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Interesting examples - Upper secondary schools
There are more examples if you click the names of school below:
 Interesting examples, upper secondary school (PDF: 356 KB)
 URL to the school website:
http://www.10solrod.dk/
School name:
10. klassen Solroed, Denmark
Number of students:
50
Number of teachers:
6
Level of education:
upper secondary school
Experience with international projects:
We are on our second year of a Comenius project: educating tv-viewers. We work together with schools in Portugal, Spain (Galicia), Italy and Hungary. The project has an eJournal: Address: http://ejournal.eduprojects.net/tv/ In German language, we make international projects every year: The last 3 years we make e-mailprojects with a school in Wisconsin, and before that with schools in Italy and Yugoslavia. We have been joining the "Elch Edgar"-project, a project among schools in the Northern European countries where you can find Elgs. A link to Elch Edgar you can find on the Dafnord homepage. We have an eJournal for German, where we have made projects for example about our dreams about our personal future: education, job, family. This year we are making a project with an Italian school about film revues.
How many computers/per 30 pupils?
20
Is your Internet connection:
good
Title:
Educating TV viewers
Theme:
Learning about tv, tv-habits, watching tv being made, doing tv ourselves, what did people do before they had the tv? Resulting in \"life-stories\" for 3 generations in the eJournal (this year), tv-commercials, how do they impact on us? The news/ making the news for young people, historical aspects of communication, exchanging good tv-programmes for young people and evaluating them, etc .And we have an e-mail project involving all our students. Now the students are going to have their own eJournal linked to the other one. This part starts from November 2004.
URL to the project website:
http://ejournal.eduprojects.net/tv
Age and number of the students involved:
At my school: all the students( age 15 - 17 ) and teachers
Activities: what did students do
creating website, investigation, communication, publishing, creating CD-rom,
survey, videos with news for young people, a play about "young stars pop television" - a young tv channel with rating problems.
Integration into the curriculum, - other. Which areas of describe of the curriculum?
English: Communication in English. Waking international interest among the students, and help them understand people in other countries - and themselves.
Math: making investigations and surveys.
Danish as mother tongue. Danish/ knowledge about media/tv/ reading and writing text / news / commercials etc.
Cultural understanding Producing text Making exhibitions/layout etc.
Is participation compulsory for the students?
Yes
Type of partnership:
Comenius
Which technology did you use:
chat rooms / messenger chat, e-mail, websites, electronic learning environment
Describe the technical equipment in your and the other participating schools. What use did you make of the technology? Describe the methodology used.
We use our eJournal for our results national and mutual, for communication too. Then we used emails for the emailproject. Digital videocameras and editprogrammes for the computer. And lots of technical equipment for the play. The other schools did not make a play,- but the other things are the same.
How did you use it: at school, during lessons...
We use the computers for our e-mail project of course, and we use the Internet a lot. But most of all our E-journal is our main program. It is easy to use for students and teachers in every country, all you have to have is a password and a username. We do not need a webmaster. As soon as you have written an article/text you can publish it on the Internet.
What went very well? Give some examples.
E-Mailproject. All our students had contact with another student in one of the other countries. We used the "Image of the Others" as inspiration. The goal was to write 3 letters each, and most of the students were satisfied with their e-Mailproject. The eJournal is successful too. After some beginners problems our ejournal is being used by many. Just look at the number of visitors. The students too are starting to make more articles. Next year we hope it will be even more...:o)) The very good thing about the ejournal is, that everybody can work in it - just having a username and a password. You do not need a webmaster and a lot of technical knowledge.
What was not so successful? Give examples.
The different schools had different possibilities, and some teachers were almost alone in the project. Therefore they had difficulties making all we agreed upon. One group of teachers weren’t there, when I gave the course in e-journal, so of course they had difficulties. There were different expectations at some points
What solutions were found to problems occurring in the activity?
We found out communicating better. When working in a international project you have to talk much more about the things than you are used to at your own school. You have to be tolerant and patient and not rush things. Communication, - communication, - communication!!! We have written 5 Kilometres of email, I think!
What difficulties were not solved during the duration of the activity?
The problems about having different equipment - and different knowledge about computers.
What kind of long term benefit and impact has the project had on learning activities?
In my school we talk a lot about, that this project has changed our school. We really have an international feeling among the teachers. Our students are only at our school 1 year, and they are at an age, where they are getting able to look not only at themselves, - but also discover, that there is a world outside their country. This project is very motivating and contains so many different approaches and themes, that we can use it in almost all our subjects. We use the computers more and more, - we now have a very good homepage at the school, and we are using it everyday and in all subjects too. Our students can make all their written papers on computers, and they can use the eJournal.
We are now starting an eJournal for the students in the project, that will be linked to the other eJournal. We hope that the students in the eJournal will have a platform of their own where they can use their creativity and develop multicultural understanding. And have fun!!! When the project is over, we are going to apply for other projects, that's for sure!
Has there been an impact on other projects, on the learning and teaching activities at school? Please describe.
Making everything more interesting.
How did it change your practice in your school?
When we plan the content of the year we always "think" the international themes into the subjects, the theme weeks and we always try to find people from other countries who can visit us at school and tell about their country.
What advice would you give to other teachers who would like to do a similar project?
1. Make as many colleagues at the school as well as the headmaster and others, part of the project. Make exhibitions; make big posters with the address of the website.
2. Ask so many questions to your partners and the project as it is necessary. Do not feel stupid asking. Ask again to be sure, that you all have the same understanding of what you are planning to do. "Did I understand it right, that we are going to....."
3. When you meet, make sure that there will be some time for relaxing too, - and not just working and sightseeing all the time. It is very hard to concentrate about talking a foreign language all the time, and you need some time for yourself too.
4. Exchange little things from everyday life: Magazines, pictures, photos, toys, recipes for food. It is wonderful to read and experience things on the Internet and in e-mails, but is also very important to have real things, sent by snail-mail to have in your hand and feel. For example we have exchanged "youth magazines". It is a very international thing (they are almost alike) and you can almost read them, although they are in Italian or Spanish. They are very popular among our students. Commercials, the kind you get from stores with clothes and food and tv-sets tells a lot about your life and culture. By the way: it is still very wonderful to receive a parcel and unpack it, - no matter how old you are.
5. Photos. It is fine to exchange photos, or put them in your eJournal or web-page, - but my advice is: Wait a little, till the students have had contact for some time. Young people, and grown ups too, often judge people from how they look like. If you already know a person from e-mails it doesn't matter if they perhaps are short, or big, or have big ears. But when you see a photo first, perhaps you will not be open-minded about them.
6. It is better to write too many emails to your partners than too few. The cultural differences and the language problems are big at the beginning. We have had 2 meetings now, - and now it is getting easier to understand one another. All partners should give each other calendars of their school / working year. It is very important when you make agreements of doing different parts of the projects. If one school has holidays - and the others wait impatiently to get answers. Always answer quickly when you get mail/contact from the others. It is enough to write: I have got your email-I write next week. Then your partner knows that you have received the mail and don't have to worry: Did he get it, - or did he delete it by mistake. Agree upon to write t.x. Comenius in the subject-line. Then you know it isn't spam-mail. Use the eJournal for communication if you have one. Then you can avoid all the problems with spam.
Respondent:
Susanne Hviid
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