European Schoolnet: transforming Education in Europe
September 2011

Focus: online learning resources to kick off September!

Explore and brainstorm new ways of teaching and learning, set high goals and create something truly innovative with your pupils. As the beginning of the school year is upon us, teachers are always looking for new and exciting activities to start up and initiate with their pupils. To help you properly kick off September, European Schoolnet has come up with a broad range of online initiatives, information and tips.

Have a look at the series of good quality online resources from across Europe to enhance your teaching and technology skills and take part in safe online communities and groups to encourage your pupils to get motivated and involved.

A successful school year to everyone!

To share your suggestions and thoughts on this newsletter, feel free to write us at: teachers-newsletter@eun.org

Highlights

Highlight: The redesigned LRE continues to grow

Teachers have a wealth of new digital learning resources at their disposal on the redesigned Learning Resources Exchange (LRE). Physics and chemistry teachers can take a look at simulations from PhET, USA (many in over 20 languages!), while science and maths teachers can motivate pupils with impressive interactive visualisations from the Wolfram Demonstrations Project. Finally, looking for images of the solar system and space exploration? Browse the new NASA Photojournal collection of over 7000 public images. They are great building blocks for creating new mash-ups of digital content.

Call: Start the school year with equipment for your science classes!

One month left in Xperimania's competitions on the ‘role of women in chemistry’. Get your pupils to show their perception of chemistry via drawings or get them interview local female chemists. This is your last chance to win a trip to Brussels and special Xperimania kits, including gadgets and material for school. Deadline for submission: 30 September

Resource: Looking for some resources in STEM?

The redesigned Learning Resources portal is ideal for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) teachers. Do your pupils need some extra tutorials in mathematics? Browse and search the popular Khan Academy tutorial videos or take a look at the multi-lingual mathematics simulations from GeoGebra. To demonstrate the physics behind common machines, browse the animations from Animfyzika.

Call: Join project on School and Industry cooperation

European Schoolnet is looking for 150 maths and science teachers to join InGenious, the new project on Industry and School cooperation. The deadline for submission is 20 September. In addition, European Schoolnet is still looking for 6 Teachers Coordinators from Austria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France and Israel. Deadline to apply: 10 September

Call: Share your expectations and needs on Web 2.0 in teaching

The “teach.us” platform is a web community for teachers interested in integrating Web 2.0 at school. The objective is to support Web 2.0 projects in schools and motivate teachers to use 21st century Internet technologies in the classroom. Schools are invited to share their expectations of future developments for the platform. Have a look and take a few minutes to share your views on the platform by filling out an evaluation questionnaire.

Event: New Teach.us webinar on Web 2.0 for education

Teach.us, the online community for web 2.0 teaching, is organising its last webinar on benefits of online shared documents on 21 September. All teachers, whatever their level of knowledge of the topic, are welcome to take part in the online seminar for a fruitful exchange of experience! You can also find recorded sessions on topics such as Twitter, Sloodle etc.

Info: First tastes of the Acer-European Schoolnet Educational Netbook Pilot evaluation

By the end of the school year 2010-2011, 225 classes from six countries who participated in the Acer-European Schoolnet Educational Netbook Pilot have finished the evaluation. The evaluation focused on the use of netbooks both in school and outside of school activities gathering feedback from students, their parents and of course teachers. Have a look at the website to have a first taste of results!

Event: TellNet at the EC-TEL (European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning)

The Teachers' Lifelong Learning Network-project will be part of the European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning (EC-TEL'11) in September in Italy. The conference promises interesting papers and workshops and, of course, a good possibility to get a review of what is going on in the field of e-learning.

Event: Successful Spice summer school

From 26-28 August, over 140 science and maths teachers met in Prague, Czech Republic, to learn about the results of the Spice project on exchanging learning initiatives. The participants, coming from all over Europe, carried out hands-on workshops organized by Scientix, Pathway, UniSchooLabS, Ingenious and Photonics Explorer.

Call: A “Back to School 2011” gift from Insafe

As the beginning of a new school year approaches, Insafe is continuing its popular Back 2 School campaign. This year the gift package for teachers will include the usual lesson plan dealing with current online safety issues as well as the customary quiz for pupils to complete, an updated PowerPoint presentation on online safety and a special learning event on online gaming.

Event: Safer Internet Day 2012

Next Safer Internet Day (SID) will take place on 7 February 2012 and will be centred around the theme Connecting generations and educating each other. A SID kit will be distributed to schools in January and will contain information about SID, promotional materials, suggested learning and awareness activities as well as eSafety resources. To receive a kit, schools are invited to register on saferinternet.org from September. A link will also be included in the Insafe Back 2 School gift.

Resource: A SID kit

A SID kit is also being developed and will be distributed to schools in January. It will contain information about SID, promotional materials, suggested learning and awareness activities as well as eSafety resources. To receive a kit, schools are invited to register on saferinternetday.org from September; a link will also be included in the Insafe Back 2 School gift.

Resource: New collections at the Learning Resource Exchange

The Learning Resource Exchange is rapidly enhancing its collection database with new high quality resources. Currently the users can select from resources offered by 36 content providers. The new collection includes e.g. interactive physics and chemistry simulations from PhET, popular video tutorials from the Khan Academy, and short videos on a variety of topics for k-12 educators from Teacher's Domain.

Event: eTwinners get their hands on ‘Travel Well’

During the second weekend in June, over seventy teachers evaluated resources for the 'Travel Well' collection in the Learning Resource Exchange portal and provided valuable feedback on eQNet criteria being developed by project partners. The eQNet project organised two hands-on workshops in the framework of an eTwinning Professional Development Workshop (PDW) that took place in Vilnius, Lithuania, from 10-12 June. The workshop was open to teachers of all subjects, advanced or just beginners in eTwinning and interested in "Web 2.0 technologies in Education“.

News across Europe

Call: The best young translators in the European Union rewarded!

On 24 November the next Juvenes Translatores contest will take place to promote multilingualism and provide an introduction to translation in all the 23 official languages of the EU. Pupils at secondary schools born in 1994 are invited to test their translation skills. Don’t miss the opening of the schools registration from 1 September!

Event: Find out more about the Lifelong Learning Programme 2012!

The European Commission is organising Infodays on funding opportunities for 2012 from its Lifelong Learning Programme (LLP). They will take place in Brussels on 21 and 28 October. A live webstream and online chat will be available online.

Resource: Future Emerging Technologies (FET) at a glance

The FET house is a web application where pupils can explore future emerging technologies and meet like-minded peers or potential mentors. The aim is to stimulate young people to pursue science and engineering studies. It gives an overview of future jobs and careers that will be open to young people in many different fields such as biology, physics, genetics, energy, etc.

Resource: Find new ways to learn languages!

Lingu@net World Wide is a multilingual, online resource centre for foreign language learning. It provides information about and links to good online resources from around the world relating to the learning and teaching of any modern foreign language. Take a look to its 3,500 catalogued online resources!

Info: Remote access for schools to university science labs

UniSchooLabS provides schools with an online toolkit for accessing high quality university science laboratories remotely and creating inquiry-based learning activities for pupils. The project aims at improving the quality of science education in Europe and you will shortly be able to access the UniSchooLabS online community.

Event: Italy holds the 5th International Earth Science Olympiades

From 5-14 September the International Earth Science Olympiade (IESO) will be held in Modena, Italy. Each participating country will be sending two to four candidates, from 18 years onwards. The programme of the event is rather vast: including geology, geophysics, meteorology, oceanography, terrestrial astronomy and environmental sciences..

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