PEDAGOGICAL ISSUES AND
THE NEW TWINSPACE
THEODORA GKENIOU etwinning ambassador-Greece
MARIA NICA etwinning ambassador-Italy
Presentation outline
1. Brief introduction 2. Old Twinspace – New
Twinspace 3. Prospects and challenges
of the new Twinspace 4. Practical considerations
QL criteria
1. Pedagogical Innovation: To develop a project which can be judged as innovative, the first step is to choose an original theme. It is also necessary to use different pedagogical methods and make sure that the pupils take the lead and work collaboratively using different techniques.
2. Curricular Integration 3. Communication and exchange between partner
schools 4. Collaboration between partner schools: 5. Use of technology 6. Results, impact and documentation
What is innovation?
Pedagogy first
project-based pedagogies
authentic learning
game based learning
collaboration, Team work., communication, Problem solving
WHAT KIND OF CITIZENS DO WE WANT TO EDUCATE?
TEACHER BULLETIN
ONLY VISIBLE TO TEACHER MEMBERS
A SPACE FOR COMMUNICATION. HOW ABOUT COLLABORATION?
BULLETIN: A BRIEF UPDATE
WE CAN POST&DELETE MESSAGES and EMBED HTML CODE
MOVED TO THE FRONT PAGE-HOME
WE CAN
ADD A NEW FORUM
OR A NEW THREAD (A SUBCATEGORY OF THE FORUM)
ARCHIVE A FORUM (HIDE IT)
REPLY-QUOTE-DELETE
EDIT (CHANGE THE NAME OR DESCRIPTION)
ADD PHOTOS, TABLES, VIDEOS, FILES
EMBED WEB TOOLS
PROJECT ACTIVITIES & HOW TO
MANAGE THEM
WE ADDED THE APPLICATIONS BY DRAGGING THEM ON THE ACTIVITY SPACE
PREVIOUS TS APPLICATIONS
• BLOG
• FORUM (basic form) COMMUNICATION
• WIKI
• WEB CONTENT
• BLOG
COLLABORATION
• FILE ARCHIVE
• IMAGE GALLERY
• WEB CONTENT
CONTENT MANAGEMENT
MATERIALS NOW
HOME
SEPARATE SECTION IMAGES-FILES-VIDEOS
COLOURFUL, USER FRIENDLY
LAYOUT
NOT JUST STORAGE!!!!!
A COMPARATIVE TABLE
PREVIOUS TWINSPACE NEW TWINSPACE
1. HOME (SEPARATE SECTION) 1. HOME (SEPARATE SECTION)
2. PROJECT ACTIVITIES (SEPARATE SECTION)
2. PAGES (SEPARATE SECTION)
3. CHAT(SEPARATE SECTION) 3.CHAT (SEPARATE SECTION)
4. PUPILS (SEPARATE SECTION) 4.FORUMS (SEPARATE SECTION)
5. BLOG (SEPARATE SECTION) 5. PROJECT JOURNAL (HOME)
6. TEACHERS (SEPARATE SECTION)
6. TEACHER BULLETIN (HOME)
7. MEMBERS (HOME)
7. MEMBERS (SEPARATE SECTION)
8. FILE ARCHIVE & IMAGE GALLERY (CONTENT MANAGEMENT APPLICATIONS)
8. MATERIALS (SEPARATE SECTION)
Some remarks
PREVIOUS TWINSPACE NEW TWINSPACE
•Structured form
•Visible tools inside the twinspace
Loose structure;
Invisible tools which are available outside the eTwinning portal
•Collaboration & communication •Collaboration & COMMUNICATION
•Internal applications for communication and collaboration
•More easily customizable
•Open to embedding new tools
• internal applications (files/images/forums)
•Separate sections (materials) (forums)
•Not so appealing •User friendly interface
What are we doing now??
1. No wiki
2. No file archive
3. No image gallery
4. No web content
5. No forum
6. No blog
NO APPLICATIONS!!! Now what?
?
