"Smart phones for smarter students" is a European project in which five partners from Austria, Germany, Portugal, Romania and Spain participate. It focuses on the development of the didactic and methodical techniques concerning the use of personal devices such as smart phones at school. Another important issue is the promoting of equality of the genders, in our case the promoting of girls and additionally students from economically disadvantaged social groups. Further important aspects are the improvements of language skills in English. Main objectives are: - Promoting dialogue, respect, participation, knowledge and decision made among countries in the European Union - Greater understanding and responsiveness to social, ethic, linguistic and cultural diversity - Striving for an appropriate, safe and responsible use of technical devices on the internet. - Learning to work together and to share information with other educational institutions - Developing collaborative learning strategies and entrepreneurship among students and teachers - Increasing competence in English as a common language in the European Union - Increasing the level of digital competence Most of the participating schools have experience in the organization of European projects except Romania that is taking part for the first time. What they all have in common is the need to continue developing values represented by the European Union in a multucultural context, paying special attention to the mutual exchange of experience and information on the internet. The Twinspace provided by eTwinning will be essential in order to develop common activities and share the results of our project. Furthermore it is the base of the development of one of our most important results: an app, providing an easier access to Twinspace. This will allow us to use chatrooms, email and forum, as well as providing a collaborative space in which the results made in the development in the project can be made accessible to all the schools involved. The students directly involved in the project are from 14-16 years old. They will take part in the students exchanges, which will help them to understand different cultural values and habits in families and the school they visit. The expected results involve a development in the didactics of ITCs especially under the aspect of the European movement of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device). All the students have their own mobiles and in our project they will learn how to use it in smart, profitable and appropriate ways in their school career. Another important issue concerning BYOD is to provide schools with less financial means with the possiblity to give their students the chance to compete in the field of ICT. The students involved will benefit from the opportunities of using English as a vehicle for communication in realistic settings outside the ordinary classroom. They will be highly motivated due to the chance the project gives them to keep in touch with young people from different countries. As for the teachers, they will have the opportunity of establishing professional networks and charing ideas, experience and know how with teachers from other educational systems. The dissemination of the project results will have a long-lasting impact upon the partners since the educational materials will be open and accesible to other students and teachers.
"Smart phones for smarter students" was a European project in which five partners from Austria, Germany, Portugal, Romania and Spain participated. The project focused on the development of the didactic and methodical techniques concerning the use of personal devices such as smart phones at school. Another important issue was the promotion of gender and social equality. So we paid attention to include students of all genders and additionally we supported students from economically disadvantaged social groups. Further important aspects were the improvements of English language skills. Main objectives were: - Promoting dialogue, respect, participation, knowledge and decisions taken among countries in the European Union - Greater understanding and responsiveness to social, ethic, linguistic and cultural diversity - Striving for an appropriate, safe and responsible use of technical devices on the internet. - Learning to work together and to share information with other educational institutions - Developing collaborative learning strategies and entrepreneurship among students and teachers - Increasing competence in English as a common language in the European Union - Increasing the level of digital competence Most participating schools had been experienced in terms of European projects except Romania that took part for the first time. What all participatig countries had in common was the need to continue developing values represented by the European Union in a multicultural context, paying special attention to the mutual exchange of experience and information on the internet. The platform "Twinspace" provided by e-Twinning was essential in order to develop common activities and share the results of our project. Furthermore it was the base of the development of one of our most important results: a planned app providing easier access to Twinspace. The reason for developing such an app was the wish and necessity to use chatrooms, e-mails and forums, as well as providing a collaborative space in which the results made in the development in the project could be made accessible to all the schools involved. The students directly involved in the project were from 14-16 years old. They took part in the students exchanges, which helped them to understand different cultural values and habits in families and the school they visited. The expected results involved some development in the education of ICT especially under the aspect of the European movement of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device). All the students had their own mobile phones and in our project they learned how to use it in smart, profitable and appropriate ways in their school career. Another important issue concerning BYOD is to provide schools with less financial means with the possiblity to give their students the chance to compete in the field of ICT. The students involved took profit from the opportunities of using English as a vehicle for communication in realistic settings outside the ordinary classroom. They were highly motivated due to the chance the project gave them to keep in touch with young people from different countries. As for the teachers, they had the opportunity of establishing professional networks and sharing ideas, experience and know-how with teachers from other educational systems. The dissemination of the project results had a long-lasting impact upon the partners since the educational materials have been open and accesible to other students and teachers.