using the etwinning portal

Using the eTwinning Portal www.etwinning.net

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Department for Curriculum Management and eLearning Directorate for Quality and Standards in Education Ministry for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport

Using the eTwinning Portal

www.etwinning.net

From the eTwinning Portal you can: 1. access different types of information, 2. register yourself and your school (if this is not yet registered), 3. enter your desktop.

On this page there are menu buttons, which will open up to offer more information, and on the page itself, there are also the latest eTwinning news. From this main page, one can browse any participating schools, people and projects. The menu buttons

The Homepage is the main page (which has already been discussed). The News button opens up to show more options:

• News • Interviews • Newsletters • Workshops • Publications • Press corner

The News section Here you can find a whole list of news. You can click on each one of them to read further regarding that topic. Interviews section If we click on “Interviews” we see a list of interviews that have been done and we can click on every one of them to read that particular interview. Newsletter section This section is currently unavailable but will contain the newsletter eTwinning issues periodically.

Workshops section In this section you can read about different workshops that are being held all over Europe. Further down in this page there is a list of all the workshops. You can click on each one for more information


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Publications section In this section you can find useful publications which can help you understand more:

• The aims of eTwinning • What eTwinning entails • A glossary of useful terms in eTwinning • How to use the twinspace • Handbooks for teachers • Information about the first year of eTwinning in Europe • Pedagogical Advisory Group Reports etc. . .

Press Corner section Here we find the latest press releases of press conferences etc. . .

The Inspiration button takes us to:

• Kits • Modules • Gallery • Subjects • Teachers’ Blog

Kits Here we find ready-made project kits which are step-by-step guides to successful eTwinning projects. The categories are:

• Culture • Economics and Entrepreneurship • European Affairs and Politics • History and Geography • Languages • Maths and Sciences • Primary Education • Social Sciences • Special Needs • Sports • Technology • The Arts

Modules Here are short activities which can be incorporated in any type of eTwinning project, no matter which subject it deals about. Modules are learning objects which are a great way to kick off a project, provide something different mid-way through or act as an evaluation tool at the end. These modules are divided into four categories: Ice breakers, Cultural awareness, Creativity and Using online tools.


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Gallery Here you can view some of the best eTwinning projects.

Subjects In this section there is information about all the main subjects that can be incorporated in eTwinning projects. Teachers’ Blog In this blog you can find experiences of teachers that have done eTwinning projects.

The Tools button is very useful. It contains the Desktop tools, Twinspace tools and more. Desktop Tools Includes all the information about how to use the desktop once you register and log into the portal using your user name and password. Twinspace tools Includes information about how to use the twinspace which is the space where the eTwinning partners of a project can upload their project work. This is a private place which can only be viewed by them. But they can also decide to make it public for everyone to see.

More Tools This section invites users to find other software which could be useful for the projects. It reminds users to keep in mind the pedagogical aspects of using such tools. The Awards section includes information about the European Awards and the Quality Labels. The Help section includes the FAQs, Guidelines and Computer Settings. The Contacts section includes contact information of the CSS (Central Support Services) and NSS (National Support Services) of each country.


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My eTwinning Desktop After registering yourself and your school, you can enter the personal desktop. There is a change in colour to show you that now you are within the portal. Whilst the main eTwinning portal is mainly blue, once you log in, the main colour is orange. There are the following menu buttons:

o Home o My Profile o Partner Finding o My Projects o My Contacts

In the Home page, you can see your own photo which you would have uploaded from “My Profile” section. There is a greeting with your name and the name of your school. There are two lines from my profile, a section that shows some of my projects’ titles (this can be opened to see a full list), a few of my contacts, that again can be opened up to see the full list of my contacts, that I had added myself, and on the right there are notifications of people who would like to invite me to be part of their contacts or to join their projects, any new mail in my mailbox etc... On the bottom part there is a shortcut to any of my project’s twinspace or blog, and very quick and easy shortcut to searching for schools, posting a message on the forum, and access to read latest messages. My Profile On this page we find My Quick Profile where people can read about your project ideas, interests or whatever you write. There is also information about twinning preferences that show the language, the subject/s and the age groups you prefer. There is also a link to you own school/s. By clicking on the Edit Profile you can edit anything that you have written and the page looks like this:


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This is the section of the personal details. As you can see, next to the button Myself, there are another 2 buttons My School and Picture Gallery where you can change the information about your school and add pictures to your profile respectively.

