The project evolved as as a result of involvement in previous Comenius projects, influenced by partners attending the Bett ICT Fair and driven by the key priorities from each Schools Development Plan.
The main objectives of the project is ICT focused with the acquisition of digital competences for staff and pupils through learning how to use 6 "content free" iPad App's whilst investigating and learning about the culture, language , community and schools of our partners. A secondary objective will be the learning of a second language as the App's used, activities and methodology employed throughout the project wholly support this.
The project will last 36 months and there will 6 Transnational meetings with a focus on planning, preparation,evaluation and report writing interspersed with 6 joint staff training events. The focus at these events will be the host partner to facilitate the training for the staff required to understand how to use each of the App's. The App's and associated activities that will follow in the host schools are as follows:
(1) iMovie - production of short movie describing each partners school and community
(2) Edmodo - set up and prepare teaching lessons to be uploaded onto Edmodo to help teach partners a second language
(3) Explain Everything - children will use this to produce a multimedia presentation of a "Diary of a School Year"
(4) Number- schools will investigate, collect, interpret, compare, contrast and present a range of universal data available in each partners community
(5) Garage Band - pupils will learn to record, compose and play a variety of traditional tunes and songs using local instruments . There will also be opportunities to collaborate and play together,
(6)Bookcreator- children will learn to produce multi media stories which will encourage learning of second language (eg text in home language and spoken in English.
A record of all activities, reports , etc will be uploaded onto our projects Twinspace platform.
The partners are six European countries some of which have previously worked together on past projects who include N Ireland (UK), Slovenia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Italy and Finland. Their children are aged from 4-14 and in this child centred project they will play a key role from the beginning through to the to the end with them being involved at all stages including planning, upskilling, evaluating and contributing to final report.
The key result will be the up skilling of teachers/pupils in the digital competences investigated. These skills will be a legacy as they are transferable to different contexts and the teachers will use these with future generations of children.
The activities and products complete will be uploaded onto Twinspace and can be viewed by all stakeholders.
In concluding, as a result of this project it is envisaged that the knowledge, skills, competencies and second language acquisition that the staff and children have gained will enable them to feel confident - to study, travel and work throughout our modern ever evolving Europe.