Tools for Thought – May the WEB be with you Erasmus Project

Project Title

Tools for Thought – May the WEB be with you

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for Schools Only

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Open and distance learning; ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Teaching and learning of foreign languages

Project Summary

“Tools for thought. May the Web with you” was a European two-year project (2017-2019) with Poland, Cyprus, England, Italy and Portugal as partners.The theoretical part of the project was based on the acquisition of knowledge about technological Tools in the teaching field, while the practical one regarding experimentation and discussion, was the core of the entire work.
We believed that modern technologies not only make lessons more attractive but thanks to their varied forms of reference they enhance the effectiveness of acquiring the material to be learned. They accelerate the knowledge process by adjusting the messages conveyed to the students enhancing their level of perception. Nowadays, personalized lessons and techniques are used as essential tools in rendering the learning experience more interesting and useful. Our project made it possible to reach all types of learners – those who prefer to study from a given text, from messages on the screen, to talking and listening to someone. The course-book was necessary to put the material in order but extra activities done along with the process of acquisition made it more understandable, memorable and effective.
The tools offered on the web not only allowed for revising, testing students’ abilities but also made it possible for the teachers to easily and almost instantly get feedback about the effectiveness. It was crucial that schools offered students the possibility of being the active beneficiaries of these methods and not the simple passive users. And this has been the first important achievement of this project. Selecting the method might be beneficial in all the stages of learning, at school to acquire and at home to revise; most of all, in one’s free time, during on-line meetings with peers from partner countries.The school of tomorrow should take into account the fact that old-fashioned learning might be beneficial for only a limited group of students.The work has involved all kinds of subjects (interdisciplinary). The choices made by teachers and students involved, freely for each partner country were based on the different subjects of teaching of participant teachers, the different kinds of school syllabuses and the different ages of the students. All these are our project’s concrete results and achievements.
For what concerns the original objectives, we met mainly these:
promoting positive attitude towards school and education
developing innovative strategies and educational methods in problem solving activities
enabling students to discover strategies of effective time management
enhancing teachers and students’ digital competencies
improving pedagogical approach by providing high quality educational material
integrating ICT in teaching processes,
developing practical skills in students while teaching
raising awareness their national languages, history, geography and culture
promoting collaborative teaching,
developing social and self-presentation skills,
exchanging best practices.
If we want to keep up with the pace of life of our students we must try to at least speak their language, in this case the language of modern technologies. Working within international groups meant creating real-life situations in which using a foreign language is indispensable and unavoidable and most of all, which was noticed by the students and their parents, it brought tremendous changes in the learners from all the partner schools.
New technologies have one more undeniable aspect: they make students ready for self-realization and life-long learning which is very important in our society with its overwhelming progress that seems to require being omniscient. By using them we influenced students’ autonomy which has been underlined as the key factor not only in education but also in real-life existence.This helped the direct participants, but also throughout the school and the local community involved in the dissemination who acquired a positive attitude towards the educational system. Thanks to this self-training process, developing problem-solving strategies in a peer-to-peer laboratory work, with the possibility of presenting their findings to a large community like the European one, good practices were exchanged both between students and teachers. And this is the evident achievement exceeding the initial expectations: all our students work was praiseworthy.
Transnational Meeting – Two meetings took place in Bydgoszcz, Poland. During the first one, which initiated the project, we agreed upon the cooperation, we planned all the activities and designated people responsible for management and dissemination results, we established common framework of work and chose the tools to use them. The last transnational meeting was to make sure we can provide reliable results and write common reports presenting our findings and feedback.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 124700 Eur

Project Coordinator

Zespol Szkol Ogolnoksztalcacych nr 4 w Bydgoszczy & Country: PL

Project Partners

• Paget High School
• Associação Torrejana de Ensino Profissional
• LICEO CLASSICO “TITO LUCREZIO CARO”
• Gymnasio Agias Paraskevis Geroskipou