Panel:
Diego Rojas Ruiz - Spanish National Support Service for eTwinning (Chair)
Tereza Wohlgemuthová - Czech National Support Service for eTwinning
Elena Bettini
– Italian National Agency
Ivana
Lukášová - Czech National Agency (Rapporteur)
Workshop 1 mainly dealt with possible synergies and interactions between eTwinning and other Comenius actions at school level. It was addressed to teachers, headteachers and pupils.
It was organized in three parts. First, Diego Rojas presented an introduction on how eTwinning and other Comenius actions could interact and help each other in every step of a project, including the participation of students in the planning of activities.
In the second part, teachers and headteachers presented their projects as examples of different ways of actual synergies between these actions and how they affected project development and school organization. They showed different ways and degrees of Comenius – eTwinning integration. The projects presented were:
- We teach together : Eva Trnová, Gymnázium Boskovice, Czech Republic
Arminda Sousa, Escola Viriato, Portugal
- Climate change, Can we control it?
: Eva Minxová, Gymnázium Boskovice,
Czech Republic
- Me Tarzan, You Jane : Astrid Hofmann, IGS Hermeskeil, Germany
- International Projects at School:
Marcela Erbeková (headteacher), ZŠ
Mnichovice, Czech Republic
The last presentation was not about a specific project, but about how to deal with organization and motivational issues in a school with a significant participation in
European educational projects.

All the presentations followed a common scheme:
- Basic project information: description of the project, schools that were involved, countries.
- School partnership: How did they find their project partners? How was collaboration planned and organized between them?
- Use of ICT tools: Which ICT tools did they use for project work?
- Involvement of the school community: participation of other school colleagues, local communities and authorities?
- Tips and hints on how to run a successful Comenius/eTwinning project.
A special emphasis was put on those aspects of the project regarding interaction between Comenius and eTwinning, either successful or not.
Finally, a debate and discussion was open among all participants. During this, a lot of interesting questions on ways of combining both actions arose. To summarize all of them, we can divide the conclusions into three parts:
Good tips, good experience
- Projects in schools enhance self confidence and motivation of participants involved.
- Projects support sustainable cooperation of schools in Europe.
- eTwinning platform for communication and work space – Comenius for grants when suitable.
- Students and teachers learn how to work collaboratively, in teams.
Obstacles found
- Meeting a future partner in an online platform may not be as reliable as doing it in person.
- Taking part in a project involves extra work for teachers.
- Paperwork can be a drawback in Comenius projects.
- Organization of international meetings can be very difficult and it implies much work.
- Safety and privacy issues must be handled very carefully when working on the
Internet.
- Having a Comenius project rejected after all the initial work can be frustrating for students and teachers.

- Curricular integration is a key aspect for the success of a project, though it can be difficult to fully achieve it.
- The eTwinning platform can sometimes be technically limited (i.e. maximum file size)
Suggestions for the future/for newcomers
- Importance must be given to curricular integration.
- As many people from the school as possible must be engaged in and committed to the project.
- Teachers should take part in online courses and other training about ICT and other tools that might be used in a project.
- Team work must be fostered and promoted by project coordinators.
- Try to get the best of your technical equipment in the project.
- When teachers have doubts on how to use ICTs or what to use them for, students will surely be a great help.
As a final conclusion, all participants agreed in that, though some difficulties could be found when participating in eTwinning projects or Comenius partnerships, no one arises from making these two actions interact. On the contrary, some obstacles in an action can be counterbalanced by the advantages of the other.
Thus, Comenius partnerships can provide schools with the funds needed not only for mobility, but also for purchasing software or other equipment. As for finding a partner, face-to-face meetings can be more reliable than an online search engine, but invitations for these “live” events cannot reach everybody and reach them at the right time to start a project. It was also stated that currently it is not possible at all to develop a Comenius partnership without using ICTs tools, either for planning, development and evaluation of the project. eTwinning provides teachers with these tools, but in a safe, private environment, and with the supervision and advice of the
National Support Services.
Finally, we’ll quote here one of the teachers who attended the workshop, when, during the debate, she said that she “can’t imagine a Comenius partnership developed out of the eTwinning platform”.