Connecting Classrooms Diary. October-November, 2010

Connecting Classrooms is supported by education authorities in each country which co-ordinate clusters of schools. This ensures that partnerships address local priorities, help to achieve core educational objectives, and are sustainable in the longer term. What does the programme offer?

• Support to schools and education authorities to establish international partnerships
• Professional development for teachers and school leaders
• Training in leadership skills and cultural awareness for young people
• Recognition through International School Awards
• e-Twinning online platform to help develop and sustain partnerships.

Some ideas at the initial stages of the project
Finding out about our school
 - Tell me about your school
 - What is your timetable like?
 - What subjects do you study?

Finding out about the area I live in

 - What do you know about my country?
Our language
 - What are these phrases in your home language? Hello, thank you etc.
 - Teach me some of your language.
Establishing relationships between pupils
Each pupil writes a detailed description of him/herself. In addition to that, he/she expresses what he/she is looking for an eTwinning partner (e.g., I am searching for a pupil who likes pop music). All personal descriptions are published on the TwinSpace.
Each pupil carefully reads all the descriptions/advertisements and sends answers the pupils who seem to be the most similar/interesting to him/her.

Each pupil decides on the partner(s) with whom they would like to cooperate

Taken from http://www.etwinning.net/en/pub/inspiration/modules/online_matching.htm

Finding out more about our area
Pupils upload photographs of important monuments or landmarks to the TwinSpace and pupils in other countries have to try to locate them on googlemaps for example.