Learn and have fun

Today, ICTs offer us a huge range of possibilities. Collaboration and communication between people who are far apart is joined to the creative value provided by the activities. We should mention the comic made by students in the 3rd year of compulsory secondary education at I.E.S. Esteban Manuel de Villega, who have worked on the project How the environment affects our health together with a German school.

In this project, where the main aspect is students' research work about environmental pollution, we must mention the creativity of their activities; sometimes we forget, even though this is also important, the quality of the fun behind learning, and not just for the little ones. Using Adobe Flash Player, students led by Mª de Gracia García Villanueva have integrated photos and animation, also including audio. Undoubtedly, an interesting way to combine creativity and oral and written practice in a foreign language.

Watch the public part of the project in the TwinSpace.

What do you know about Europe?

Students in the first year in secondary school IES Eduard Fontseré (Cataluña) have carried out a collaborative activity within the project My present, my past, my future. Following an easy planning, which was common to many eTwinning projects, in this case, the representation of the different cultures has gone beyond just an exchange. Spanish, Polish and Slovak students have done research in the geography, history, weather, fauna, flora, etc. of their partners and then they have proved their knowledge in a test done through the chat. Each group prepared 20 questions about their own country and asked their European partners; and they were all anxious to answer correctly!

Don't write it... tell me about it!

European body language

The following activity is a comparative gesture dictionary created by a Polish school and an Italian school, as part of the project Sous le ciel de la compréhension. This dictionary is of great value, as it shows  great collaborative work. It also shows how different and also similar we all are, all living under the same sky... We are aware that body language plays an important role in communication and that the gestures we make when speaking are part of the language; students have therefore made this dictionary in order to understand the differences and similarities between cultures. Here they have seen that there are identical gestures in both countries, such as Silence!, others that are the same but differ in meaning, like I am hungry, or others that only exist in one of the countries, like the one used to say I am broke! in Poland or I'm off! in Italy.