ABOUT THE PROJECT - EUROPE@N CITIZENSHIP - EUROPEAN IDENTITY

DESCRIPTION OF THE PROJECT 

This Slovak – Romnian – Czech and Austrian project deals with the issues connected with the European citizenship, it tries to find the path to the European identity. Cooperation of involved schools on the project is dedicated to the European Year of Citizens 2013. Its ambition is to lead students to understand differences and common attributes of living in the united Europe feeling the fellowship to the European citizenship. Students exchange and discuss the issues connected with the European Year of Citizenship 2013 and issues centred on building the vision what should Europe be like in future. The cooperation, chats and videoconferences are aimed at the discussion about the European citizenship. Students also aim to discuss issues about Europe today and tomorrow, about the European active citizenship. The project leads and motivates students to widen their horizons about the European identity and European citizenship by going through different issues connected with European fellowship, thus making progress in mutual understanding of the vision of the common EU, Europe, its present and future. 

PEDAGOGICAL INNOVATION AND CREATIVITY 

We reached that students have gained and widened their horizons about the European identity and European citizenship by going through different issues connected with European fellowship and have made progress in mutual understanding of the vision of the common EU, Europe, its present and future. Among the main pedagogical values which could be part of the pedagogical innovation and creativity we count authentic learning involved in this project, which causes better motivation of students to learn new things connected to the european citizenship or citizenship in general. Collaborative character of our project is motivational and leads to cooperation, makes students more active, responsible and creative. The project has brought our students to reflect and confront real-life situations, acting as an active part of the society, country where they live and the EU which part they are. The students worked in groups, sharing their tasks and applying different skills, but supporting each other’s. The use of new technologies made the project attractive and fast in implementation and gave visibility at European level to work for teachers. 

CURRICULAR INTEGRATION 

As part of the trail have been identified thematic nuclei, objectives, content and activities relating to: Civics, English, the Human Rights Club, Technology and science. The project has entered fully into the planning and programming class specification. The project was included in the school curriculum, becoming an integral part of it. The subjects addressed were as thorough and served as inspiration for new issues. It has always been possible to stimulate the intellectual curiosity of the students who have always made personal contributions to the choice of topics later. 

COLLABORATION BETWEEN PARTNER SCHOOLS 

Students cooperated together, they have collected information on the issues of citizenship, national citizenship, European citizenship. Students of involved schools were in the constant contact via emails, chats and videoconferences. A lot of activities have been done together with partners collaboration. The ideas of the project have been shared by involved partners. The ideas of the project have been made up together in the cooperation of the project partners and all the tasks have been accomplished together with the partners, almost all the activities have collaborational character. Students have written their ideas related to the topic in texts in Word, photographed mutual and individual activities, they created Power Point presentations, and videotaped events videoconferences, chatted and other mutual activities and were called to express their views in order to initiate a dialogue. Their activities have promoted cooperation within the group class, the development of language skills and increased the use of tools for blog and web publishing. A project corner has been created and-twinning within the school where share experiences, to show what this project is about and where the products are visible to other students and teachers. Videoconferences were the great way how to communicate together and do mutual activities. 

CREATIVE USE O ICT 

New Information and cmmunication technologies were used by students and teachers to find the information, develop texts, scan images, run "CD-album of photos, create video clips and sending emails. There have been created a lot of comics and voki presentations, glogster posters, go animate programmes, voicetheread, slideshare presentations animoto, vimeo programmes and much more. In addition, teachers and students have used the tools of chat to know each other better, exchange ideas, information and opinions on the activities of the project. On the basis of the skills possessed, pupils, organised as part of a team-class level in groups, have worked in a spirit of collaboration and creativity, and meeting and interacting with others and making best use of resources. Videoconferences have been held during the project with Skype. A blog and a web page were created by students involved in the project. 

SUISTAINABILITY AND TRANSFERABILITY  

The whole schools can be involved in the project and the project can be done also by other schools. The topic of citizenship and European citizenship can be used and taughed at any of European schools and all the amterrial can be use dat the classes of Civics education. It can be transfered to similar projects in some other involved subjects at schools e. Ethics, Social communication,…. What counts the most is the importance of work together with the European schools and the fact that we have all benefited reciprocally. 

RESULTS AND BENEFITS 

The objectives of our twinning project, the activities done in the project found ways to lead students to understand differences and common attributes of living in the united Europe feeling the fellowship to the European citizenship and to bridge the differences between the European countries and help young people to create better picture of what citizenship mean in peoples lives. Students have discussed the issue of citizenship and tried to understand it. The project has made the students better citizens of their country and Europe at all. The project has improved English language and ICT skills of involved students. The quality of the project was without doubt the result of the great enthusiasm of our teachers and students, motivation that gave us the push for a confrontation unprecedented. Another benefit consists of the consolidation of the relations, both professional and human. Thanks to their direct involvement in active type workshops, videoconferences and especially activities of the students were highly motivated to reflect on shared values of citizenship and with this project and especially their mutual activities they supported the European Year of Citizenship.