Transnational Collaboration with eTwinning & Erasmus+ for Interculturality

eTwinning is the European Union's online portal for schools in over 28 EU countries.  K-12 teachers and pupils and pre-service teachers at university register in the portal with their institutions and then find partners in the safe space. These partners come from all over Europe and several countries outside the E.U. including Ukraine. Teachers and pupils develop  a project idea that supports the UN's sustainable goals for 2030. Projects can have from 2 up to 10 or more international schools taking part. The project must involve transnational collaborative teams of pre-service teachers if a pre-service teacher project and pupils if a student-pupil project. For example, two pupils from Italy are grouped with two pupils from Germany, and they work on the project such as reading a book together or creating ways to prevent bullying or diversity appreciation projects in groups.  They meet synchronously in webconferencing and work on their project asynchronously in a safe space known as TwinSpaces, fully integrated learining spaces with content pages, discussion forums, messaging and polls. They work in a common language, thereby seeing practical reasons for learning languages and experiencing friendships and cross-cultural exhanges.

Erasmus+ is a program that funds these eTwinning projects to become mobility projects, that is, after the student teachers and pupils work digitally on their projects, they are eligible to apply for funds to travel to each other's countries and learn and explore together.  The Erasmus+ budget for European schools from 2021-2027 is 26 billion Euros. Due to the pandemic, the first years' budgeted funds were not able to be met, so the impetus to travel is increasing, and happily, the funds for mobility projects are there.  This innovative learning for the future through blended learning online and then traveling and meeting in real life is a model not only for schools, but for governments, agencies, militaries and other international institutions. 

These online projects will be the future of learning for schools. Since the pandemic, schools have become familiar with remote and distance learning and are ready to move forward with this foundation to authentic assessments, particularly with foreign language study and intercultural parts of the standard curriculum.  Pre-service teachers and pupils learning languages work together using the language, creating dynamic, realistic and fun learning experiences as they learn from and about each other.  Fourth graders in Spain work with fourth graders in Finland as they all learn English together. Projects such as sharing holidays, meals & food recipes, ways to recycle or support climate control are frequent projects that inspire participants as they learn, removing a lot of the rote memorization and drudgery that limited classrooms in one language offer.  This model is one for the future, not only for schools but also training organizations, universities, exchange programs and wellness centers.

The OLC presentation will highlight a blended learning course, "Project-Based Learning with eTwinning & Erasmus+ for Interculturality" developed by Professor Richard Powers from the Professional School of Education (PSE), Stuttgart-Ludwigsburg, in southern Germany. The PSE is an important umbrella organization overseeing circa 4,500 pre-service teachers at five universities: Stuttgart University, Hohenheim University, Academy of Music, Academy of Art, and the Pedagogical University of Ludwigsburg. These pre-service teachers are able to enroll in the same course because of the blended learning nature of the course. Though they are geographically miles apart, they meet on Webex once a week and then work asynchronously on Moodle.  The weekly modules introduce student teachers to eTwinning as they move through registration on the platform, to finding international partners, to submitting a collaborative project proposal, to setting up an online Twinspace for their project on the EU's eTwinning portal, to implementing the project and presenting the results.  21 projects with transnational collaboration between Germany, the Ukraine, Romania, France, Italy, Spain, and Denmark will be summarized to engage audience members and inspire them to think transnationally about online learning rather than in a specific country.  Testimonies from student teachers involved with the project are included in engaging, inspiring videos. 

The innovation here is apart from the LMS, student teachers work in a further digital space that allows them wide contact with a pool of over one million teachers and 230,000 schools throughout Europe. To date, there have been over 130,000 projects, a testimony to the popularity and importance of transnational collaboration between student teachers, teachers, and schools. Breaking down stereotypes, networking across borders, working together on meaningful projects to solve problems are done with this innovative teaching in schools for the future. 

Participants will have access to the OER syllabus and participate in active discussions about the course, the projects, and the course evaluations.