Cyber-community for schools

Published: 17 February 2009 y., Tuesday

Pamoka
It started off as a project to help schools collaborate over the internet. But four years on, an EU-sponsored website has a new claim to fame: it has become a popular social networking site for teachers.

So far about 55 000 teachers, head teachers and school librarians from 29 countries have signed up with the free eTwinning portal – and the numbers are rising fast.

“Never before have we seen European schools cooperate on such a large scale,” wrote one academic predicting far-reaching effects, in the recent publication eTwinning – Adventures in language and culture.

Launched in 2005 under the EU’s education programme Comenius, the online service still does what it set out to do – enable schools to set up virtual classrooms equipped with tools like audio and video conferencing. Students in different countries can hold meetings, store work and exchange resources on joint projects in a secure environment. More than 5 300 projects are currently registered with the portal, available in the 23 languages. Kits are available for projects like setting up a mock company and, for younger children, producing a digital fairytale.

But, as is often the case in cyberspace, the website has taken on a life of its own as more and more teachers have discovered it. Of the 55 000 active members, two-thirds are not registered with a school project. Most signed up to meet other education professionals and share ideas. Teachers post more than 5 000 messages on the site every month.

The portal is run by European Schoolnet, a partnership of 31 European education ministries. Thrilled by the new success, the webmasters last year released a new version of the portal to encourage the trend. It features new tools (like blogs and wikis) geared to general collaboration, not just projects.

A contest is held every year for the best projects. This year’s finalists include a project by four schools (in the UK, France, Spain and Italy) that explores the use of podcasts as learning tools. Winners will be announced at the annual eTwinning conference in Prague on 13-15 February.

Šaltinis: ec.europa.eu
Copying, publishing, announcing any information from the News.lt portal without written permission of News.lt editorial office is prohibited.

Facebook Comments

New comment


Captcha

Associated articles

Innovative Range of Mobile Services

NOKIA: TheFeature.com launches new, innovative mobile information services at CeBIT 2003 more »

The darkest side of ID theft

When impostors are arrested, victims get criminal records more »

search.lt news

search.lt presents newest links more »

FIX uptake is good news for Swift

Interbank payments network Swift is likely to be the primary beneficiary of FIX uptake by European securities firms, according to a survey conducted by London consultancy City IQ. more »

Visa to hide card numbers in bid to cut identity theft

Visa is to require merchants to display only the last four digits of a credit card number on receipts in a bid to combat a rising tide of financial identity crime more »

Norwegian Court Approves DVD Hack Retrial

A Norwegian court has approved prosecutors' appeal of a teenager's acquittal on charges that he created and circulated online a program that cracks the security codes on DVDs more »

Recruitment website's ID theft warning

Fraudsters pose as employers to steal job-seekers' personal details more »

How Web Services Will Change E-Business

IDC has estimated that just 5 percent of U.S. businesses in 2002 had completed a Web services project. But by 2008, the research firm said, 80 percent of firms will have such a project under way. more »

Credit Card Cos. Watch Own Backs

The credit card industry focuses too much on reducing its own fraud costs and not enough on protecting consumers more »

Chipmakers dip processor prices

PC chipmakers Intel and Advanced Micro Devices this week enacted their first sweeping desktop processor price cuts of the year more »