The eTwinning National Support Service team visited Xewkija Primary School for the graduation of the Year 6 class. During the ceremony, the NSS were invited on stage to hand out eTwinning tokens to all the children who participated in the eTwinning Birthday Celebrations last May.
Xewkija Primary School took part in the celebrations by baking a special eTwinning Cake and holding an eTwinning birthday party. The school also participated in the eTwinning Birthday card competition.
The participating pupils received eTwinning token (eTwinning stationery) while Gordainne Vella, winner of the Birthday Card competition, received an eTwinning pen drive.
The Head of School, Mr. Saviour Tabone, also presented the eTwinning NSS with a token of appreciation from the whole school.
The kindergarten children of Ms. Miriam Schembri at Fgura Primary A celebrated “Colours of Life”, the winning eTwinning project carried out during this past scholastic year. The project placed first in the eTwinning Prizes 2010 during the Annual eTwinning Conference in Spain.
The eTwinning National Support Service visited more schools on Friday 18th of June 2010 to distribute the Birthday Card Competition tokens. The two schools visited were St. Ignatius College, Siggiewi Primary and St. Clare College, Gzira Primary.
The 16th of June, 2010 was a very special day for all the students at San Gorg Preca College, Hamrun Primary GP. The children of Year 4, Ms. Magro, held their annual eTwinning Celebration to share their eTwinning projects and activities with the rest of the school. Present for the occasion was the college principal, Mr. Joe Buttigieg, and the eTwininning National Support Service team, Ms. Jeannette Cardona and Ms. Amanda Debattista. The students’ parents were also invited for this special occasion.
Year 3 pupils from Ms Catherine Bezzina’s class, St Ignatius College, Siggiewi Primary were the Maltese ambassadors for the eTwinning project “A Snapshot of Europe”. This is a project that involved the use of photography by primary school children across Europe. Children in all eTwinning countries were encouraged to take photographs of their local area under four categories: People, Places, Nature and Sports using either digital cameras, or mobile phones. Once each participating school had collected their pupils’ pictures, we needed to decide upon our favourite four pictures, one from each category. These were then put forward as our entry into the Europe wide contest which followed. All pupils in all countries were asked to evaluate the final entries, and vote, using the webcam conferencing tool, FlashMeeting, to decide the winning entries in each category from all over Europe.
It was an excellent Flashmeeting, where around 20 of the partner countries came together to vote online for their favourite pictures in each category.
All finalist photos, winning photos and recording of Flashmeeting can be viewed on the following site: http://snapshotofeurope.blogspot.com/
On the 5th May, Ms C. Bezzina’s class celebrated eTwinning’s 5th birthday at Siggiewi Primary and each pupil was presented with a certificate of participation in the eTwinning project ‘A Snapshot of Europe’.
In May 2010, a Professional Development Workshop was held in Villasimius, Sardegna, for new eTwinning Ambassadors. Two Maltese eLearning teachers attended this workshop: Ms. Joanne Spiteri and Ms. Lara Denise Grech. During this PDW, new Ambassadors discussed the launch of the new eTwinning Desktop in September 2010, and also how to build and maintain a successful TwinSpace. Below is a detailed report of these two workshops.
The eTwinning National Awards Ceremony took place on Monday 24th May, 2010, at the Excelsior Hotel in Floriana. During the ceremony, the eTwinning National Support Service awarded Quality Labels for eligible projects and eTwinning Awards for both the Primary and Secondary schools.
The ceremony kicked off with the airing of a short two-minute video which illustrated the activities that took place on the eTwinning stand at EMBED Best Use of ICT Awards. Amongst other activities, pupils who visited the stand could take part in video conferences with other European schools, take photos and videos with Tuff Cams, explore nature with Easi-Scope microscopes and record interviews with Easi-Speak mikes.
The Director of Curriculum Management and eLearning, Mr. Raymond J. Camilleri, opened the Awards Ceremony by thanking all the teachers who participated in eTwinning for their good work throughout the year, and stressed the importance of collaboration and of affiliating our work with other project-based teacher communities, such as Eko-Skola. The Director also thanked the National Support Service Coordinator, Ms. Jeannette Cardona and the Pedagogical Advisor, Ms. Amanda Debattista, for supporting the teachers in their projects.
This year eTwinning went through some important changes, most notably the implementation of the new TwinSpace. The National Support Service organised workshops throughout the year to explain about the new TwinSpace and its tools. During the evaluation process for the national awards, the National Support Service was pleased to note that a number of projects had already started to make good use of the new TwinSpace.
Apart from the TwinSpace, a new section was added to the eTwinning Desktop: Resources. This new feature now enables eTwinners to upload their resources directly on the Desktop for other teachers to view, download and use in their classrooms. eTwinners are also able to look for resources using the search facility in the Resrouces section. The introduction of the Resources section has prompted the National Support Service to introduce (for this year) a new section to the eTwinning Awards: the eTwinning Resources Awards.
Another important feature available on the eTwinning Portal are the eTwinning Learning Labs. Learning Events are short intensive online events on a number of themes. They are led by an expert and include active work and discussion among teachers across Europe, and are designed as to be an enjoyable learning experience. A certificate is given to all participants from the Central Support Services. Participation is open to all eTwinning teachers from their Desktop.
After the Director’s speech, it was time to start the actual awards ceremony. The first teachers to be called on stage were those whose projects received a National Quality Label for their Projects.
After the Quality Labels, it was then time to announce the award winners. This year two separate competions were organised: one for Best eTwinning Project and one for Best eTwinning Project Resource. The awards were sponsored by Vodafone Malta, Intercomp, Smart Technologies, Forestals and Exigy. In the Primary Schools Category, the winners and runners up were:
1st Prize
Maria Antoinette Magro
“Noah’s Ark”
San Gorg Preca College, Hamrun Primary GP
2nd Prize
Michelle Cauchi
“All About Us”
St. Clare College, Gzira Primary
3rd Prize
Patricia Bondin & Janet Mifsud
“One Earth Different People”
St. Thomas More College,
Marsascala Primary
Merit Prize
Dorianne Farrugia
“Where We Live and What We Eat”
St. Theresa College, St. Venera Primary
In the Secondary Schools Category, the winners and runners up of eTwinning Projects 2010 were:
1st Prize
Mario Xerri
“The Other Side of the Coin”
Gozo College,
Girls’ Secondary School
2nd Prize
Fiona Galea
“E@rth C@re”
St. Albert the Great College, Valletta
After the assignment of eTwinning Projects Prizes 2010, it was time to announce the winners of the eTwinning Resources Awards. In the Primary category, the winners and runners up were:
In the Secondary resources category, the winner was:
1st Prize
Alice Micallef
St. Ignatius College, Girls’ Junior Lyceum
At the end of the ceremony, the eTwinning National Support Service has also awarded two special achievement awards, given to two Maltese teachers for winning an award in the eTwinning Prizes 2010. The first award was given to Ms. Marianne Schembri of St. Thomas More College, Fgura Primary A, for placing first in the 4-11 years category with her project, “Colours of Life”. Another award was given to Ms. Maria Antoinette Magro of San Gorg Preca College, Hamrun Primary GP, for receiving the Best Use of Creative Media award with her project, Schoolovision2009!
The eTwinning National Support Serivices would like to congratulate all the winners, and also thank all those involved in both the eTwinning Conference and EMBED for their ongoing support.
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