Work through eTwinning projects is increasingly being consolidated as a general resource for all teachers, from Early Childhood Education to Vocational Training. Interesting projects can be found in all the training stages published in the platform, from which we can learn and collect ideas. However, in this article we’d like to emphasize the advantages offered to Vocational Training teachers and pupils by incorporating this tool into daily class activities.
ETwinning can provide countless benefits to Vocational Training teachers, although the most important ones perhaps are following:
- Sharing teaching and working methodologies with other teachers.
- Introducing ICT in classes as a classroom practice.
- Motivating pupils to work with other partners in a European project.
Providing a means/tool for support throughout the lifecycle of an Erasmus+ project: finding trusted partners for a K1 project (workplace training in another country, or training for teachers in another country) or a K2 project (Cooperation for Innovation and the Exchange of Good Practices), planning the project, support during the course of the project and dissemination after it’s finished.
The people search engine that eTwinning offers us facilitates meetings with teachers who are doing the same professional modules or similar ones to those we are doing. In this respect, it’s very important that we define our profile very well, specifying our professional specialty, the ages of our pupils and the type of project we’d like to work on. We must bear in mind that other teachers outside our country may also be looking for partners to exchange ideas with or carry out a collaborative project. The following link gives some tips regarding the creation of our profile: http://es.slideshare.net/SNA_etwinning/perfil-etwinning
The flexible way of working that eTwinning offers us makes it easier for us to use the language in which we and our pupils feel most comfortable. There is increasing interest by European colleagues to do projects in Spanish, so language is not a barrier. Nor do we need to be an expert in ICT tools, as there are many resources that are very simple and useful for our projects.
Activities and/or projects to work with may be included at any training centre or training unit planned in the programme. A specific topic can be agreed on with our partners and given the form of an eTwinning project to work on collaboratively.
You can consult the following links for examples of good practices in Vocational Training:
“Europia-Europe tomorrow” project https://europetomorroweuropia.wikispaces.com
“The career project” http://new-twinspace.etwinning.net/c/portal/layout?p_l_id=34465432
”Trade and logistics between countries project” http://recursostic.educacion.es/blogs/etwinning/index.php/2010/02/08/title-9
“Forest notes” project: http://new-twinspace.etwinning.net/web/p60116/welcome
In order to share our experiences and concerns, we’ve created a working group, “eTwinning and Vocational Training”, where we hope to have the collaboration of all of you who are interested in sharing your teaching experience and concerns regarding the possibilities that this platform offers. So at eTwinning we encourage you to join the group and contribute your comments and suggestions.
M.Isabel Vila Figueroa
eTwinning Ambassador
