to the eSchoolnet activities area, here are some examples of what myEurope offers at the moment:
Celebrate the diversity of European languages!
The main message of the European Year of Languages is a simple one: 'Learning languages opens doors, and everyone can do it!' There are competitions, festivals, conferences, publications, open days, TV and radio broadcasts, exhibitions, webcasts, language buses, language streets, language ‘tasters’, theatre and concerts. Check our resources, upcoming events, related EUN articles and schools’ feedbacks:
http://www.eun.org/eun.org2/eun/en/myeurope/content.cfm?lang=en&ov=9312Inside Schools
An activity aimed to showcase the myEUROPE schools community. As visitor you can have a quick view on the wealth of cultures, languages, and countries represented in our project:
http://www.eun.org/eun.org2/eun/en/myeurope/content.cfm?lang=en&ov=8138myEUROPE Staff Room
A special meeting place for the myEUROPE teachers. They share teaching ideas, articles and not only. See who is in the Staff Room:
http://www.eun.org/eun.org2/eun/en/myeurope/content.cfm?lang=en&ov=8319Be a Euro superstar
A competition organised by the European Central Bank. Every winner will receive a brand-new set of euro banknotes on 31 December 2001 at a press event. Hurry up, the competition ends on 15 November! Read more:
http://www.eun.org/eun.org2/eun/en/myeurope/content.cfm?lang=en&ov=9314Holding Hands is growing
A meeting place for already 463 European children! Participating teachers and pupils explain how they started to enjoy this activity in classroom. Have a look:
http://www.eun.org/eun.org2/eun/en/myeurope/content.cfm?lang=en&ov=6465Soon: mySchool of Tomorrow
Be prepared to build your school of tomorrow! Dream and let your pupils share their vision of what schools will be like in the future. This activity will soon be online! Check this link for more details:
http://www.eun.org/eun.org2/eun/en/myeurope/content.cfm?lang=en&ov=8289Soon: Clean up Europe
Children assisted by their teachers evaluate the environmental situation of their city and compose an official letter to their authorities. The letter should be constructive and propose solutions. There will be a lot to learn from this activity. Keep your eye on the myEurope front page to see the announcement:
http://myeurope.eun.org__________________________________________________
Collaboration and People
Brigitte Parry (speaks English and French)
Brigitte.parry@eun.orgThe eSchoolnet Collaboration Area is an online hub composed of tools,services, colleagues and project opportunities for teachers. They are aimed at those who wish to integrate ICT (information and communications technology) and international aspects into their daily work. This is the place for those who wish to tackle collaboration at the classroom-to-classroom level as at a school level.
http://www.eun.org/eun.org2/eun/en/Collaboration_eschoolnet/entry_page.cfm?id_area=76Community tools
http://www.eun.org/eun.org2/eun/en/Collaboration_eschoolnet/sub_area.cfm?sa=578
Meeting, sharing and discussing with other people makes the Internet come alive. Our community environment gives anyone the chance do just that in a quick and simple way. You can meet others, chat, share files in an online archive, publish web pages without knowledge of HTML and more.Contact colleagues
See where the other teachers are and contact them, you are not alone!
http://www.eun.org/eun.org2/eun/en/Collaboration_eschoolnet/sub_area.cfm?sa=579
HERE, I personally call for help: I am trying to build a core group of collaboration “experts” who would kindly agree to help others set up projects. I already have a Scottish teacher(culture), a French teacher (maths and science), a Greek teacher (special needs). If you wish to join in, contact Brigitte.Funding and prizes
How can you get money for trips and work?
