by Jim Bosco
W. Michigan University & Chair, CoSN International Committee
One of the very enticing projects which was discussed in several of our meetings on the trip was eTwinning which is a project administered by the European School Network which enables students throughout Europe to collaborate on projects. The valuable aspect of the eTwinning program is that it enables students to go beyond only sending email messages and to develop and complete concrete projects. The eTwinning portal is an easy to use site which is accessible in twenty-two languages. For example, the Project of the Day as I write this was titled and described as follows:
"Values in School Life and School Celebrations" project develops democratic citizenship through curricular and extracurricular activities to help students explore issues of intercultural education, diversity and European values by means of creative teaching and the Internet. It consists in the processing of the attitudes related to a series of educational values.
Having worked with ThinkQuest I have an appreciation for the wonderful things that can happen when young people collaborate across existing geographic boundaries. The URL for eTwinnig is;
http://www.etwinning.net/ww/en/pub/etwinning/index2006.htm
eTwinning is an example of the type of opportunity which we can provide for our young people which impossible a couple of decades ago. This type of project also is responsive to the great need in our world to create grass-roots linkages to turn misunderstanding and hostility into understanding and peace.
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