Interview: Anne Gilleran on the eTwinning Program

Part of the FutureofEducation.com interview series.

Date: Tuesday, September 15th, 2009
Time: 11am Pacific / 2pm Eastern / 6pm GMT (international times here)
Duration: 1 hour
Location: In Elluminate. Log in at http://tinyurl.com/futureofed. The Elluminate room will be open up to 30 minutes before the event if you want to come in early. To make sure that your computer is configured for Elluminate, please visit http://www.elluminate.com/support. Recordings of the session will be posted within a day of the event.

Anne Gilleran is the coordinator of the European School Leadership Network project. She is the EUN's main contact person for the European School Heads Association (ESHA).

She is also a member of the Pedagogical Advisory Group for the eTwinning action. A school principal and educational researcher by profession, her research interests focus on ICT as a medium of social change, social constructivism and the creation of online communities.

Anne will be giving us a tour of the eTwinning program. From the eTwinning website (http://www.etwinning.net):

GENERAL

What is eTwinning?
eTwinning is an action that supports online-based projects between at least two schools from at least two different European countries. Schools form a project and use Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to carry out their work. As schools communicate and collaborate via the Internet, there are no grants or administrative conditions connected to the scheme and face-to-face meetings are not required.

What can I do in an eTwinning project?
You can work on any topic you and your partner wish to work on. Projects should have a good balance of ICT use and classroom activities, and should preferably fit into the national curricula of the schools participating in the project.

Do I need to be an advanced ICT user to be involved?
Definitely not! One of the objectives of eTwinning is to improve teachers’ abilities in ICT and to make it part of daily life in the classroom. eTwinning caters to all levels of ICT knowledge.

Who can participate?
An eTwinning project can be carried out by two or more teachers, teams of teachers or subject departments, librarians, head teachers and pupils from schools across Europe. Collaboration can be within the same subject or cross-curricular through the use of ICT.
Pre-school, primary, secondary and upper secondary schools can all participate (age range of pupils, 3-19).

Which countries are part of eTwinning?
eTwinning applies to the Member States of the European Union: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Overseas territories and countries are also eligible. In addition, Norway, Turkey and Iceland can also take part.