SUMMARY

“The Euro-school reporters” was an ambitious project set to improve our students’ basic and transversal skills as well as to integrate and promote the usage of open digital resources in the daily school work.

This project responded to our educational and social needs:

- To improve our students’ basic and transversal skills by using innovative and motivating teaching methodologies.

- To promote and integrate the usage of the ITC in the school.

- To develop students’ and teachers’ English communication skills in a practical way.

- To become active European citizenships by developing international cooperation and relations in the frame of Europe.

- To motivate and provide teachers and students with a favourable situation for lifelong learning that will open their horizons and enrich their lives.

After analysing our needs and difficulties we decided that creating a digital (and interactive) newspaper could be the perfect vehicle for our project. 

- On one side, as the newspaper was developed by using open digital resources, both students and teachers had to learn and improve their ITC skills. They needed to search for information on the internet, take pictures/ record videos with a digital camera/ edit the articles using different programmes (like “Word” or “paint”…) and create a digital magazine using an online resource (CREATAVIST)

- On the other side, the different parts of the newspaper (editorial, the weather forecast, how we made it, math challenge games, little garden, family time, project's corner, vocabulary booklet... ) let us improve our students’ basic and transversal skills while working on different and appealing topics that catered to the European policies and to our own needs.

- Furthermore, our students took part in the creating process as well as in the management of the newspaper. They became school reporters that gathered and elaborated the information. They, with the teachers’ help, had also to write the articles in a digital format and think about the best ways of advertising and taking care of the dissemination of the newspaper inside and outside the school (families, community, local authorities…). This way, the students had the opportunity to develop their entrepreneurship and have a real approach to the business world.

- In addition, English was our communication language. Teachers and students were highly motivated to improve their command of the language so that they could develop the activities of the project . Through English we were able to make new friends around Europe.

- Finally, cooperation and teamwork in different levels (students, teachers, families, community…) were vital. Teachers and students improved their communication skills and reciprocal learning in what was a meaningful lifelong learning. Sharing information and working in international teams allowed us to get to know other cultures and ways of thinking better, making us more respectful and tolerant to other countries and life-styles. This led us to raise our European conscientious, to feel that we are part of Europe and, consequently, to become active European citicenships.

The participating countries were: Lithuania, Slovakia, Greece and Spain. We all had primary school students that were in charge of the main part of the activities. This variety of languages, cultures and historical backgrounds enriched the project with an authentic European dimension.

In order to achieve our goals, we developed collaborative work among international teams. The content of the articles were gathered in each school by the students and edited by international groups of students during the Learning/Teaching/Training Activities. Teachers from different schools worked together in the design, implementation and dissemination of the activities and results. They supported and adviced the students in the management of the newspaper as well as in the process of the newspaper creation.

This project was carried out in two years (2015-2017).  We developed activities related to the parts of the newspaper, to the creation of the newspaper itself, to the dissemination of the newspaper and to the management of the project.

At the end of the project, our students worked on and improved their basic and transversal skills in a motivating and ludic way. At the same time, teachers  learned to use the ITC to carry out a large number of activities in the class and they had the opportunity to learn other methodologies and educational approaches from sharing experience. They also improved their English skills and found new teachers to develop new projects with. The whole community was benefited from a cultural point of view, and they became more understanding, tolerant and respectful to the others because, thanks to this newspaper, we were able to bring a little part of Europe to their homes and hearts.

 

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