We are four secondary schools from Sweden, Finland, Portugal and Germany our project is based on two educational fields of our schools, digital competence and individual support. Years 7, 8 and 9 take part in the project and the schools as a whole benefit from the process and the results.We are preparing our students for a global and digital society. Therefore, we work with new media like iPads in our schools and we want to use it effectively. We want to improve our teaching methods and the learning strategies of our pupils by integrating new media and we want to work constantly together with other European schools in our lessons by using new media. Our goal is to improve the digital competence of students and teachers. Therefore, we need to work on transnational level. The transnational exchange of experience, knowledge and information is essential for modern education.Digital competence is not only the ability to use specific tools or applications; this is just one of the several competence areas that need to be developed by users. Other areas are innovation, communication, collaboration, sharing, evaluation and problem solving. In the course of the project the pupils use and evaluate apps. They have to consider what the app is needed for, remembering, understanding, applying or creating, and choose the right app for their task. We compared our curricula and decided on topics we work on. In this way contents like videos explaining learning contents by pupils for pupils and other materials can be exchanged with the partner schools.Individual support is one requirement for self-managed and individual learning, an important issue both at our schools and in the modern society.Therefore, one aspect of the evaluating criteria for the apps is the possibility to initiate self-managed and individual learning with apps.We want to give the best support to all our pupils. The individual support of pupils is the base for self-managed learning. We want to optimize our supporting concepts based on the project work. We want pupils and teachers to compare the existing supporting systems at the partner schools and to develop a plan, how each school can optimize its own concept. Working in a transnational project allows us to compare the school systems of different European countries including their different approaches. Comparative studies on this level can only be done in transnational projects.The learning activities are an important part of the working process. On national level apps are used by classes. A suggestion on how they can be evaluated is set up. In international workgroups at the learning activities, the apps are presented and the evaluation instrument is discussed and decided on. During the learning activities we focus on collaborative methods and pupil presentations. We prepare our pupils for a global economy and society, working in international teams needs cultural competences. These competences can't be developed only by cognitive processes. A change of habits and attitudes is linked to emotional experiences. Another advantage is that staying in a host family enables the pupils to gain experiences concerning numerous cultural aspects. The results of this project are the project website and the brochure "Comparative studies in the collaboration with international partners to improve innovative learning methods". The brochure is published on the website and the apps are evaluated by our evaluation instruments. Visitors of our website can evaluate the apps as well. We want to encourage other schools to use new media and reflect the use of new media.
The participating schools of Portugal, Sweden, Finland and Germany had experiences in international projects before. These were eTwinning and Comenius projects. The coordinators of the schools felt encouraged by the success of the previous avtivities and wanted to start a new project with more schools. The partnership was established as the coordinator teams have started an eTwinning project. Objectives: Soon the coordinators found topics and commonalities for a KA 2 - project. Two educational fields were chosen: digital competence and individual support. All schools want to prepare students for an international and digital society. Therefore the teachers use I-pads in lessons to improve the digital competence of their learners. Not only the ability to use specific tools or applications is in focus of the project. Other ojectives are innovation, collaboration, sharing, evalutaion and problem solving. One task for the pupils was to use and evaluate learning apps. Another task was to present the chosen apps to the other partners and evaluate them together. So the students should gain a broad range of fitting apps for different tasks at school. Due to the globalization of our society and economy the pupils were trained to take part in international projects. Individual support was chosen to optimize the supporting concepts of every school. The exchange about the different concepts in the other European nations was helpful for teachers and pupils. The members compared their concepts and learned to know new ideas for their schools. As already mentioned there were four schools that took part in the project: - Mörike Comprehension school, Backnang Germany. About 600 pupils. Primary school from year 1 to 4 and a secondary school from year 5 to 10. The school offers two school degrees. It has an all-day concept. On Wednesdays the school offers special courses. Pupils have the the posssibility to have a breakfast and lunch at school every day. Nearly 50 percent of the pupils have a migration background. There are special classes for immigrants and refugees. The school has 27 students with special needs, who are part of the regular classes. Diversity is a main topic at the school: special gifted pupils, slow learners and pupils with emotional problems. The school has a focus on new media. Three social workers support teachers to carry out a social curriculum. - Agrupamento de Escolas Carlos Gargaté, Almada, Portugal This school is a basic school for students aged between 6 and 15. In 1996/1997 the school started with a new project: Flexible management of national curriculum. The aim of the project was assure all pupils to learn in a more meaningful way, become more independent and develop all skills they are supposed to have at the end of their school career. The school's policy has been based on internal reflection and self-evaluation. The Portugese school is an innovative school. The teachers are ITC skilled. The school started the Byod strategy. I-Pads are used in lessons. - Turengin yhteiskoulo Janakkalan kunta, Turenki, Finland The school is a secondary school of 30 teachers and 380 students aged 13 to 16. The teachers offer a lot of optionals courses and school clubs.The school has a digital track, in which pupils are learning without paper books. The school is also home to a unique learning environment - lowering the noise by different measures. The staff is trained to use I-Pads and different platforms for digital education. - Stora Sätrskola, Gävle, Sweden It's a secondary school with 35 teachers and about 350 students, aged 12 to 16. It's a public school with 70 % of students, that have an immigrant background. There is one language preparation class and there are two classes for students with special needs. The school offers I-Pads to all students in grade 7 and computers for all students grade 8 and 9. The school offers lunch for free to all students. The school has a social worker and a nurse. The main activities were: - Using learning apps, evaluate them and prepare a presentation of the results for the other schools. - Stay in contact with each other using the twinspace, websites, mails, ... - Meetings for pupils and the coordinators in every participating country. - Visit the schools, taking part in lessons, present and use the learning apps. Evaluate the apps. - Discuss the indiviual support of the four schools and compare the different concepts. - Visit historical and important places and learn about the different cultures. - Living in host families and learn about the daily life of people in other countries. Results and impacts: - The students improved their digital competence. - They became more self-confident and developed key compentences. - The schools got new ideas to optimize their individual support. - Intercultural education Longer-term benefits: - cultural awareness - living the European idea - international friendships