Video conferencing in the internet is one of my favourite tools I use in my chemisty lessons giving my students the chance to communicate around the world about global issues. Or they just tell teachers, classes or librarians around the world what they have learned so far about a certain topic.
After I had the chance to meet my internet colleagues from Sweden, Russia, the USA, from Austria and Hungary personally the years before I got the chance to meet another fellow teacher, Bart Pardoel, and his students "live". I travelled to my neighbour county, the Netherlands, to teach German in two German language classes at the Pleincollege in Nuenen.
I prepared a slideshow about my hometown. I named it "Hartelijk welkom in Sundern aan de Sorpesee" (Welcome to Sundern at Lake Sorpe, in Dutch) and we discussed some local German cultural traditions at a grade 8 GFL class and a grade 9 GFL class, learning German by a mother tongue speaker. After the presentations we played a Kahoot! game in German about the presentations to make sure what they have learned that lesson.
After the lunch break I had the opportunity to attend and help Bart and four colleagues at this school in a PBL "OPEDUCA" pilot course. The European OPEDUCA concept means "... developing Open Education regions for future- oriented learning and teaching." A concept which is very new to me. The main topic was "buildings" and the students started to prepare a moodboard after they had created a mindmap at home. This project is a moodle based project at Pleincollage and the students have to digitalize and upload all material and must type in at a virtual diary. They have to fix in a protocol what they have done that day and what they plan to do next time. The students left the room that day to extract some research questions from their moddboards. The teachers adviced them about how to evaluate different reliable and non- reliable sources to get sufficient answers to their questions.
In the late afternoon I left the Pleincollege after lots of gainful discussions with the German language teachers and the school`s principal.
Thank you very much to Bart, his colleagues, especially Hermine, and to the principal to be a guest at Pleincollege in Nuenen, the Netherlands. I hope to welcome them at our school as well sometimes.
In January my students had some experiments in their 7th grade chemistry classes about food and what it may consist of. Some tests using medical dipsticks were done to find out which ingredients were in the lunch of their lunchboxes. They assayed their lunch searching for glucose, protein and ascorbic acid gathering all their results in a certain test protocol.
Taking pictures from their lunch in their lunchboxes was the first step to show the audience what they like to eat and they informed them about some ingredients.
Talking about food and meals is a wonderful opportunity to exchange traditions like "Do Germans always eat bread in the morning?? We eat warm rice and chicken then". Comparing the lunchboxes from different countries you can talk about
- when you eat at home or/and at school.
- how the school's time table impacts the eating habits.
- what your cantine offers for the students ( as far as a cantine exists at all).
- if it is allowed to take sweets to school or not (and what will happen with uncomprehending kids).
- who is next to them while they eat their lunch.
etc.
To cover time differences some single teachers presented and commented pictures and videos late in the evening (or early in the morning, local time) their students prepared in advance. Here is a 50 mins video from one of these meetings:
(Thanks Lin-Lin for recording this session!)
A lot of teachers and students met during January and February 2016 to exchange all these aspects and to let the students from abroad get an opportunity to have a view into foreign, German traditions from the distance. They met in several video conferences to exchange their habits from all continents around the world. And the Germans got a view into different European, Asian, Australian, African and American traditions. It was a good way to combine chemistry lessons with English language and social studies.
This was the first time for my German students to do such an international presentation. I had to guide them a little.
Finally we exchanged recipes (by the cantine managers) from different school cantines to celebrate a special day at lunch in the cantine. The recipes had to be translated both ways: from German into English and from English into German: an exercise for the students in their foreign language classes at our school.
Thanks a lot to all participants, students and teachers:
Athalo Carrao, Global English School, Brazil
Stine Waage, Bokn Skole, Norway
Govinda Panthy, Nepal
Cliona Brennock, St. Molaga's Sns, Ireland
Lin-Lin Tan, Sih-Wei E.S., Taiwan
Mike and Anna Bukhtoyarov, SibFU, Russia
Huy Tran, Japan
Begaim Adilkhanova, Shymkent, Kazakhstan
A week before Christmas Eve students and adults from different countries around the world are meeting in a videoconference to express cultural similarities and differences concerning their Advent, Christmas and New Year traditions. Some of these reports and celebrations are done by students. Coming up with time differences some single teachers from foreign continents do a very good job to let us take a view into their traditions over there.
At this conference students of different ages meet and represent their local traditions as ambassadors.
Most of the classes present their slides while they tell us about their traditions. Some of the classes present some Advent or Christmas songs as well. The grade 10 students from Mumbai/India share different traditions from Goa as well as from Kerala.
Joe McNulty from the United States gives us the opportunity to have a look into his private living room at home very early in the morning.
Anne Mertschin is talking about Christmas traditions in Australia. Students from France are singing a Christmas Carol in French most of us know in our local language as well.
