Etwinning

Gold Rules of Good Behaviour

Prize age category: 0-11 years of age

Title: Gold Rules of Good Behaviour

Educational stage: Primary

Subject: Multidisciplinary

School: Collegi Sant Josep, Navàs (Cataluña)

Project Coordinator: Fina Vendrell Vila

Link to the TwinSpace

This is an interdisciplinary project with students from 9 to 12 years old where the aim is to promote models of good behaviour and foment the values of tolerance and respect for others. The theme of the behaviour of the children and teenagers of today is a quite frequent topic in eTwinning projects, but this one has managed to bring creativity to it in relation to the activities programmed and the way they have been approached to give an in-depth view of the topics studied.

It is a totally collaborative project; each of the activities carried out involves one or several collaborative aspects in which the undeniable protagonists are the students themselves.

The integration of ICTs into the classroom (using videoconferences, chat sessions, wikis, Vokis, etc.) and the work performed in collaboration with another European school were very innovative both for the students and the teachers.

Named project of the month in October 2011, we referred to its quality on our web page. We present below a description of the project, the difficulties encountered during its development, as well as the benefits which it has brought to the students and the school itself in the words of the Spanish project coordinator, Fina Vendrell Vila:

The project "Gold rules of good behaviour" aims to promote good behaviour through the interaction of young people from different countries using the new technologies to present their activities and English as the language of communication and learning.

Several activities have been carried out using ICT tools: videoconferences, videos, questionnaires, narrations, illustrations, chats, Vokis, PowerPoint, Prezis, Picture trail, Glogster, etc. The end of each chapter presents some “Gold rules of good behaviour”. The project ends with a guide that promotes the values and life styles of present day society. All the material is easily visualized as it is uploaded to the TwinSpace and can therefore be useful for other schools which wish to carry out a project with similar characteristics. It is worth mentioning that some European schools have got into contact with us to congratulate us and at the same time to invite us to start a project with them using our objectives and activities as a starting point.

Communication between the teachers has been via e-mail, Skype and the TwinSpace. Cooperation and coordination have been excellent, as well as creating a really friendly relationship we have helped each other on all the occasions when it has been necessary.

We have had to devote a considerable amount of time to the project, as often after doing the activity in school with the students, we teachers had to upload them to the TwinSpace and this at times was hard work.

We have tried to solve technical problems when using some of the ICT tools with the mutual help of the teachers and IT experts at both schools.

We have been able to count on the collaboration of the school staff, for example the music mistress, the teacher from the “Speaking” workshop, the teacher from the handicrafts workshop and religion, etc. 

The parents of the students have even participated in some project activities where they have been the protagonists in some video scenes, on other occasions they have been interviewed and on others they have given their opinion on some topics about the behaviour of children and society in general. Some educational professionals have also been interviewed.

The students have had the opportunity to work together, strengthen ties, improve their level of English, learn to manage the new technologies and enrich their creative and artistic capacity. 

The general evaluation of the project is very good because of the mere fact that it has meant the cultural, professional and personal enrichment both of the students and the teachers and it has also obviously meant that the school has attained a higher level in teaching-learning quality.

The best reward has been the smiles of the students and their total commitment to the project.

Image source: images from the project TwinSpace offered by the coordinating teacher from the Spanish school