Visibility of eTwinning Projects Group Newsletter no. 5 - July 2015 | Page 35
Visibility of eTwinning Projects Group July 2015 Newsletter
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------them a chance to express their creativity, the
feeling of success and learning through fun.
Integrating eTwinning projects into classes of IT
In Croatian schools IT is an optional subject in
grades 5 to 8 (pupils aged 11 to 14, two classes a
week). IT also exists as an extracurricular activity
which can be held in grades 1 to 8 (pupils aged 6 to
14, one or two classes per week). Taking into
account that eTwinning projects are based on
information and communications technology, they
are easily integrated into classes of IT. Also, the
work on these projects offers plenty of ideas for
integrating IT as a school subject with other school
subjects. In the projects presented in this paper we
managed to integrate IT mostly with English but
also Art and Biology. Furthermore, activities on
eTwinning projects provide an excellent chance to
leave the IT lab and connect the syllabus of IT to
different activities organized on the school level and
in collaboration with the local community, e.g.
marking important dates, eco-actions and similar
occasions.
Integrating eTwinning projects into optional classes
and the extracurricular activity of IT
The integration of eTwinning projects into optional
classes of IT was carried out as a part of units The
Basics of Drawing, Multimedia, Creating
Presentations, Internet, Solving problems and
programming, as well as a part of project tasks. In
grade 5 students were introduced to eTwinning
through creating drawings in MS Paint on different
project themes and greeting cards for eTwinning
partners. In grade 6 project activities were carried
out within the units Internet, Multimedia and
Creating Presentations. In grades 7 and 8
eTwinning projects were integrated into the
syllabus of IT as a part of the unit Internet and
project tasks which were planned to enable
students expand and correlate their IT skills and
introduce them to Web 2.0 tools. Workshop classes
where one of the students had the assignment to
demonstrate and explain the use of a Web 2.0 tool
of his choice were very interesting for other
students.
Our eTwinning project ˝E-waste - What Can
Citizens Do?“ drew attention to the
comprehensiveness of the social, ecological and
economic aspect of e-waste, the global challenge
and the fact it has been an underestimated
problem. The aims of the project were sharing
information on e-waste, explaining and approac