Closing the gap between family and school –The role of digital technologies
The Professional Development Workshop “Closing the gap between family and school – The role of digital technologies” intended to present software, online tools and applications of digital technologies and to highlight their role in the framework of efforts to achieve effective cooperation between the family and the school. The cases that were presented demonstrate the multifaceted dimension of the issue and are a repository of best practices that can be used by teachers in accordance with the possibilities and the context of the various European systems. Working in teams after each presentation in the laboratories activated and strengthened our skills on both a professional and intercultural level.
The program between Thursday 6/11 and Friday morning 7/11 included plenary sessions, and was structured in four different parallel workshops attended by all four (4) transnational groups in which the participant teachers had been divided. The final activity was designed to involve us in an information recovery process using tools that we had learned in the workshops, from theory to practice, simulating situations that we can plan and execute with our students.
The program of the workshop was the following:
Thursday, November 6th, 2014
After the arrival of the national teams Rita Zurrapa gave a welcoming speech with a presentation of the organizers and participants and a succinct reference to the objectives of the PDW. The performance of three Portuguese students who sang and played music was a pleasant welcoming surprise which made us foresee the fascinating experience that would follow.
Rute Baptista followed with the plenary session “eTwinning: a new way to look at school”. After we talked about the image of schools today, she urged us to focus our attention on specific skills, to change and to help our students develop European skills. Referring to the current reality where technology and the media play an important role, she developed the qualities that should distinguish teachers and citizens of the 21st century in general. She then stressed the fact that eTwinning offers multiple opportunities for teachers to implement a different pedagogical approach by using ICT in the classroom, collaborative learning and intercultural dialogue to create an authentic learning environment. She also highlighted that eTwinning provides a variety of ways and opportunities for professional development. Finally, she presented the three gradations of the eTwinning portal and emphasized the character of the eTwinning community that connects people with common interests and goals.
Friday, November 7th, 2014
The first plenary session was about a particularly very important current issue, internet safety. Martin Schmalzried presented the European project “#DeleteCyberbulling”. It is a program which was carried out by eight partners from 7 countries from February 2013 to July 2014 and which through transnational cooperation aimed to inform students, parents and teachers on the safe use of the internet and combat cyberbullying through many video applications, a questionnaire and a teacher’s manual. Then João Grácio, Director at school in Portugal, with the speech “Connecting school to families through social media” presented an innovative action implemented in schools in order to bring the school closer to the family. The creation of a Facebook page of the school, Escola Secundária Poeta Joaquim Serra, as well as a closed group on Facebook, which was made after discussions with parents and regular face to face meetings, managed to involve the whole family in school activities and broadened the dissemination of the results of the school.
We started with the workshop W2, “Learning Science in Secondary Education using ‘Flipped Learning‘ methodology and tablets”, where João Carlos Sousa and Fernando Franco presented us with an innovative methodological practice in the context of differentiated teaching, application of reverse instruction by using the online tool blendspace. After an introductory reference to the flipped classroom project he implemented in physics with the use of tablets , we were divided into small groups and created a lesson with this application. We were also informed about the implementation of classflow. It was a very interesting workshop which will help us create a digital lesson thanks to attractive educational material we were provided.
After lunch, although the weather was rainy, we participated in an activity organized in the city, “Outdoors activity with mobile devices”. Having a map of the city we went out with our team guided by local students, followed a path, which was different for each group, and visited landmarks of the city, looking for the QR codes kept by students and revealing our mission at every stop. In this imaginative way, “QRcode Hunting”, we had the opportunity to work creatively, practice what we learned in workshop W3 and tour the city. On our return to the hotel, we worked with the data we had collected and created an interactive map thingLink that was presented in the closing ceremony
The professional development workshop ended with the presentation of interactive thingLink posters prepared by all four groups . The Kahoot quizzes prepared by two groups highlighted the joy and satisfaction that all participants shared during all events. The closing ceremony ended with speeches by the mayor of the town, the general secretary of the ministry and the organizing committee and the thankful comments of the members of the national delegations.
I was lucky enough to be with three amazing people, exceptional teachers and distinguished eTwinning Ambassadors; Ms Maria Sourgiadaki, Mr Petros Michailides and Socratis Vasiopoulos.
If you want to have a look at the workship visit here .
It was a unique experience for me and I would like to express my sincere and heartfelt thanks to eTwinning for offering me the opportunity to participate in such a high-level professional development workshop.