http://www.eun.org/eun.org2/eun/en/Collaboration_eschoolnet/sub_area.cfm?sa=581Open projects
Join in open European projects
http://www.eun.org/eun.org2/eun/en/Collaboration_eschoolnet/sub_area.cfm?sa=577Open up to the world
Collaborate with people from all continents
http://www.eun.org/eun.org2/eun/en/Collaboration_eschoolnet/sub_area.cfm?sa=735Partners
Find the right people to work with
http://www.eun.org/eun.org2/eun/en/Collaboration_eschoolnet/sub_area.cfm?sa=576Paths to Collaboration
If you have never set up a collaborative project using the Internet, let us show you the way. It is up to you to choose the right paths for your pupils, the main thing is to build and learn with other schools around the world. There are three main steps, follow them and have fun
http://www.eun.org/eun.org2/eun/en/Collaboration_eschoolnet/sub_area.cfm?sa=575
__________________________________________________
Anne Gilleran (speaks English and French)
Anne.gilleran@eun.orgVisit the training area. You will find information on a variety of courses, online and otherwise. For example, find out about European funded courses at
http://www.eun.org/eun.org2/eun/en/Training_eschoolnet/sub_area.cfm?sa=741Or read about our selected online courses with a European flavour at
http://www.eun.org/eun.org2/eun/en/Training_eschoolnet/sub_area.cfm?sa=742
Why not join our Paddy Bates in our workshop area to learn about building a webpage at
http://www.eun.org/eun.org2/eun/community/entry_community.cfm?area=103
SMC, the School Managers Center is also run by Anne, so…
Why not encourage your School Principal to register as a European Principal online and join this rapidly growing community of School Principals with a vision for the future. Register now at:
http://smc.eun.org
__________________________________________________Alexa Joyce (speaks English and French)
Alexa.joyce@eun.orgAlexa deals with all the news items and general newsletter issued by the European Schoolnet. Contact her at any time for the promotion of your initiatives and projects. She is at the core of a huge news network and a real information professional.
___________________ ESCHOLA _____________________
Learn Together
_________________________________________________Take part in eSchola 2002! It’s an online festival of eLearning taking place from 8 April to 9 May 2002 at http://eschola.eun.org. Thousands of schools come together to share experiences, collaborate, get inspired, celebrate Europe and learn together!
In eSchola 2002 you get the chance to showcase your achievements and get new perspectives. Show us around your school and your part of Europe - collaborate with teachers and pupils from the whole continent and beyond. Try some of the newest eLearning tools and celebrate Europe with the community of eSchola schools!
Enter the eLearning Awards 2002. They are aimed at schools and educational institutions using information and communication technologies (ICT) in an innovative way. There are four categories of eLearning Awards:
· eSchool Awards
· eTeacher Awards
· myEUROPE Awards
· eTeacher Training AwardsThe winners receive great prizes and the chance to meet abroad! Find out more at: http://eschola.eun.org
Take this opportunity to join the community of teachers sharing and learning together cross borders. Subscribe to the eSchola newsletter at http://eschola.eun.org/subscribe and pre-register your school at http://eschola.eun.org/register
Learn together in eSchola 2002!
___________________ EXPLORA _______ _____________
European Competition for Young People
_________________________________________________Join the eXplora Challenge! It’s a team-based contest for pupils in secondary school education at http://explora.eun.org. Please note that the "eXplora" web site will be up at the end of November
after the launching of the event during the Salon de l'Education in Paris.· Form a team of 3-6 pupils to explore a topic of your own choice: curricular, cross-curricular or extra-curricular. Present your project using a high quality, innovative website or other forms of online multimedia.
· The teams with the best projects will receive cash or other prizes and will be invited to take part in the eXplora Youth University camp in autumn 2002.
· In the eXplora Challenge you get the chance to collaborate in international teams via the Internet using powerful tools.The eXplora Challenge gives you, as a pupil or teacher, and others interested in international collaboration a chance to work together online. It is an excellent opportunity for cross-curriculum projects and assignments. It will be exciting and rewarding for all eXplorers and gives you the chance to build and enlarge your international network.
Get to know more on the eXplora website http://explora.eun.org. You can find international partners, discuss topics to eXplore and learn about how to take part in the eXplora Challenge.
Let’s go eXploring!
___________CALLS FOR COLLABORATION_______________
Create Together
____________________________________________________Netd@ys Europe was launched in 1997 and is an initiative of the European Commission. It raises awareness in the educational and cultural communities of the potential value of using new online technologies as teaching and learning resources.
Individuals or organisations with interests in education, culture and the new technologies can apply to participate as a Netd@ys "labelled" project. They are provided with a Netd@ys label and are promoted on the Netd@ys website. Labels clearly associate projects with the Netd@ys initiative and they can therefore help to raise the profiles of the projects. This year, "Youth" is the Netd@ys target group and project theme categories are Youth on the Net, Citizenship and European Cultural Diversity. Applications to become a labelled project can be registered on the Netd@ys website, <www.netdays2001.org>. The website also provides a wealth of other information. It has became very popular and last year it received nearly 10 million hits.All of the Netd@ys projects participate to some extent in the Netd@ys week when a whole range of activities take place. For example, throughout Europe there are demonstrations on how best to use the Internet, international link-ups and competitions. This year, the Netd@ys week will take place between 19 and 25 November. The Netd@ys Europe launch will take place at the Chapelle des Brigittines in Brussels and everybody is welcome to attend. Details will soon be included on the Netd@ys website.
