In the last years teachers have noticed changing in the learning process of young people: they show certain insicurities and difficulties in attention and concentration;motivation is often low,;technologies speed the world; societies are more and more complicated the migration flows make the social enviroment multicultural, multilingual and mutireligious.Considering this background Educational Intitutions have the responsabilities to respond to new educational needs and transform them in educational goals. To face the new educational challenges teachers need to widen their Professional profiles. Partners in this project: Italy, France, Hungary, Greece and Poland having been partners in previous European projects decided to collaborate to develop more creative and innovative teaching methodologies in order to achieve the following objectives: to promote foreign language learning to increase the use of Information and Communication Technologies to help children to express themselves and their ideas to develop critical thinking to combat discrimanation and bullying to experience enterpreneurship by being manager of own creations to create innovative, exciting and motivating learning opportunities to evolve and evaluate methods of teaching to share and improve teaching skills to create a shools network for the exchange of good practices to prevent early school leaving The project will propose an intelligent, critical, creative and technical use of images to achieve through curriculum subjects those competences connected to current most requested professional profiles like: webdesigner, blogger, photographer, videomaker, reporter. The project aim to create a thread which will tie school activities to jobs market from very young age. The project is particurlarly inclusive as focusing the activities on the use of images overtakes difficulties of languages, is effective and universal and it will reduce disparities in learning outcomes. The cooperation among partners will strengthen the European dimension in schools. The partners to increase their teaching competences and strengthen thei professioal profiles before project applied together to a KA1 training program held by an organizational establishment entitled"Creativity in teaching and training & how to use music, art, ICT and outdoor activities in education". Partners are cunducting an e-Twinning project "Discovering life through images" - http://twinspace.etwinning.net/30362/home in order to practice cooperation and get familiar with the use of the platform. Pupils are participating actively to the project and are getting familiar with the e-Twinning platform. Since firts approaches cooperation among partners foreruns promisingly.
Considering the changing of young people learning process, their difficulties in attention and concentration, low motivation, diversity in the classrooms which grow more and more multicultural, the partners, who had previously collaborated in other project either Comenius or e-Twinning, exchanging experiences and also comparing the results of national system for self evaluation, noticed that they shared the same educational needs: - fight passivity towards learning and knowledge - improve European citizenship - recognize the value of other cultures - promote inclusion - enable success for all students - improve students skills and competences - enhance teachers professional development The project: "ACcelerating Creativity: Exploring and Practising Tools in Image editiNG", acronym "ACCEPTING" was the response to their shared educational needs and the opportunity to evolve the Educational needs into educational goals. The project was based on young people natural abilities to communicate through images especially photos and videos. The project promoted a more student-centred learning approach by exploting this point of strength of youth as the starting point for an educational path that led them to explore, experience and acquire some jobs techniques. The project also hightened creativity in educational process proposing an interdisciplinary approach to learning, as students were asked to research new and more original uses of images to communicate on different subjects. The images were created, manipulated by using ICT tools, they had to asses the viability of their work, show their outcomes to teachers and other students and other audiences. The project, explored the language of images, in which young people are very sensitive and that with its immediacy exceeds the limits of language, diversity and disability, promoting more inclusive methodologies, and enhancing participation and learning performace of disadvantaged learners, reducing disparities in learning outcomes. Diversity was the basis for gaining experience of this way of communicate. The project achieved the following objectives: - promoted foreign language learning - increased the use of Information and Communication Technologies - helped children to express themselves and their ideas - developed critical thinking -.combated discrimanation and bullying - experienced enterpreneurship by being manager of their own creation - created innovative, exciting and motivating learning opportunities - evolved and evaluated methods of teaching - shared and improved teaching skills - created a schools network for the exchange of good practices - prevented early school leaving The project produced the following project Results: - Project Logo - Photo Exhibition: phots of school enviroments and neighborhoods - Video Tutorial: Halloween Crafts - Newspaper: aticles about recent school events, national sport event, culture, word games - Travel Agency: advertisment of a three days tour in partners countries - Project Website - Project Blog - Journal of Good practices exchange: padlet - e-Twinning project The project was addressed to pupils of primary and secondary schools from 5 to 12 years old. All pupils were involved in the project as diversity is the field where the objectives of the project have been pursed. The project also addressed to teachers: primary school teachers, secondary school teachers and kindergarten teachers.Teachers of different school subjects with competences in ICT, English language, Media Literacy, Photo and Video editing. The project attained impact on: - school communities and local stakeholders which need to widen interest in school activities and be sensitized about educational needs of young people. - families who need to approach growing multiculturalism in our urban areas and widen knowledge about new generation educational needs and school strategies. - teachers who need to strenghten their professional profiles