EDITOR TOOLBAR
EMBED WEB TOOLS/INSTEAD
OF WEB CONTENT APPLICATION
EMBED MATERIALS AT
THE EXACT SPOT WHERE
YOU WISH
INSERT EXTERNAL
LINKS
HTML CODE
SO IN THE NEW TS:
1. Page = wiki
2. File archive and image gallery = materials
3. Web content = html mode button
4. The new forum=old blog
Advantages
Place the materials and forums at the exact place where you want
Disadvantages
You have to present them in an organized manner.
Common problems
Pages randomly created (if at all..)
Everything stored in the project journal or just stocked on the materials section
Pages without clear structure
No descriptions of activities
No interaction among students-inactive forums
No project planning
● Personalize your twinspace to make it friendlier
● Create your logo to build a sense
of community among the participants
● Don’t forget: the twinspace is
both a space for collaborative work and the place where you can display your work to a wider audience.
So...it has to be clearly organised and
customized according to your preferences
Make it yours! It’s your workplace!!
2. Fostering communication
Teacher’s bulletin
Project journal
Twinmail
Profile wall
Forums
Members
Chat
Q; When do I use the teacher bulletin and when the project journal? A: The bulletin addresses teachers. Use it to
● decide about the practicalities of the project (who does what, when, how etc)
● provide assistance and encouragement to your partners
● socialise, get to know them a bit better
● share ideas, knowledge, practices. Educate each other!
● Remember the old TS “teacher room”? It has been replaced by the teacher bulletin.
● Obviously it is suitable mainly for communication.
● For collaboration you had better open a private page
The project journal is a journal:
● we record the process of the project
● we mark milestones, that is important points along the project timeline
● we can add photos, collages, videos etc
● Remember the old TS “blog”? It serves the same purposes
Communication is the most important ingredient in the etwinning recipe!
The new Twinspace was designed to make it easier. Take advantage of all the above mentioned features and communicate with your partners. Don’t forget to update the project journal which is public so that the world knows your work Encourage your students to update their profiles, post messages to get to know each other and use the forums to exchange ideas. Organise chats to ensure participation. Discuss-discuss-discuss with your partners, through the teacher bulletin and the twinmail before you actually do something
The twinspace is to be used to
plan and organise your work in clear modules. It is the space where all project members will
● become a community with the same goal to achieve
● be informed about the processes to follow
● negotiate and work ● display their work ● evaluate and comment it
So each of the tools provided should be used for these purposes!! The twinspace is NOT a storage space. It is a living organism and it has a Cycle of Life
ONE single page
Everything stored on the project journal!!!
The project design in 6 simple steps ??
Much communication on the Bulletin; No collaboration on TS
Partners working in PARALLEL
HOME
The home is the first impression one gets when s/he enters the twinspace, the “Cover” of the project. So what is important?
1. The pages should be well arranged
2. Photos and videos should be of good quality
3. The project journal should help us keep track of the project
4. The teachers should be involved and communicate effectively (although the teacher bulletin is not visible to students)
Don’t The pages cannot be created randomly, without having decided earlier what the stages and activities of the project are going to be. Do PLAN-PLAN-PLAN this is the only key to success and a tip You can archive pages if you don’t want them to be visible and mess up the appearance of the twinspace. However.. It’s better to be safe than sorry
Pages
PAGES & HOW TO MANAGE
THEM
CREATE-EDIT-ARCHIVE (NOT DELETE)
ADD SUBPAGES
VISIBILITY
AUTHORSHIP
REVISIONS
A BLANK PAGE!!!
Q: How do we organise the pages? A: 1:1 rule Each page corresponds to one activity (Not to one country) Q: How can I group different pages under one topic? A: Use the sub-pages option, listing each subpage under the parent page. There is thus thematic unity. In this way the individual activities across the project are centered around some themes.
