Schools: Przedszkole PubL. Nr 5, Poland; Dun Guzepp Zerafa, Fgura Primary A school, Malta; Escuela Infantil Gloria Fuertes, Spain;
Cauldeen Primary School, UK; Křesťanská mateřská škola Horažďovice, Czech Republic; Mateřská škola, Czech Republic Teachers: Ewa Kurzak (Poland); Marianne Schembri, (Malta);
Maria Piedad Avello (Spain); George Glass (United Kingdom);
Alena Průchová, Jitka Řeháková (Czech Republic) Age of pupils: 5-6
Duration: 2 years or more
Themes: Cross-curriculum, Informatics/ICT, Mathematics and Science Language: Czech, English, Polish
Tools: Email, audio and video conferencing, forum, MP3, PowerPoint, video, pictures and drawings, web publishing URL: http://webnews.textalk.com/en/view.php?id=8842/
Description
In “Little Explorers”, children supervised by teachers perform a series of unusual activities such as research games and experiments. Children and teachers analyse the results of the activities and describe, exchange and publish them on the project’s website.
Interview: Ewa Kurzak and Miriam Schembri
The “Little Explorers” project is interconnected with the kindergarten curriculum.
All the tasks are integrated into our kindergartens’ yearly work schedules and comprehensive subject matter in all age groups. The project team consists of six kindergartens from Poland, Spain, Malta, Scotland and two in the Czech Republic.
Recently a kindergarten from Romania also joined our team. Each participant of the project can modify tasks so that it can be applied to their kindergarten. All participants of the project work really hard and at the same time have a lot of fun.
It is a little European net of schools and projects for children. That is why our website is called "Net of Children projects". Ewa Kurzak The project is divided into several subprojects. The aim of dividing the project is to test several methods of cooperating online. By using a puzzle method, partners accomplish chosen tasks to form the subproject “Little Explorers of Big Space”.
The partners also accomplish the same tasks, in ways they themselves choose, in the subprojects “Human – a part of nature/Climate” and “Digital Puzzles”.
Although these subprojects have the same aim, they provide a great variety of pedagogical solutions such as chosen material, organisation and working methods
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The main participants of the project are the youngest children (3-7 year-old) and their teachers. The earliest experiences of children are most certainly the ones that will develop their communication skills in a foreign language and allow them to learn about new technologies. What is more interesting is that they also learn using the computer, a digital camera, a printer and finding multimedia files on a desktop and in folders. Children know that the folder called ‘CHILDREN’ which can be found in their ‘Favourites’ is theirs and that they can use it to surf the Internet and the websites addressing them. They are aware that the Internet helps people but can also be dangerous so they get to know how to handle it. On the project’s site, apart from the planned tasks, one can also find information about every country’s national holidays and celebrations so that everyone – children, teachers and parents – can get acquainted with the culture and traditions of the partnership which consists of kindergartens from the southern, northern, western and central parts of Europe. All the activities are strongly supported by parents who observe the development of the project on the Internet. Ewa Kurzak The project has made playing and learning more attractive for children. Providing a wider audience for curricular activities outside the classroom had a very positive effect on the children’s day to day motivation. I made use of the examples of good pedagogical practices of the teachers from partner kindergartens, e.g., classroom arrangements, making presentations, films, exchanging information on
software and the use of ICT. Miriam Schembri
Yes! I have been connected with eTwinning since its launch and working on the projects convinced me that the use of ICT in the education of the youngest children is possible and more and more necessary. Besides that, it also develops the skills of both children and teachers. By accomplishing common projects, eTwinning joins all the educational systems of the European Union and promotes equal educational
opportunities for all children. Ewa Kurzak
I do not like giving advice; however, I can draw some conclusions: it’s a good idea to gain experience by working on a short-term project at the beginning; the accomplishment of the eTwinning projects is very satisfactory when all partners work on the project with equal involvement and also exchange and publish all the materials; the wish to be understood motivates pupils to learn the language of the project; the most important supportive element for teachers is the acceptance of the project by the children’s parents and the head teacher of the kindergarten; and, another important element is a promotional campaign in the media, distribution of leaflets, posters and, moreover, publishing the outcomes of
the project on the Internet. Ewa Kurzak
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LE.DI.L.E.O
Schools: Kindergarten of Kaparelli, Greece
Jardim de Infancia de Porto de Mós, Portugal Lavassaare Lasteaed-algkool, Estonia
Teachers: Anna Karidi Pirounaki (Greece) Maria José Silva (Portugal) Maris Loo (Estonia)
Age of pupils: 5-6
Duration: 1 school year Themes: Cross-curriculum
Language: English
Tools: Email, audio and video conferencing, chat, forum, MP3, PowerPoint, video, pictures and drawings, web publishing URL: http://jiportodemos.ccems.pt/ledileo/home1.htm Description
Children have the opportunity to learn from each other in a cross-curricular way.
ICT is used to search for information and to share and spread the achieved knowledge on various topics. After all, acquiring knowledge must be fun and also done in a creative way in order for the pupils to be initiated into the procedure.
Interview: Maria José Silva and Anna Karidi Pirounaki
Firstly, the teachers made an annual activity plan, which outlined the pupils’
activities.
This was modified with new ideas that came up while developing this project.
We believe that ICT is an important tool for cross-curriculum work. For that reason, we tried to work in a way so that whole school could benefit from this, offering a spontaneous, interactive and fun way of learning from each other, as our project title says.
The interesting cooperative work we developed in a creative way, gave the opportunity to children aged 5-6 to realise not only the potentialities of ICT, but also what the European Dimension really is.
Our pupils realised from the very first day of our contact (through photos and video conferencing) the similarities and differences between our two cultures.
When pupils of 6 years-old ask why Murillo came from Africa to Portugal or why so many Albanians live in Greece, we can easily develop many discussions about these issues.
They also have the opportunity to gradually inquire, understand and accept diversity as natural.
We both had an interesting and challenging reason to work further beyond our daily class, with more flexibility and creativity, aiming to promote
in the classroom the desire to learn from partner friends.
We are more experienced in the use of ICT in our classroom, exploring the pupils’ and teachers’ limits in a creative way.
Try to enjoy the whole running of the project: it’s good to be smiling in the classroom!