eTwinning Professional Development Workshop: Malta, Friday 19th – Sunday 21st October 2007

Helmut Hinrichsen, þróunarstjóri upplýsingatækni við Fjölbraut í Ármúla, skrifar um eTwinningmálstofu fyrir skólastjórnendur sem haldin var á Möltu nýlega:

eTwinning Professional Development Workshop
Malta, Friday 19th – Sunday 21st October 2007

The eTwinning conference on Malta was attended by head teachers of primary and secondary schools as well as representatives of the Central Support Service (CSS) and National Support Service (NSS).

The conference startet on Friday 19th with a welcome address by Emile Vassalla, NSS coordinator of Malta and host of the conference, followed by an introduction to eTwinnig and the eTwinnig portal by Anne Gilleran and Sylvia Binger from the CSS.

The conference was a well organized mixture of presentations, round tabel discussions and workshops. Main theme of the conference was the role of head masters in the implementation of ICT and their perspective towards collaboration in eTwinning projects.
While teachers who participate in eTwinning projects are convinced of the benefits of school collaboration, head teachers still find it difficult to appreciate that eTwinning is worth the considerable effort involved and fail to see how eTwinning activities can connect with mainstream curriculum delivery.

Saturday morning started with an introduction by Conor Galvin, member of the Pedagogical Advisory Group, on eTwinning collaboration as an improvement in teaching and learning methods, language skills, school development practices and ICT training followed by a presentation of Brenda Bigland, head teacher of the Lent Rise Primary School, England, where eTwinning has been embedded in the curriculum.

After lunch was time for practial work. Participants had the opportunity to choose three of four workshops offered, two workshops on Saturday afternoon and one workshop on Sunday morning.
The workshops offered were:

•    Telling stories with photos
•    Collaborative Web Publishing
•    Simple Digital Video
•    Stop Motion Animation

The workshops gave a good opportunity to get to know head teachers from other countries while learning the use of ICT tools.

Saturday ended with a guided tour to the ancient town of Mdina.

Sunday morning the third workshop session was held at the Margaret Mortimer Junior Lyceum, a secondary school in Santa Lucija, where also the final meeting took place with discussions on plans for follow-up.
All participants agreed that the perspective of head teachers has to be involved in eTwinning and asked for a platform to meet and share ideas.

Time passes fast. Suddenly the conference had come to an end and everybody on his way home – all of us with new ideads and new contacts to follow up.

Only a few days later an e-mail arrived from Anne Gilleran from the CSS informing us that the first step to setting up a community for all school leaders involved in eTwinning has been done and we were invited to join a network for School Leaders interested or involved in eTwinning, a place to meet, share ideas, swop stories and keep in touch.

I did not hesitate and joint the network immediatly. Now it is our turn as head teachers to follow up and see to it that our ideas will get into eTwinning.