eTwinning: Online school partnerships celebrate their fifth anniversary
Nearly 500 teachers are meeting in Seville to celebrate the fifth anniversary of eTwinning, an action that creates online communities of teachers and schools across Europe. Through eTwinning, over 85 000 teachers from across Europe work together in international school activities involving more than 50 000 schools in 32 European countries.
In the five years of its existence, eTwinning has grown from being a partner-finding tool for teachers to become a rich, Europe-wide community of teaching and learning. eTwinning makes the most of Web 2.0 tools to promote project work with pupils, online communities for teachers, and numerous opportunities for professional development. The action, which is part of the EU's Lifelong Learning Programme, is co-ordinated by European Schoolnet on behalf of the European Commission.On 5 February, a prize ceremony is being held for 37 schools from 21 countries that are the winners of this year's eTwinning Awards for excellence in eTwinning.
Odile Quintin, the European Commission's Director-General for Education and Culture, who opened the conference, congratulated the many thousands of dedicated teachers for their contributions to this innovative education tool: "eTwinning is a true community of practice, learning, excellence and innovation in education both at the European level and worldwide. The teachers participating in eTwinning have shown how powerful the learning experience can be for children when it is enriched through international collaboration, cultural and linguistic exchange using twenty-first century tools."
To know more
- Read the full press release
with more information and picture galleries of the winning school projects (IP/10/134, 5 February 2010) - The eTwinning portal: http://www.etwinning.net/
- European Commission: Lifelong Learning Programme: Comenius
