Water and Fire
About the eTwinning project
Water and Fire is a joint project between two European secondary schools, within the framework of eTwinning, the main action of the European Commission's eLearning Program. This new initiative takes the concept of school partnerships to a new level: it envisions school partnerships involving thousands of school communities, students, teachers, school managers and support staff, who are working together at different levels and subject areas.
ETwinning has an easy set-up. Two schools from two different countries form a partnership to work together on common projects and and share ideas and experiences. They link up with each other mainly using the internet and new ICT, but they may also organize exchanges to meet.
What are the aims and goals of eTwinning?
In general, the objective of eTwinning is to strengthen and develop networking among schools across Europe. Everyone who participates in an eTwinning program will have the opportunity to take part in a collaborative project, and through this, to learn about each other's cultural and social life. It is a simple way to explore new learning opportunities and develop new skills through the use of information and communication technologies. It also helps to improve language skills. ETwinning encourages teachers to build bridges between different curricula and, to learn from each other and develop their own ways of teaching.
How did the project come into being
and where is it heading?
It all began in December 2004, with a simple e-mail exchange between two teachers - the writers of this page - from FAS, Iceland and from Kölcsey, Hungary, on the eTwinning Forum page. It soon turned out that we are both geography teachers with common interests, and English as a common language for communication. So when we met at the eTwinning launch conference in Brussels in January 2005, we already had some ideas in mind. We registered our schools as eTwinning partners.
Returning home, we continued working on the project. It included the following steps:
- we formed two teams of 10-10 geography and geology students from FAS and Kölcsey
- planned the phases and topics of the partnership: introducing the participants, our schools, the towns of Höfn and Zalaegerszeg, and also to introduce Iceland and Hungary to each other. The academic focus of Water and Fire is to do a research on the topic of geothermal energy and its uses.
- checked what ICT tools we can use. We also set up a common page - maintained by Halldór Tjörvi Einarsson from FAS -, where we can do regular web editing as we are progressing with our project.
- the two teams started to write e-mails to each other in early February, and now you can read their introductions and see their photos also.
- We are planning to complete the geothermal energy phase by the end of the school year, but we would not like the project to end here. We have applied for funding from the EU Comenius Program, and are eagerly waiting for the result. The big dream is - after months of intense co-operation - to be able to visit each other, and show and see all we have exchanged our thoughts about.
When we write these words, twenty young people have already started their collaboration with their partners. Good luck, everyone!
Hjördís Skírnisdóttir (FAS Höfn, Iceland)
Katalin Fehérváry (Kölcsey Gimnázium Zalaegerszeg, Hungary)
