DUCA D’AOSTA AND THE E-TWINNING
Our school has joined the e-twinning
platform for three years by now, each time with different projects regarding
the history, the economy and the institutions of the European
Union.
Every time we have tried to link the
project to the present situation, discussing deeply certain aspects of the
growing of a European Union where everyone of us could really feel part of.
The search of the right partner has
always been a delicate one, as we feel that a good partner to work with is half
the success of the whole activity. This year our partner was a school in
Greece, Larisa Lyceum, with a small
group of students aged 15 – 16. Their command of the English language was
excellent as well as their curiosity ! They offered us the opportunity to
tackle different topics through very lively chats on line, always ready to
confront ideas and raise challenging questions!
Of all the students of 4 Art who attended the meetings, some joined in the
chats with enthusiasm; others were a bit too shy to try but still they followed
the chats eagerly. Then we worked on editing blogs with articles and comments
(you can see some examples here attached).
This year our project was broadly on
all the aspects of democracy in the EU. The project was called “Democracy and
the EU: works in progress”, to underline the fact that we consider the
democratization process in Europe still on its way.
We have taken into consideration
some of the key events in the history of both our countries, being the 150th anniversary of the Italian Unification; then we discussed on the EU
institutions and their roles and responsibilities; we tried to understand the
value of the Shengen agreement on the background of
today’s events; the Treaty of Lisbon and the problem of implementing or not a
European Constitution, and so on.
Our project should end with a visit
to the European Parliament during a plenary session next October: the plan is
to meet in Brussels with our Greek friends and go to Strasbourg together. In
the occasion we would like to visit other towns which mainly represent the EU,
like Maastricht and Luxembourg. We’ll see…
But….
What’s the E-twinning?
It’s a real twinning made on a special platform - the Twinspace - that the EU
provides to its member countries; it usually involves two or three schools (but
there are projects for teachers or for several groups at once) that decide on a
common project and work together on-line. It’s a chance to “meet” foreign
students, to widen the knowledge of different European cultures, to actively use
English to communicate.
All in all,
it’s a different way of learning.
Prof.ssa
Cristina Ciari
