MID-PROJECT EVALUATION

We have carried out some formative assessment concerning the first stations and students assessed themselves. They have given us a lot of tips to improve and adjust the project that we have taken into account. Most partners are not teaching F2F and we have adjusted the activities to be taught remotely. We know how they feel being at home and not having their lessons at school is becoming tiring. We are sharing the results here, but first we are going to complete this form to note down the results.

SUMMARIES

Koldo Mitxelena

We have been lucky as we have been working at school with some students locked at home from time to time from prevention when there was somebody who had been in contact with a Covid positive case. Therefore, we have also used the hybrid teaching method during these months that we first piloted. We were chosen to mentor other schools to be prepared for the hybrid learning, so we explained how we had used eTwinning to teach from home or in a hybrid situation.

We have carried all the formative assessment activities by assigning individual reflections at the end of each task and completing a class assessment as well through face to face interviews and class talks. We have used the LMS to send the reflections and private comments for feedback. During the lessons, students have shared ideas that the teacher could partake with partners to adjust the project when needed. 

According to their assessments and mid-project report, they liked the live sessions the most because they could build relationships with their partners, understand other cultures and practise English in a real situation. They liked creating the virtual trips after the meetings and learning about other countries. The Flipgrip videos about Current Events also gave them the opportunity to meet asynchronously other partners that they had not met before. They liked to meet them virtually and share opinion even if it wasn't synchronously.

They mentioned they liked the fact that unlike other projects they carry out in other subjects at school, this one lasts the whole year and not just a couple of weeks. They highlighted that there were games and challenges and different topics they enjoyed a lot, for example, the Christmas challenge and Europeana Treasure Hunt. Decoding photographs was one of the tasks they liked a lot as well. Many students liked to reflect about discrimination and the creations of the posters to illustrate their partners ideas, but they said this was more challenging because we were piloting the hybrid teaching method. The games about copyright and fair used helped them a lot to learn things that they had taken from granted, so they felt they were really inspiring to improve their digital skills and that they had learned very important things like Copyright and attributions. They say it has been very useful and they will paymore attention to it. They added that the games about Creative Common licenses was very useful as well. 

They were also asked about the collaboration among other subject teachers: Basque language to create the dictionary and philosophy to discuss about discrimination. Now the Spanish and English teachers are preparing a Treasure Hunt, another trip, but this time to Ireland. We are going to invite all subject teachers to prepare a clue of the game and collaborate together.

11th Junior High School of Ilion Greece

This is a very challenging project for the Greek ICT class for many reasons: students are the youngest in the project, they are an ICT and not an English class and they meet just once a week for 45 mins, and they work in online synchronous classes mode since  5 November (with an 8 days break on early January).

BUT:

Ilion's team had loved the project from the very beginning! The idea was the collaboration in every single step, we had clear guidelines on what to do and many wonderful surprises and resources to use. From the very beginning, the students were very excited to meet online their partners and getting knowing them through their suitcases. They enjoyed being in international teams and the teacher was happy for her motivated students. The project was excellent embedded in the ICT curriculum with the work in forums, with the work on shared-collaborative files, the use of a great variety of ICT tools very well chosen to support the activities, with posters creations, videos creations, photo analysis, photo editing,  presentations, internet safety, media literacy and fake news, scratch projects.... So many activities and tools all absolutely meaningful for the project's activities and for the ICT curriculum. The students have enjoyed very much the bilateral Christmas activity with the Austrian peers -virtual trips to Austria and being hosts for them in Greece- and they would really like to join a live event among classes but because of our school's online classes schedule we had not managed this yet. They have worked on their partner's culture and they have getting knowing them through other activities though. All the activities were very interesting, educative and a pleasure to participate in but what students have really loved to do were the escape rooms and the games. These were the BEST ways to learn without pressure, in a natural way.

The flipgrid videos were also one more challenge for the students as the teacher had asked them to work mostly on adobe spark and give their answers through videos created there and upload those videos on flipgrig. That was because students reported difficulties in accessing the flipgrid account...one barrier for our class is that half of the students mostly use their smartphones to work their tasks, some have no other device and in general, we have tried to be adaptive and flexible.

In a nutshell, Ilion's team is VERY honored and excited to travel with the eTw-TRAIN along with all the excellent classes that participate in this tour.

Thank you!

IES Cantabria

Fortunately, we have been at school since September till March and all the activities have been done during the onsite lessons. Students have participated in all the tasks and have enjoyed all the activities. After each task, students have done the formative assessment activities, in group and individually, and most of them have successfully achieved the goals.

