Raul Santiago said that “ the disconnection between the social reality and the educative world is revealed more and more, which does not go unnoticed for most teachers. The change must be done by people.” With this project we aim at raising awareness and encouraging teachers about the necessity of re connecting with the social reality, starting with the use of computer studies in the classroom and the integration of the new methodological tendencies such as gamification and flipped-classroom. Our project is very easy to describe: pupils will create Webquests about their towns with multidisciplinar challenges which will have to be solved by the students of the other schools during the programmed exchanges. The challenges of the Webquest will be shown in vouchers which will include QR codes with additional information and translations and/or recordings. The main goal of the gamification is to motivate and influence the users so that they reach goals and acquire habits, encouraging the player/student to participate, share and interact with different activities individually or with the community. At this stage, we had to look for other schools who would like to join our adventure. Fortunately, this has been the easiest task thanks to the long history of Comenius projects of IES Sierra de Gádor. The school has links with other European schools that have developed into friendships. Also, we have created new links through e-Twinning. This is the way in which we established contact with Giovanna Cannavaro, a Spanish teacher at I.C Vitaliano Brancati. Mrs. Cannavaro has vast experience in e-Twinning projects and who has been awarded with the European Quality label. Our associate in England is Graham School, a school in which we had two Comenius projects focusing on performing arts and geography. The contact with the German school, Gesamteschule Battenberg, was established through the headmistress of Ortenbergschule in Frankenberg (an old Comenius partner). Thanks to the services offered by social networking sites such as Skype and Whatsapp, we agreed on our objectives and the tasks to fulfill them: * To develop awareness in our students of the importantance of their origin and culture * To improve linguistic competences and to promote a plurilingual society * To promote intercultural societies and collaborative work between students and teachers both at school and outside school * To drive the development of key abilities using Etwinning and TIC tools In order to implement these objectives we will carry out the following activities: A1:Project Logo Contest in e-Twinning. A2: Individual and group presentations in e-Twinning. A3: Video presentation of each town in e-Twinning. A4: Multilingual Pictionary in e-Twinning. A5: Guide of local sport activities in e-Twinning A6: Compilation of a list of typical products with their certificate of origin attached to them, a register of accommodation and restaurants available in each town. A7: Hiking trails and compilation of sports activites with the idea of promoting Geotourism. A8: Photography contest. A9: Webquest de cada localidad To disseminate our work and to make it useful for others, our Webquest will be used by our own students in different subjects. The fact that all materials will be ellaborated by fellow students and teachers will be an incentive for students to use it. Our work will also be published and offered to anybody interested in finding about our towns from a different perspective and to research tourist information. We will also approach local groups related to education, the arts, charities, non-governamental groups, sport teams, or other community projects to use our website to showcase their work. We will publish our Webquests in the Twinspace (public site of e-Twinning) but we will search for the support of the local autorities to spread it more widely through the local tourist offices, official tourists websites, local libraries, public places and exhibition events. Finally, we wish to twin our towns to ensure the sustainability of the Project after its conclusion. Twinning is an official and funded project by the European Union that will deepen our friendships, make public the beauty of our communities through tourism and cultural exchanges as well as develop the exchange of experiences at economical, political and social levels.
Project context / antecedents This is an ambitious project between four schools, of which only two (the Spanish and the British) had previously worked together in Euopean projects. The initial contact with the German organisation was obtained through the Spanish sub-coordinator, who had previously worked with another German school in the area, and the Italian contact was obtained through eTwinning. After several years of contact, it was agreed to carry out a project related to new technologies and their didactic application in the classroom, being the theme of gamification and the flipped classroom the central axes thereof. Goals: 1. Promote the European dimension of our institutions. 2. Promote a methodological renewal through ICT-mediated collaborative learning using the eTwinning platform and introduce new practices such as Gamification and the inverted class (flipped classroom). 3. Improve linguistic competence and the promotion of multilingualism. 4. Promote interculturality. 5. Raise awareness among students of the importance of their origins and their culture. 6. Motivate students about the importance of their physical and natural environments establishing synergies with other educative fields such as sport and ecology. 7. Promote the development of basic/key competencies. 8. Widen the students' horizons and their aspirations. 9. Contact agents outside the school (Town Halls, various types of organizations, etc.) to improve teaching and learning based on real experiences. Number and profile of participants: In total, 16 students and 4 teachers directly participated in the exchanges, and more than 100 students and 23 teachers actively participated in the organization and carrying out of the activities. Likewise, some 15 families have been actively involved in organizing reception activities during the stay of the students of the partner institutions in Spain. Description of activities carried out: Many activities have been carried out throughout the project. The eTwinning platform has been the place to host activities. The page was designed according to the initial planning of the project, the following activities being carried out. A1: Logo contest. A2: Individual / group presentations in eTwinning. A3: Video presentation of each location. A4: Multilingual Pictionary. A5: Traditional sports workshop. A6: Collection of restaurants / products d.o./ and visits to establishments. A7: Geo-tourism workshops. A8: Workshop and photography contest. A9: Webquest of each locality. Results and impact achieved: Among the results, we can highlight is the internationalization of the schools and the creation of a strong association that aims to continue its journey in the future, opening the doors to new schools that enrich our alliance. It has managed to work collaboratively within each school, creating useful and usable products in the future. The surveys that the participants in the project have filled out unequivocally show the positive impact it has had on their lives, showing very high satisfaction and availability to participate in future projects. In our institution, a freely available subject has been created for 1 ESO which will be called “gamified English”, in which many of the applications that have been used in the project will be used. In addition, there have been several activities related to it: an interdisciplinary contest organized by the bilingual team using the ‘Quizzes’ application; A Challenge on the Olympics has also been carried out using QR codes and videos; Finally, a play by high school students was adapted so that the public could participate actively using ‘Mentimeter’. QR codes are used in projects carried out by students, which demonstrates the impact that our project has achieved. Longer-term benefits: Our partnership started 10 years ago between the Spanish and British schools. When we started with an eTwinning project and after organizing 2 bilateral Comenius projects, none of the professors who started the journey could imagine that, eventually, we would carry out this project with two more schools. The experience has been so positive in all aspects that there is no doubt that the long-term benefit is the sustainability of a reliable partnership; with professionals involved, families willing to host and send their children to meet new cultures and with students who will be given a unique experience and that will change their perception of Europe and relations with the countries around us.