Etwinning

The making-of of an eTwinning project

In the cinema, a making-of is a documentary video which shows how a film or television programme was produced. The shortest making-of’s are often used to explain the production process and to acknowledge the work of the people who have participated in the filming. But what has this got to do with eTwinning projects? We are finding more and more projects which are characterized by the variety of activities carried out by the pupils – slide presentations, wikis, blogs, chats, video conferences -. However, it is not always possible to see how they have been carried out or how they have been organized. For anyone who is not participating in a project it is interesting to be able to be present during the process, just like any other team member, and see the participating agents, the means used, etc. We are referring to the making of an eTwinning project.

Some projects are already beginning to document with videos some of the activities carried out by the pupils, especially those which are difficult to keep a record of, like video conferences or chats. This is the case of the project Day by day, in which Mar Bermejo a teacher at San Juan Bautista School in Madrid has recorded the video conferences that her primary school pupils have held with their project partners.

Although it may not seem like it, it is not complicated to create these documentary videos, which can consist of videos or a slide or picture presentation which explain the process. We can find an example of a video presentation in the project Europe: Reading is also the Future - Europa: La Lettura è anche il Futuro - Europa: La Lectura también es el Futurocarried out by the team from the Tremañes Infants School. One of the project activities was to create posters among the Spanish pupils and their Italian partners encouraging people to read and they tell us how they carried out this activity in this video.

The advantage of making these videos is that they allow both other teachers or members of the School Community, and the mothers and fathers of our pupils, not only to see the result of our activity but also to be able to be present as spectators during its development. Moreover we can also acknowledge the work done by the pupils and teachers in the activity or in the project which we are showing to others, the impressions we have been left with, what we have learned etc. We can find an example in the evaluation of the project Teaching each other, coordinated by Carmen Fernández from the IES de Poio School in Galicia.

From the NSS we would encourage you to make your own making of videos of the activities and projects which you carry out, As well as the other advantages we have already mentioned, they will also be useful for the evaluation of the project and in applications for the Quality Label.