EVALUATION

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    RESULTS

    EVALUATION IN PETROUPOLI
     
    Students' "one final word" with micro:bit about our project from Petroupoli's class:
     
     
     
    EVALUATION IN sfax

    I have asked my students to complete the evaluation at Home.

    I have posted the evaluation's link under my facebook group named Twist eTwinning Project.

    TEACHERS' VOICE

     

    @Petroupoli (teacher Athanasia):

    This project's starting point was the opportunity that the Greek school had to get the micro:bit equipment offered by the Hellenic NSS in the frame of STEM promotion in eTwinning schools. In May 2-29, it was announced that our school was chosen to get the equipment for the next school year and the "condition" was the creation of an eTwinning project to use this equipment. At that time there were no details of the exact stuff that the school would get. During the summer, the greek teacher had searched the eTwinning Partners Forum and had contacted a new eTwinner, Tom Demortier, who was looking for a partner to work on weather stations created with microcontrollers. This partners forum was also the source of the other members to be contacted and be invited except of the Tunisian teacher who had worked with the Greek founder in more projects the previous years. 

    So, the group was formed, all teachers were ICT teachers and they had scheduled to embed the project in their curriculum. Moreover, as none of them was well experienced with micro:bit, they had decided to create a community of practice and share ideas and activities that they were working with their students. This project was a very good motive for students to work not only in coding but to find out ways to collaborate in the subject of the project: Weather-climate-climate change, is a hot topic nowadays and through the ICT curriculum we had focused on our students' awareness on this subject. We have motivated them to find out the core concepts and be creative with productions to participate in environmental campaigns on environment al challenges and Climate Change, that were mainly organised in the eTwinning community (eTwinning Spring Campaign and the featured Groups "Creative Classroom"  and "ESL"). Of course, as our students were working in coding in their curriculum, we have adapted our lesson plans to be based on lessons using microcontrollers and especially micro:bit in the greatest possible extend. So, it was absolutely natural, the participation of all the members of the project in Major Coding Events (Europe Code Week, Hour of Code) but also in Events that had to do with STEM (STEM Discovery Week by Scientix) and with Internet Safety (SID 2020). 

    The greek school till mid-February 2020, was using only one micro:bit kit that the teacher had bought by her own and in February she had managed to buy two more micro:bits. All the students had been familiar with the makecode.microbit.org (simulator) platform and they all have used the one circuit, that was available, to download their micro:bit projects and see what the "real" thing was about. Micro:bit in the ICT coding curriculum offered a) the right environment for the students to understand that coding was based on a programming language (the java script interface option had helped much on this) and b) that coding was about commands that were directly executed on the machine. It was absolutely clear then, that Coding was not drawing or presentations (misconceptions of the students when their were using scratch) and it was not an "abstract", exotic issue; the opposite! It could be there in their daily routine(checking the temperature, playing music, using it as a dice to make choices etc).

    The collaborative part with the students of our partner schools, had offered to my students the opportunity to feel more "European", to communicate in a foreign language, to feel members of a team, to feel "modern, innovators" and develop much  their social skills.

    Also, through the project, they have learned to work in collaborative spaces, to use the twinspace tools,  to work in a Forum, to be responsible and do their tasks on time.

    A very happy time for our students was their collaboration online, real time in a LIVE event, to work in the "HOUR of CODE contest", the Christmas carols singing and the presentation of their Christmas Traditions. Our students were also very happy when they had messages on their profiles, from their peers and they were surprised that eTwinning could be a "social network". This project was their very first participation in eTwinning and they were very excited of that.

    On 10 February, 2020 we were informed that the equipment from the Hellenic NSS would arrived at our school. We got the parcel on 22 February and it was a full kit to be used in robotics. And this was a HUGE surprise and challenge for all of us in the project. 

    The partners teachers had a meeting on 18 February to arrange how we could adopt the working process with the final full equipment that our classes had. We had finalized in that meeting the remaining collaborative activities.

    We have used a shared micro:bit project, to use the micro:bit as a DICE (random generator 1-6) and create 6 international group of students. The tasks for each group are described in the dedicated teams' pages. 

    But...COVID19 was laughing at our plans.... Schools had closed in Greece on 11 March. Teacher had used the online platform managed by the Greek Ministry (eclass.sch.gr) to keep on the learning process with her students, and  she had also used WEBEX for synchronous meetings. This procedure had started in the end of March, according to the Greek Ministry's directions. So, till May 18, when the Greek Schools were open again -with students coming in small groups and special terms in participating in the lab-, the activities by the Greek students were in these online synchronous and asynchronous classes. 