Thank you all for joining this very interesting meeting. The presenters are (in order of their appearance): Anne Mertschin, Hawkesdale College, Australia Monika Uppal and her students grade 9- 11, Archana Tyagi, India Yvonne Dalqvist and her students grade 5 and 8, Örnsköldsvik, Sweden Sophie Gaiffe and her students grade 6, , France Gabi Wahle and her students grade 8, Realschule Sundern, Germany Cliona Brennock and her students grade 4, St. Molaga School, Balbriggan, Ireland Patricia Liguori/Rosaria de Luccio and their students grade 8, , Italy Ulrica Karlberg and her students grade 6, Vareskil school, Sweden Joe McNulty, Newtown, Pennsylvania, USA Elena Guseva and her students grade 5, Uljanov, Russia Meryem Unsal and her students grade 10, Istanbul, Turkey Catherine Mongis and her students grade 8, Martinique Reinhard Marx and his students grade 7, Realschule Sundern, Germany
In October 2015 the project "Beautiful Places On My Island" receives the German etwinning Quality Label 2015 to be a best practice project given by the National Support Team NSS of the European Commission. "... eTwinning Quality Labels are granted to teachers with excellent eTwinning projects. They indicate that the project has reached a certain national and European standard. ... The NSS apply 5 specific minimum requirements in granting the Quality Label to a project. All 5 requirements must be met:
1. The project must have common goals and a shared plan.
2. It must be finished, or in its last stages.
3. The applying teacher must have made a significant contribution to the project.
4. A certain degree of collaboration must appear.
5. Project results must be visible.
Once these 5 requirements are met, the project is then evaluated on the six criteria required.
A project has to broadly achieve excellence in the following areas:
(1) Pedagogical Innovation
(2) Curricular Integration
(3) Communication and exchange between partner schools
(4) Collaboration between partner schools
(5) Use of technology
(6) Results, impact and documentation ... "
Only 46 schools in whole Germany receive this extraordinary label this year. The description of "The Beautiful Places Of My Island" project has convinced the members of the independed panel of educational experts to award this project unanimously.
By this award the project will automatically take part to the German etwinning Award competition in winter 2015/2016.
Those of you who didn't take part to this project or you just want to remind yourself about what had taken place in spring this year in different countries around Europe and abroad you should visit the following websites:
Hundrets of students from different countries and of different ages met in a seven hours' video conferencing marathon accompanied by several guests from outside Europe.
This statement could describe that great event between 6am GMT and 1pm GMT on 24th September 2015. The meeting was dated two days before the official European Day of Languages because of local issues here in Germany. We were very happy to gather students from the French Overseas Departments into this great European students' family that day, too. It was its great goal to express multilingualism in Europe on one hand and to point out that we all live in a great community- the European Community. All participants expressed these goals by introducing their country and giving an example of their local language presenting a poem, short story or a traditional food. One grade 5 class from Bulgaria let us all view into their regular lesson live while the students did their final preparations for their presentation.
Weeks before I set up a schedule using Google Drive tools where teachers and guests had the chance to register for a certain time slot. I offered one slot in German and seven slots in English language. EFL- teachers and GFL- teachers had the chance to embedd this conference into their regular lessons.
We all learned a lot about Europe and met new friends. Especially our guests from outside Europe, from Australia, India, Argentina and Brazil took their chance to get to know Europe a little better.
Thanks to all of you who took strong effords to prepare their presentations or being a member of a fantastic audience. These were: * ZS Bakalovo Nab. 8, Brno; grade 8 students; teachers: Pavel Hodal, Gabriela Cizkova; Czech Republik * "Mityo Stanev" Secondary School, Stara Zagora sity; 3rd grade students;teacher: Rositsa Mineva; Bulgaria * ICS "G. Marconi" di Battipaglia, Battipaglia (SA), Classi 3/ Prof.essa Liguori/ prof.essa Di Luccio; Italy * Alneskolan, Örnsköldsvik; class 8c; teacher: Mrs Yvonne Dahlqvist; Sweden * Srednja škola Zabok, Zabok, grade 10/11, teacher: Ljubica Savic; Croatia * Zespół Szkół w Węgoju, grade 8, teacher: Justyna Stysiek, Węgój; Poland * Bokn School, Bokn; class :8-10; teacher: Stine Waage; Norway * School 72, Ryazan; class: 6; teacher: Yelena Volina; Russia * Breiðholtsskóli, Reykjavík; 9th class; teacher: Gudny Adalsteinsdottir; Iceland * Collège Petit Manoir, Le Lamentine; grade 8 students; teachers: Catherine Mongis, Daniel Julien; Ile de La Martinique; France * Realschule Sundern; class 7- 10; teachers: Gunhild Beckmann, Reinhard Marx; Germany and guests/teachers (audience): * Anne Mertschin, Hawkesdale P12 College, Hawkesdale; Australia * Sebastian Panakal, Edupreneur, Cochin, Kerala, India * Sabrina Espasandin, Instituto San Martín de Tours, Buenos Aires, Argentina * Athalo Carrao, Lagoa Santa (MG), Brazil * Shibi Ottuvazhickel, Kerala, India
