Our Project "Speak, sport, click and sing!“ aims to promote open digital education. It provides the foundation for digital literacy. We are four primary schools across Germany, France, Italy and Poland, each differently well positioned in regards to information technology. We would like to support each other in advancing our digital literacy. Our pupils (aged five to twelve) and educators will learn to constructively, critically, and confidently use digital media by using Tablets, PCs, digital cameras, eTwinning, and by maintaining a joint blog. eTwinning will support us on our way to become even more euro-centred and will give us an advantage in media pedagogy. “Maria Konopnicka primary school No.10” is the most experienced school in regards to eTwinning and will thus establish and maintain our blog. Our schools are connected through twinning agreements of their respective city councils. We think that interacting and meeting each other across borders is the most powerful way to promote a European identity. That’s why we are organising student exchanges and short-term courses for our teachers. We already noticed a vast increase in skill with our educators by sharing our experiences and best practice during and after the exchanges which is contributing to the modernisation of the education systems of our schools. Each of the participating schools has disparate strengths and puts emphasis on different educational sectors. We use this fact to exchange our proven practice and educational concepts during the short-term courses. For example, the colleagues at “Instituto comprensio Rosmini” showed us their method of cooperative language acquisition (German/English), which is very effective and amusing at the same time. Teachers of „Hellwegschule Hamm“ showed off their engagement in popular sports, which is their main orientation. “Ecole Pascal Magnol“on the other hand makes use of the skills acquired during the project and is engaging in musical education: vocal training and songs from the participating cultures. They also plan on publishing a quarterly song-project on our blog, which is sung together and incorporated into a musical performed by pupils of all the participating schools during the last two meetups. The organisation takes place on the eTwinning platform exclusively. All schools receive support by local associations, e.g. "Amici del tedesco" from Crotone, "Ecole de musique Neufchateau” and "Hammer Sportverein". Collaboration between schools and organisations enable various new opportunities for support. We communicate and live this practice throughout our exchanges and incorporate it into our transnational cooperation. The resulting products guarantee a high degree of sustainability. Apart from our blogging and eTwinning activities, which are managed in Kalisz, our Italian colleagues are producing a short film about their language acquisition project with support from the local „Amici del Tedesco“ society. The French school is producing a musical including children from all four schools, which will be performed in France and Germany. Pupils from „Hellweg Schule“ will organise a sports festival in cooperation with a local sports club. The partner schools are invited and will capture the event using photographs. We expect all partners to make extensive use of eTwinning and digital media throughout the project and after. This way, they will advance their digital literacy collectively. We hope that the contacts and friendships made through the project will prevail and fortify the European identity in our colleagues and pupils. We think that learning a foreign language, sports and music will play an increasing role in the participating schools and cooperating with societies will be a more common occurrence, which in turn benefits mutual growth. We hope that the project increases the well being and health of our educators and pupils and that the school communities will become more open towards a European lifestyle.
Our Project "Speak, sport, click and sing!“ aimed to promote open digital education. It provided the foundation for digital literacy as a part of open education. We were four primary schools across Germany, France, Italy and Poland, which were differently positioned regarding information technology going into our project. We supported each other in advancing our digital literacy. Our pupils (aged five to twelve) and educators learned to constructively, critically, and confidently used digital media by using tablets, PCs, digital cameras, eTwinning, and by maintaining a joint blog. TwinSpace supported us on our way to become even more euro-centred and gave us an advantage regarding media pedagogics. “Maria Konopnicka primary school No.10” was the most experienced school in regards to TwinSpace and thus established a blog, while supporting their partners maintaining it. We thought that interacting and meeting each other across borders would be the most powerful way to promote a European identity. That’s why we organized a student exchange and joint advanced training for our teachers. Due to the pandemic, the Italian school visited Hamm only. The German school visited Crotone and all trainings for the teachers but only the student exchange to Crotone. We already noticed a vast increase in skills with our educators by sharing our experiences and best practices during and after the exchange, which was boosting modernization at all our schools. Each of the participating schools had disparate strengths and put emphasis on different educational sectors. We used this fact to exchange our proven practice and educational concepts during the short-term courses. For example, the colleagues at “Instituto comprensio Rosmini” showed us their method of cooperative language acquisition (German/English), which was very effective and amusing at the same time. Teachers of „Hellwegschule Hamm“ showed us their engagement in popular sports, which was their main orientation. “Ecole Pascal Magnol“ on the other hand makes used of the skills acquired engaging in musical education with vocal training using songs from the participating cultures. While they were not able to sing because of the coronavirus, they adjusted their project to the conditions and used our blog to show off a video of “FrIPoD-Dance“, in which all four schools danced to the same song in small groups. Additionally, during an exchange in February of 2022 taking place in Neufchateau, a music video of the European and national anthems was created. It included a section of voice training and could be retrieved from the blog anytime. All schools received support by local associations, e.g. "Amici del tedesco" from Crotone, "Ecole de musique Neufchateau” and "Hammer Sportverein". Collaboration between schools and organizations enabled various new opportunities for support. We communicated and practiced these cooperations throughout our exchanges and incorporated it into our transnational exchange. The resulting products and contacts guaranteed a high degree of sustainability. Apart from our blogging and eTwinning activities, which were managed in Kalisz, our Italian colleagues produced a short film about their language acquisition project with supported from the local „Amici del Tedesco“ society. The French school was producing a musical. Pupils from „Hellweg Schule“organized a sports festival in cooperation with a local sports club and produced a video as well as a photo gallery for our blog. At last all partners were able to make extensive use of eTwinning and digital media. This way, they collectively advanced their digital literacy further. We hoped that the contacts and friendships made through the project will prevail and fortify the European identity in our colleagues and pupils. We thought that learning a foreign language, sports and music will play an increasing role in the participating schools and cooperations with clubs and societies will be a more common occurrence, which in turn benefits mutual growth. Retrospectively, the project increased the well-being and health of our educators and pupils and that the school communities will become more open towards a European lifestyle. The four hometowns of the schools are twinned.