Etwinning

Make full use of the Internet but "don't get caught in the net"

Title: Don't get caught in the net 

Educational level: Secondary education 

Subject: Interdisciplinary

Internet constitutes a valuable source of information and data and a powerful tool for work, acquiring knowledge and leisure activities which are used by more and more people.

Among them, are students looking for resources to complete their learning, carry out school work, access the school web page, etc.; but it is also used to communicate with classmates and friends through the numerous communities and social networks which exist and to carry out other tasks related to entertainment and leisure. 

Due to the undoubted usefulness of the Internet in their lives, the students from several European schools decided to analyze what this tool is used for and why, both in the school and outside and the benefits and risks involved in its use. So by choosing safety in the Internet as the central axis of the project, Don't get caught in the net is not just the title of an eTwinning project, but rather a principle that the students intend to transmit to all their European companions. 

76 students participated in this project from four schools. Two groups from the 4th year of compulsory secondary education, one belonging to the IES Escultor Juan de Villanueva  school (Siero, Asturias) and coordinated by Mauricio del Gallego and another from the  Institut Jaume Callís school (Vic, Cataluña) under the direction of Marta Pey, have shared the experience with the students from Pinheiro e Rosa secondary school (Faro, Algarve, Portugal) and the IT-gymnasiet school (Gottenburgh, Sweden). With excellent curricular integration, the project has been carried out in the optional subject of Computer Sciences in the school in Asturias and in the Tutorial classes in the Catalan school, proving the cross curricular nature of the topic chosen and the importance of the students being aware of the advantages and dangers of Internet nowadays. 

The teachers who organized and planned this collaborative work had already shared another e Twinning project in the past. The excellent relations among them were one of the key elements in the good planning, organization and development of the project, and thus its success. A wiki was used for the teachers to communicate and add ideas and suggestions of how the work should be organized: the topic, the title and the phases of the project, the defining of the contents, activities and programming, the time line, the type of work - individual or in groups -, the technical resources used, etc. 

From the beginning the teachers decided that the students should be active participants in the project and would collaborate among themselves, using ICTs in a creative way. And this is how it worked. The students themselves investigated the benefits and risks of the Internet, carried out debates on the use that they made of this powerful tool and became aware of the dangers which exist in the net. 

All of this was achieved using the TwinSpace as the platform for the organization and presentation of the project products and in the framework of a process which was carried out in two phases. In the first, the students from each school carried out activities individually, or in small or large groups to present their schools and cities. They also took part in several forums in the TwinSpace on whether they belonged to a social network, looked for information and news items on the real risks of the Internet, offered advice on the use of webcams, etc.  

The second phase then had a marked collaborative nature, as the mixed nationality teams created presentations on the services which are offered on the Internet, using the Prezi tool: Television, Radio and Press, Online shopping, Search engines, Online series and films, File exchange, Online courses, Forums, Online games, chats and video conferences, maps and geolocation. All these presentations were the result of multiple resources which in the form of examples and explanations, benefits, risks, recommendations of good practice, photos, videos and external links were investigated and presented by the student members of the mixed nationality teams. This work was made possible with the TwinSpace wiki tool where the team members could put their ideas together and decide the topics to be worked on and the decisions they had to make, etc. 

Pixton, Storybird, Voki, Creaza, Flixtime, etc., are some of the applications which the students used to illustrate their vision of the good and bad things Internet provides. 

Lastly they investigated the use of these technologies in their own schools, using interviews with the teachers, questionnaires among the students of other years, visits to places related to technological innovation, etc. The tools Google Docs and Spicynodes and other multimedia and video supports like Photopeach, YouTube and Vimeo complemented the activities carried out in each of these two phases. 

As can be seen a wide variety of ICT tools was used to enable the collaborative work and communications among the students. To these we must add the video conferences they made, in which they had the opportunity to get to know each other and exchange opinions about the different cultural realities of the countries related to Internet use. 

A project which has not only promoted safe Internet habits in the students, but has also widened the cultural horizons of the participants, allowed them to improve their written expression and reading comprehension in Spanish and served to confirm how ICTs are the most appropriate method for doing tasks which require collaboration. 

With all the planned objectives attained and a great volume of project materials produced, the most outstanding aspect is the high level of participation of the students, who were totally motivated. They have also perceived Spanish as a language in which they can communicate with other foreign students. The really motivated teachers added the finishing touches to the project. 

In short, Don't get caught in the net includes so many eTwinning characteristics that apart from being awarded a 2012 eTwinning National Prize the project has been runner-up in the age category of 16-19 years in the 2012 European eTwinning Prizes.

This is the video which was shown at the prize giving ceremony of the 2012 eTwinning National Prizes:

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Links:

TwinSpace: http://new-twinspace.etwinning.net/web/p35394/welcome