Netd@ys Europe has grown in popularity since its launch. In 2000, over 150,000 organisations participated and more than 130 countries were involved. Netd@ys has helped the participants to make contacts with others from all over the world, exchanging ideas and sharing experiences. So, come on, why not participate in Netd@ys! Have a look at the website at http://www.netdays2001.org or send an eMail to netdays@cec.eu.int
____________________________________________________
Netd@ys Australia 2001
2001 is the Year of the Volunteer. This provides an ideal opportunity for schools to be involved in developing values
and skills related to active citizenship. Netd@ys Australia 2001 involves schools planning, acting and sharing ways
they assist those in need. Students explore ways they can contribute to collective decision making, effect change in local, national and global communities.
The project starts on the 22nd October and concludes on the 25th November 2001. Register at http://netdays.edna.edu.au/2001 .
____________________________________________________This project aims at sharing and getting to know how people in different countries make peace with their friends after a conflict
Pupils are invited to write in English about a friendly relationship which was precious to you until it was broken by a quarrel. Please write a story about what caused the quarrel , your feelings about the broken relationship and the steps you took to repair the friendship. Create a word picture so others can learn from your example how to repair friendships.Contact for this very relevant project:
Natasha Cherednichenko
julia@host.kr.ua____________________________________________________
Guide for Tourists Contest, Virtual School
The French department of the EUN Virtual School is launching a new competition, in French of course and for learners of French as a foreign language.
In collaboration with Canal Rêve, the online channel for the promotion of French as a foreign language (http://babelnet.sbg.ac.at/canalreve), Christian Ollivier, responsible for the French VS department (http://www.en.eun.org/vs/french/french.html) invites you and your pupils to collaborate and build a guide for tourists in French. You may have a chance to win very nice prizes too!
Go to:
http://babelnet.sbg.ac.at/canalreve/event6
And take part..hurry the deadline is at the end of the month!
____________________________________________________In this project, pupils are asked to present artists from their own country and become familiar with other European artists. Pupils should also create art work inspired by well-known artists. These art works could become a transportable art exhibition between the school partners in the project.
English is the vehicle languageContact: Grete Jensen
grete.jensen@sola.kommune.no____________________________________________________
Create masks, write texts, and help build a garden in a school in Senegal!
The time line is November 12 to March 15 and the vehicle language is French. The participants age group is 10 to 16. Teachers of French, arts, history, geography, sciences, citizenship and Ict are invited by our Canadian friends to take part in this new “race for French”!
All the contributions will be display in a huge online exhibition of the masks created by the pupils.A great initiative!
Register before November 9 at
http://www.courirlafrancophonie.org
____________________________________________________
Il Mondo di Fantasia - 3D Educational Magazine
This bilingual magazine's mission is to provide a forum for reporting on people, events, technology, and issues involved in the use and study of 3D Active Worlds and Virtual Reality in Education.
The vision is to help, in a modest way, to explore and enrich the research and practice of educational projects based on 3D Worlds. The potentialities of educational experiences on virtual environments can lead the way towards a new approach to learning, based on multiple intelligences, constructivism, active and collaborative learning.
Add your stories and experiences to what we publish here and we hope to receive the contribution of new ideas, knowledge and experiences from the vast community of educators that have at heart the development of new forms of learning.
http://web.tiscali.it/3dfantasia/index.htm____________________________________________________
World Schools Discussion Group
This group is intended for all schools that want to find friends from other schools, change thoughts, make visits or have projects in common.The World School Discussion
There are currently over 2500 schools from 39 countries and visitors from over 100 countries.__________________EUROSCOPE______________________
Do Not Miss Anything or Anybody!
____________________________________________________European Schoolnet Conferences and Events Page
We offer you a list of key upcoming conferences in the area of Education and Technology in Europe which is updated weekly. Events are listed chronologically.
Bookmark this page to know what is going on!****************** THE EUROPEAN SCHOOLNET TEACHER'S NEWS******************
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