We are talking about the Twinspace but in reality we are talking about
PEDAGOGY
Q: Do we want to duplicate the traditional teaching paradigm in etwinning projects? A: No, we want to students to learn actively, to construct new ideas and hypotheses, to use existing knowledge, to go beyond it, to discover, select and transform information. We also want them to take advantage of the potential that group work can offer and the social interaction with peers and teachers from other sociocultural environments. Also we want to cater for the individual needs of our classes. Q: So how do we achieve these learning objectives?
learn actively and construct new ideas and hypotheses creatively
the teacher creates the appropriate environment on the pages, using extra web tools if needed, to design activities that promote active learning in a meaningful context, eg learning scenarios The instructions, process and final product should be clear.
use existing knowledge & go beyond it, discovering, selecting and transforming information
the materials can be the place where the new productions are carefully organised and displayed
socialcultural interaction
we create and use forums, chat, twinmail, wall messages
learning suited to individual needs
a rich variety of activities can be created on the pages to cater for the needs and interests of the students involved
Finally, let’s keep in mind that
● etwinning project = a project
● project members = a learning
community
● founder = a leader and
manager
● the twinspace = a learning
management system
● pages = tasks or activities which
make up the learning scenario
● materials = supporting or
original productions of the
project members
● web tools = tools
Q: Why use the HTML code? A: To embed web 2.0 tools so as to improve the quality of your project Q: Can I have an example? A: Sure..why not create and embed at the appropriate place in the page a collage or slideshow (eg photopeach, kizoa) with photos you collected on a certain topic (eg Your hometown presentation) instead of just creating a folder in the Materials and stocking them there?
Can you come up with your own examples about how a web tool can improve the appearance the organisation the collaboration the communication the evaluation of your project?
Q: and what happens when I try to use the embed code but my creation doesn’t appear when I switch back? A: In this case, there are 3 alternatives depending of the given embed code.
1. When the given code type is <iframe … it’s just a copy and paste procedure
2. When the given code is something different of <iframe... then must be changed by someone who knows what to do
3. When no embed code is offered for the tool, it must be created from scratch
(Tip by Petros Mihailidis)
SOME TUTORIALS
VOKIS
http://www.slideshare.net/socratisvasiopoulos/use-voki-in-your-twinspace
INVITE PUPILS
http://www.slideshare.net/teacherinresidence/invite-pupils-to-the-twinspace?related=2
WHAT PUPILS CAN DO
http://www.slideshare.net/pitm/the-new-twinspace-41887342?related=3
SMILEBOX
http://www.slideshare.net/pitm/how-to-embed-smilebox-into-twinspace?related=1
ANSWERGARDEN
http://www.slideshare.net/pitm/how-to-embed-an-answer-garden-in-a-twinspace-page?related=2
FORUMS
http://www.slideshare.net/pitm/forum-in-a-page
Materials can and should be displayed on the pages, at the particular point where they are needed.
● The folders are not supposed to act as warehouses.
● The folders should be well
organised.
● The forders should correspond to the pages and be easily traced.
● Materials’ folders should not
be created randomly, without having planned it first!!
ALL PROJECT ACTIVITIES IN ONE NATIONAL FILE
Don’t forget
● display your materials following the e-safety and netiquette rules
● ask for the parents’ permissions and let them know the work which is being done.
● If you use YouTube, you can make the video UNLISTED so that it is not publicly visible https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaSM_xcmkOI&t=46
(tip by Maria Georgiadou)
And the crucial point is coming up: “Who does what?”
● If you make your pupils administrators, they can take initiative but they can create confusion since they are allowed to create pages, edit and delete.
● Why not assign them some roles and decide who are ready to take responsibility?
● Visitors can also edit the page..so even teachers from non etwinning countries, or policy makers, administrative staff and parents could contribute.
● All teachers (administrators or not) can edit too.
So here comes again:
DECIDE-PLAN-ORGANISE before you ACT
Q: Why Forums?Do really need to have them? A: Forums are most important. They are the GLUE of the project. The MEETING POINT of the students. How can you tell they actually got involved without having expressed themselves on the topics discussed and the activities implemented? TIP Create a forum per activity and encourage the students to contribute. (it’s an excellent writing task too) You can copy and paste the LINK of the forum on the corresponding page OR EMBED IT so that it is easily accessible OR You can use the same name as the one of the corresponding activity/page
FORUMS
As a teacher, you are the leader and the decision maker in the project. The project members need your guidance and support So
● decide who to invite ● decide which roles to assign ● be flexible-change roles if
necessary ● be on the alert-contact the
members when needed ● always be ready to remind the
students of their passwords..they tend to forget!