eTwinning- a chance for virtual learning

Ludmila Tomnatic,
Chemistry teacher, the highest degree of didactic
Theoretical Lyceum Gaudeamus
I heard about the eTwinning program during the Lyceum
Teachers' Council which took place at the end of the school year
in 2013, when eTwinnng Parner Support Agency Moldova (PSA
Moldova) introduced the program. I, as a teacher, was interested
to collaborate with teachers from other countries through the Internet and of
course, let pupils do the same. After I had applied for the program, I started learning
about eTwinning. Firstly, I took the online course Introduction in eTwinning. Then,
I decided to try to grasp the essence of the project and the opportunity to
participate in it. I took part in the second on-line courseThe international projects
of educational collaboration and in the training Using the online education
platforms offered by the PSA Moldova. In parallel with learning about eTwinning, I
was searching for interesting projects developed on eTwinning Plus portal where the
teachers had a possibility to participate with pupils they are teaching. My
colleagues from Greece and Poland invited me to participate in two projects -"River
life" and "Whats the matter?"
For me, participation in these projects was a good school. The first project was
River life, initiated by Anna Tsiora from Greece and Mihaela Condrat, collegium
Dobrogean "Spiru Haret", Tulcea, Romania. The partners involved in the project
were teachers and pupils from Greece, Romania, Spain and Turkey. The idea of the
project was to engage young people aged 15-17 to know each other and work
collaboratively by exchanging information about the local rivers. Together with my
students, we strived to achieve the project goals. Every month, the project
participants carried out a certain type of activity. For example, in December each
partner introduced the team and school through power point, videos, word
documents, photos presentations. Subsequently, students created videos about
their hometown, rivers, discussed about country ecological status, nature and biosystem. Pupils of our lyceum took water and soil samples for chemical analysis and
conducted experiments in the school laboratory. On this research a film was made
and placed on the Internet. Beside these, it was obviously interesting and enjoyable
for pupils to participate in LOGO project presentations, to communicate online by
Skype with their colleagues from abroad, to create presentations in Prezi about the
history, legends and myths of the Nistru River, search and find poems, tales and
songs about the Nistru and create crosswords, puzzles. Of course, great experience
students received when they worked together on the platform Padlet, by creating a
short presentation about themselves. The project was completed at the end of June
2014 and its product consisted in an e-book with paintings about rivers and a
booklet with a collection of pupils ideas. I consider that we achieved the projects
objectives and as result pupils improved their abilities of speaking in a foreign
language, developed creative collaborative writing, and virtual collaborative
learning skills. They enhanced their knowledge in other subjects like history,
literature, biology, chemistry, ecology, social science, geography. They learnt about
customs and traditions of partners countries, thus stimulating the interest for the
national identity.

In my opinion eTwinning program offers teachers great opportunities to participate

in educational on- site and on- line conferences and trainings. I had a chance to
participate in an online event that took place in the period of February - May 2014,
with educators from the State of Illinois, where I spoke about eTwinning program
opportunities for Moldovan teachers. During the discussion, I mostly focused on
advantages of using ICT at schools.
In conclusion I want to say that eTwnning is a new world discovered by me. The
eTwinning projects fit perfectly into the national curriculum and give an opportunity
to work collaboratively with colleagues from abroad. It creates an attractive
environment at school and motivates pupils to learn. The opportunity to collaborate
with teachers from other countries is really a challenge for me, and besides, I am
glad to be the pioneer in eTwinning program from our lyceum. I am looking forward
to a continuous collaboration with my colleagues.