As the title of the project “iPads School Learning for the Future” suggests, it intends to focus on broadening the experience and perspective of the future within classroom with an average age from eleven to fifteen years old. The project itself will be realized among the partner schools from the Czech Republic, Spain, Croatia, Estonia and Portugal. Each of these member schools differs in size and experience and has a different cultural and sociological background. That will additionally give the involved members new angles, from which to look at either the educational process or life in general. There are two main objectives of the project as well as there are two target groups benefiting from its fulfilment. First off, the students will increase their capacity to work collaboratively at international level, and improve their ICT skills. This will be done in two different ways. First of those is the ICT-based methodologies (especially using iPads); which we will permanently integrate into the schools’ curricula. The second part is the actual hands-on experience for students, who will be chosen to travel abroad. During these meetings, teachers will give their own lessons with the use of iPads, they will also observe some lessons given by the host teachers and they will share their experience with other teachers. Students will be hosted by the families of the students where the meeting takes place. They will also attend some workshops where they will work conjointly with other foreign student. Consequently, the students will be asked to give form to the gained information and share it with the rest of the involved community. By doing that, we hope to address the widest possible audience with their results. Secondly, the partner schools and teachers will have an opportunity to get accustomed with the ICT-based method, based on using iPads, try and embrace different approaches towards the method and more importantly, share any kind of experience they have had with it so far. This is how schools unacquainted with ICT-based method will get a chance to grasp its concept and basics, whereas more experienced school will be encouraged to contemplate and share what they have already worked out. The following will be the products of the joint effort on the project: Website – There will be a website created and managed to contain every important piece of information and to make it available to every interested party. Students’ conjoint work – eBook, video, comics, music album. During the project, students will create conjointly a book, a film, a song album and a comic. Video conferencing. The aim of the conferences will be for pupils to discuss and share their life style and knowledge. Each conference will be devoted to a different topic. Conjoint workshops during the meetings. They will work conjointly with other foreign students, together in a presentation (it could be a poster, a film, a short story or a collage), at the end of the week they will present their work. Teachers sharing experience. Teachers will design activities to teach through iPads. Each school will elaborate activities which will be uploaded to the website, tested by the other partner schools who will comment the pros and cons. Erasmus Day – With the project coming to an end, the Erasmus Day will serve as its climax. Its purpose will be to spread the information about the project and thus make the project transparent to other students, teachers, parents and local community. It will display the products of our collective effort. The aim of our project is to form a partnership of European schools to share ideas, practices and methods. This cooperation would help cater to student needs regarding getting ready for their future career and to teacher needs regarding being innovative and cooperative in a global context.
In the 3-year-long duration of the project “iPads School Learning for the Future”, all five enlisted partner schools have contributed and cooperated to achieve all the pre-set goals of the project. The project was realized among the partner schools from the Czech Republic, Spain, Croatia, Estonia, and Portugal. The project mainly focused on students of the age from 11 to 15. The differences among partner schools were noticeable and have also brought a sense of variety into the project, including not only the size and number of students but also various teaching methods as well as the social and financial background of the schools. There were two main objectives of the project as well as there are two target groups benefiting from its fulfillment the most. First off, the students increased their capacity to work collaboratively at the international level and improved their ICT skills and language skills. This was done in two different ways. First of those was the ICT-based methodologies (especially using iPads). The second part was the actual hands-on experience for students, who were chosen to travel abroad. During these meetings, teachers gave their own lessons with the use of iPads, they also observed some lessons given by the host teachers and they shared their experience with other teachers. Students were hosted by the families of the students where the meeting took place. They also attended some workshops where they worked conjointly with other foreign students. Consequently, the students were asked to give form to the gained information and shared it with the rest of the involved community. Due to restrictions, the last project meeting was turned into a virtual meeting, which gave to schools a new experience. Many students and teachers experienced international cooperation in the digital space during the online meetings. Secondly, the partner schools and teachers had an opportunity to get accustomed with the ICT-based method, based on using iPads, tried, and embraced different approaches towards the method, and more importantly, shared their experience. The following are the products of the joint effort on the project: Website – A website on Twinspace was created and managed to contain every important piece of information and to make it available to every interested party. https://twinspace.etwinning.net/68883/pages/page/516291 Students’ conjoint work – During the project, students created conjointly a book, a film, a song album, and a comics. Video conferencing. The aim of the conferences was for pupils to discuss and share their lifestyle and knowledge. Each conference was devoted to a different topic. Conjoint workshops during the meetings. They worked conjointly with other foreign students, together in a presentation), at the end of the week they presented their work. Teachers sharing experience. Teachers designed activities to teach through iPads. Each school elaborated activities that were uploaded to the website, tested by the other partner schools. Erasmus Day – With the project coming to an end, Erasmus Day served as its climax. Its purpose was to spread the information about the project and thus make the project transparent to other students, teachers, parents, and the local community. Unfortunately, not all the schools had the chance to organize it and where they did, the impact was not that great as we had expected. Even after the project was finished, the partners' schools will carry on using iPads and apps within their curricula and hopefully, they will continue taking part in Erasmus projects in the future, with students and teachers getting more and more experienced in organizing and taking part in them. This cooperation would help cater to student needs regarding getting ready for their future career and to teacher needs regarding being innovative and cooperative in a global context.