Partner Finding This is a very useful tool to find partners that have the same interests as you for working on a

particular eTwinning project or to make Comenius partnerships. If you know of a particular teacher that you want to work with, you can look for him/her by his/her name. If you want to work with teacher/s from a particular school, you can search the school, and you can also search by thematic words.

Otherwise, you can look through the messages in the forum to see if there is any one who proposed a project that you think you would want to join with.

You can even submit your own proposal on this forum for all the other teachers who visit it to see.


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My Projects Here is where you can start a new project by clicking on the Create a New Project button. A page will open

to choose one of your contacts with whom to do the project, then it will open a form to fill in the details for the project you want to create. Once you submit the project, your partner will get a message to approve it. When the partner approves it, the project application will go to the NSS of both countries concerned. When these approve the project, you may start working on it. From My Projects page you will also be able to access all your projects’ twinspaces, twinblogs, edit information about the project description, invite a new partner to join you in a particular project that has already been approved by your NSS, manage partners (for example, making them administrators or just partners), and you can close a project.

In this page you get:

o An image of the project (that you have inserted from “edit” at the right hand side)

o The project name, the date of registration and if it is active or closed

o The labels that the project acquired. It also shows the date when the project administrator had applied for the quality label.

o Actions that can be taken for the project e.g. edit its profile; add new partner; manage partners; close project; manage twinblog or twinspace (as described above)

The Twinblog Here you see all your posts and you can edit them, add another post, delete a post, publish a post etc. To see the URL of the blog, to be able to share it with other friends, you can enter “Settings”, and there you can publish your blog and thus find its URL. The Twinspace On the left hand side you can see all the folders that contain all the uploaded work. These can be word documents, powerpoints, video clips, podcasts, photostories, stopmotion animations, etc. An important point is that only the partners and any other invited persons have access to the twinspace. This is a safety measure so that no one can edit or delete your work.


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In the twinspace there are many useful tools like:

o Calendar where you can plan your work and deadlines and it is visible by all users.

o Forum where all the partners and students can leave a message, answer each other and develop ideas. Unlike emails, these are always visible by anyone who has access to the twinspace.

o Mailbox is a personal normal eTwinning email where you can send an email to anyone on the list i.e. partners or members of this project.

o Chat is a very effective way for the teachers or students who are online at the same time to chat in a very safe and reliable way. There are no pop ups that come up like other chat rooms.

o On the bulletin board one can write what is being done, reminders, notes and other things as if you have a common notice board on which you attach anything you want all your colleagues to see.

o My team shows the names of all the members and the times they entered the twinspace. Any members who are not working would have a low number and frequent visitors would have a big number. There is also the date when a member visited the twinspace last.

o CMS is the content management system from where you can add or publish a page. o Settings includes options to change your profile, options to change the project’s details,

and adding and publishing the twinspace as a web-site.

My Contacts This section includes a full list of the contact persons. From the right hand side you can delete a contact.

To add a new contact to this list, you have to find the person in the Partner Finding section or through the Contacts section of other eTwinners and click on the Add Contact icon. This will send a message to that person asking whether s/he is willing to be within your contact list. Once s/he accepts s/he will be in your contact list and you will be in his/her contact list. Notes compiled by

Ms. Josephine Ebejer Grech and edited by

Ms. Jeannette Cardona

using the etwinning portal

Documents