E-Twinning is by definition the fruitful partnership of two schools from different European countries, which may occur at several levels; at the level of two teachers; two teams of teachers, two librarians or two head teachers.
Since the Nottingham conference momentum has been building towards starting our first E-Twinning project. I have been given 40 minutes per week of the year 13 enrichment programme and have selected 10 girls to participate in projects and to form our school‘s 'E-Twinning Team'. I have been appointed as the school‘s E-Twinning Coordinator and as such have the responsibility of enabling and encouraging other members of staff to take part in E-Twinning projects. I gave a presentation to the whole staff at the start of term about E-Twinning and what I learnt at the Nottingham Conference. A number of members of staff came to me afterwards and asked how they could get involved and so I was encouraged to form a plan. The plan for the year is to complete a short project with my E-Twinning Team as a pilot and then get other interested parties involved. If all is successful and rewarding for pupils and staff then we will be encouraging other teachers to participate.
Our pilot project was decided, although not finalised, by the team today. We hope to find a partner who is interested in popular music and the cultural aspects that surround it. We want to create a website that will outline the musical acts we are interested in and how this has changed over the last few years. We also want to include information about where and how we listen to music and how it makes us feel.
We feel that musical tastes are quite personal and localised so we hope to have the opportunity to listen to lots of music from other countries.
I would highly recommend anyone who is interested in E-Twinning to get themselves along to one of the British Council E-Twinning Conferences. The Nottingham conference gave me an overview of E-Twinning and some training to use the E-Twinning website which is easy once you get the hang of it. I also heard some inspiring talks from experts in school-based ICT. Mr Singh‘s talk on Wiki‘s and Blogs was particularly engaging- so much so that I have started my own Blog on ’E-Twinning Adventures‘ that will be my online diary to keep my Team and Senior Management up-to-date in the world of E-Twinning. As if that wasn‘t enough, the British Council looked after us all very well - with excellent accommodation, meals and transport provision!
For more information on this etwinning project visit etwinningmusic.blogspot.com