We have embedded the project to our curriculum, specially topics related to multiculturalism, no discrimination, what´s truth, digital citizenship and global citizenship, and we have developed many other competences.

It´s being a very motivating and challenging project for my students and for me, and it´s being great to share good practices and expertise with our partners

Students have loved Decoding Photographs and playing the games about Europeana Treasure Hunt, eSafety and Media Literacy. As there are a wide range of activities in the project, students have had the opportunity to improve many skills and show different talents. They have enjoyed the online sessions with students from Almada and Tábor.

OA a VOŠE Tábor

The students working in the project are newcomers. They started in September, but only six weeks later the school closed and they have been on remote learning since then. With a short exception before Christmas.

They learn to use new online tools, got in touch with their counterparts via a lot of different activities (unpacking suitcases as an introductory aktivity together with Class 1A from Rybnik; decoding a photo, discussing „stories that move“ or recording short messages on Flipgrid). They enjoy live sessions with their partners from Poland, Spain or Portugal.

The project moves them to collaboration with other classes from different parts of Europe and gives them insight into more classrooms and also into topics which are new to them.

KOPERNIK, Poland

There are two English teachers from IV LO in Rybnik working on the project. As for my class, these are the 2nd year students who joined eTwinning last year, collaborating with partners on Demo Party. Thus, eTwinning is not a new thing to them and neither is participating in eTwinning projects, but my students express their opinion saying they enjoy eTwiinning projects in general but consider this project much more enjoyable than the previous one and they can learn a lot of useful things and skills when taking part in it. I am happy our collaboration works so well and the students are willing to do the task as the situation is not easy at all for all of us - since October schools in Poland have been working online.

As for the formative assessment, at the end of each station my students download the formative assessment presentation and each student completes it individually. Then they also download their badges and submit them to TwinSpace as a kind of confirmation we are ready with a given task. They also submit the whole presentations via Google Classroom (working online, because of the pandemic, we have been using this platform for teaching/learning). Thanks to it I can see my students' attitude to the completed tasks. Thus, among the most enjoyable activities there were definitely the following ones: Decoding Photographs, Stories That Move and live sessions. The information devoted to media literacy and fake news was also appreciated a lot.

WIMO Klagenfurt, AUSTRIA

What an amazing project!

After a smooth start in September and October – we had packed our suitcases, recorded some travelling phrases, and created a logo we went into lockdown in November. The Art Station tasks with the Jamboard discussion of the photo of the Afghan girl and the Stories-that-move activities about discrimination and racism were very much appreciated by all the students. They also created some gripping posters. We also took part in the Europeana treasure hunt and the Thanksgiving exercise. Before Christmas, the students were eagerly exchanging traditions with the Croatian class and they also took the Greek partners on a virtual Christmas trip to Klagenfurt.

In January we thoroughly enjoyed the Flipgrid activities. The students were keen to talk about their plans and hopes for 2021 and they especially liked the team flipgrid challenge. In February schools opened again in Austria, but only in shifts. So the group was split in half and each group had one English lesson per week. Nevertheless, we found time to squeeze in the SID tasks and the perfect breakout fake news experience prepared by our Basque friend Idoia.

Thanks to our Czech partner Alena we finally also had a live session with students from Tabor. This was another highlight for many students. It is sad that no other class has had an English lesson at the same time.

Now we have started with the Slow station tasks and the students have already been very busy adding comments about circular economy and stories of their t-shirt or sneakers.

It has been a real pleasure to be part oft he huge eTw-TRAIN expedition! Thank you so much!

Agrupamento de Escolas Anselmo de Andrade, PORTUGAL

It was a golden opportunity to step on the eTw-TRAIN with such fantastic travel partners!
The topics addressed our national curriculum perfectly, and the activities in these first stations turned out to be very motivating for both students and teacher.
Topics such as Multiculturalism, Global Citizenship, Discrimination gained another meaning with the Afghan Girl and Stories That Move. The Live trips to Santander, Gasteiz, Mirano-Venice and Tábor have also raised students' awareness of the multicultural European heritage. They allow students to leave the classroom and broaden their horizons in close contact with their friends.
Students also enjoyed The Treasure Hunt Game and The Flipgrid tasks rated as very challenging and creative. Working in international teams, making friends, earning badges were additional assets mentioned by them. In general, students were enthusiastic, and much effort was put forth in completing the tasks successfully.
This way, they also completed the formative assessment tasks after each station, which allowed them to reflect on their achievements and improve their work.