    We have participated in all the teams' tasks, but members were not working in the groups as it was designed by the "dice". Rather students had chosen to work on the tasks they preferred and teacher was feeling really good that she had a response from the students, as all the students' work in the online classes was in a volunteer basis. 

    We have met in classes face to face again in 21 May -a few students were back at school-, 28 May, 5 June and 11 June. During these meetings, we have worked on our pending tasks in the project, in the project's dissemination and we had the great pleasure to use the robotic kit and create 3 projects with it.

    The teacher this year and in order to cope with the TWIST -new turn in her curriculum teaching practices- had extensive web-searches, had attended workshops in October, in the frame of ICT conference in Piraeus University (great help for the lesson plans that was offered there and were used in her class), and the series of 2 face to face and 7 online seminars /webinars offered by the Hellenic NSS (in March till end of May).

    So, this project was a REAL learning experience for teacher AND students and we are thankful to our NSS for this!

    I would also like to express my heartful appreciation to my cofounder Tom Demortier that had trusted me and for the patience he had with all the "surprises" i offered him (not in a good way :) ). He had tried to be fully prepared and in October, his school has got micro:bit for all the students in his class, though his initial intention was to use arduino that he already had in abudance. This project was his very first experience of an eTwinning project and i am really sorry that it was not a smooth and easy one at all!

    Also, i need to express my deep appreciation to my partners Imen, Roberto and Pedro who were always there in teachers' meetings and in my calls in messenger and in emails and they had contributed in the scheduling and they had collaborated in all the activities -time given-.

    This was one of the most challenging projects i have ever participated in...but no dance is impossible when you have the right partners to support you, no twister is really strong when friends are your "gravity" and your stability...So, my "final word" is that in TWIST, we were TWISTED for good(!!!) but we have survived and we have learned to dance. 

    THANK YOU VERY VERY MUCH, DEAR PARTNERS!

    ...

    @Asunción de Nuestra Señora (teacher Roberto):

    I have little experienced with etwinning and I saw a very interesting project for my students. I asked Athanasia if I could join to the project in September and started to work with my students. I have followed some of her advises and I tried to participate with my students.

    We have organised different teachers events to program the activities, and we have also had a live event with the students. They were very excited with the project, and they were collaborating actively.

    When we were starting to work with the arduino controllers, the Covid 19 arrived and we weren't able to measure the temperatures because the controllers were at the school, and we didn't go back.

    It has been a very interesting project, and I have learnt a lot from more experienced etwinners (Athanasia and Imen) and I hope to collaborate with them again in others projects.

    It's been a pleasure to work with all of you, and I must apologise for being a bit absent in some points of the project.

    @Pioneer Middle School of Sfax (Teacher Imen)

    I started the project in December (invitation from my friend Athanasia) and I tried to do my best to cope with all my pending activities.

    1/ First of all, I have explained the project to my students.

    2/ Then my students prepare simples codes with microbit then they share directly the links. Also,they shared their codes under google drive.

    3/ We participated in Europe Code week as a Twist in Microbit and Safer Internet Day by achieving some scratch projects and coding a rebot with line fellower having obstacles related to the Internet.

    4/ We participated in Hour of code through minecraft coding.

    5/ We  created scratch codes about Xmas and new year 2020.
    They prepare their code with Scratch 3.
    They upload them under google drive in the folder "Christmas wishes projects"  located under our own folder "Twist shared".

    6/ Also, we had created micro:bit projects with Frensh words and videos to explain them in English (project "Coded Dictionary").

    Our students live event was at 19/12/2019 : It was holidays in Tunisia, but my students are so motivated to participate in this live event to share our tunisian traditions to their friends and to take part in the hour of code by playing collaboratively in Minecraft.

    7/ We have made some freestyle activities like traffic light, podometer, switch ON/OFF.

    8/ To celebrate Xmas and new year, we have created cards with pixel art and our cards were sent to the project's partners

    9/ We were members of international teams to mesure the weather temperature: we have achieved the works of Teams 1, 2, 3, 6.

    10/ The project was dessiminated in the Coding from Home 3 webinar ( Code Week webinar) in the Teach meet Icebreaker Europe Code Week Mooc and in the The 2020 STEM Discovery Campaign

    --> Thank you  Athanasia to be one partner of this project. For me it was a very perfect example of embedding the ICT curriculum in Tunisia.
    Thank you for all the partners too.