The early school leaving is a reality, nowadays, because children lack more and more the motivation to enter into the lessons. Based on this fact, it seems necessary to encourage pupils to become active in their own learning and develop more professional practices. This Erasmus project follows on from a project eTwinning, which started at the beginning of this school year in 2017, between Czech and French schools. This connection was greeted enthusiastically by the pupils, parents and the local communities. The interactive games created by the children themselves, owing to their attractive and educational aspects, gave them a desire to learn and get involved in the activity. From these observations, we wanted to take this initiative further using the interactive games as a motivational source of learning. Our project, entitled “Europe is playing, Europe is learning”, focuses on research and the exchange of ideas to integrate the ITC , PE and the interactive games in different guises for their lessons in order to help the pupils rediscover a motivation and pleasure in learning, which is the key to combat educational disinterest. Each partner school, Zakladni skola, Most, Okruzni 1235, Prispevkova Organizace (République Tchèque), Ysgol y Ddwylan (Wales), A.E. Sygxrona Ekpaideftiria Trikalon Athina (Gréce), Rosengårdskolen (Denmark) and l’école de Turenne (France) will bring their expertise in proposing specific subjects to spark the pupil’s motivation. The Czech schools run a project of integrating ITC in its classes, working especially with a virtual reality office. The Welsh school will share its experience of “Pupil Voice” and “Speakr” for the well being of the pupil and an agreeable learning atmosphere. The Danish school, has already fully integrated ITC in its teaching methods and it has a committed and inclusive school project to improve the treatment and tuition of its pupils with special needs. The French school will show its everyday use of educational games workshops. The Greek secondary school, which will further reinforce the interrelation of this project and its commitment, will be proposing innovative situations in the fields of art and sports in this context. During the entire two years of the project, through authentic exchanges (likewise a motivational source), the pupils will be able to create and share the interactive games (puzzles, quizzes and games with sound). They will all learn and develop a sense of European citizenship. We will utilize the platform eTwinning to stay in regular contact, between the participating teachers, in steering the project and sharing key documents. We will publish the steps, productions and activities of the project. A six-monthly newsletter will be compiled and made available to the school partners of each country in order to share the activities which will have taken place in the classes. Each school will put an internet site in place, in their own language, to communicate on the project, and a link to TwinSpace will be given so that all interested parties can have access to the work of the project. The learning activities and training in the partner’s countries will be scheduled so that each school can discover and share different educational methods, and energize instruction in order to propose new ways of learning which will motivate the pupils. There will be a time for observation in class (to actually put in place motivational learning opportunities) and some workshops on the key elements of the project. In our TwinSpace, there will be a link to the padlet (a collaborative wall) which will pool together all the motivational situations tested in our classes: everyone can look in this suggestion box, for themselves, to experiment with these innovative practices in their classrooms. The objective is to develop tools to tackle early school leaving and to make them easily accessible to everyone. At the end of this Erasmus project, the collaboration with our partners and our new contacts could continue throughout eTwinning. These exchanges will improve and sustain our views and practices. This could be a starting point for a new partnership concerning the same problem of failure at school (or, dwindling interest) but in apprehending it in a different way, through exploring new ways of working.
Nowadays, more and more children drop out of their education because they lack motivation. From this statement, it seams to be necessary to encourage pupils to become actors of their learning process and to make professional practices evolve. This Erasmus + project follows a etwinning project started in 2017 between a Czech School and a french school. This first experience , through their attractive and playful aspects, has stimulated pupils, parents an local communities’ interest. Interactive games, created by children themselves favoured their eagerness to learn and to get involved in activities. Due to observations, we have wished to exploit and go further into this work line : the game as a source of motivation to learn. Our project entilted « Europe is playing, Europe is learning »is based on research and the exchange of ideas to integrate into lessons : Computer science , physical training and the game with its different shapes are a way to help the pupils recover their motivation and the pleasure of learning ( keys to the fight against dropping out.). Each partner , Zakladni skola, Most, Okruzni 1235, prispevkova organizace (Czech school) , Ysgol Y Ddwylan (Wales), A.E. Sygxrona Ekpaideftiria Trikalon Athina (Greece), Rosengårdskolen (Denmark) and the Turenne school (France) brings its experience through specific project liable to motivate pupils. The Czech school leads a project integrating computer science in their classes by working in particular with virtual ralaity structure. They give the pupils the opportunity of robotic workshop everyweek. The welsh school shares its experience of « pupil voice »ans « speakr » towards the well-being of pupils and social climate propicious to learning. The Danish school which largely integrates TIC in their teaching methods has started an inclusive school project to improve the welcome and the supervising of pupils in difficulty and with special needs. The french school shares his daily teaching practices around didactic games workshop. The Greek secondary school allows to reinforce their inter-grade link of the project and its involvement into Art and Sport to suggest innovating situations in the field. Through of the two years of the project, through the authentic exchanges ( source of motivation) the pupils have used Computer Science to create and share interactive games ( quizz, sounding games…). They learn from each other and they develop a feeling of European citizenhip. We used th E-twinning platform to remain regurlarly in touch with teachers for the leading of the project and the share of key documents. We published the steps , the productions and the activities of the project. Each school has also set up a website in its mother tongue to communicate about the project and a link of the twinspace given to all the people interested in learning ,access of the work of the project. Learning and training activities have been planned so as to allow each partner to discover, share other pedagogical methods ans make teaching more lively : Observations in class, a workshop have taken place. In our twinspace , collaborative tool has been set to mutualise : those observed during the mobilities and those built by each school for all partners on different themes. Thus, we worked around multiple intelligences, coding and Maths, the skills of the 21st century and board games in the service of our learning. These activities will be made available to all teachers through the department’s educational site. The objective is to build tools against school dropout and make them accessible to all. At the end of this project, we will have improved our points of views our practices. This can be the starting point of a new partnership on the same problematic of school dropping out . by tackling it differently , exploring new lines of work.