![]() The phenomenon that is Early School Leaving is not an easy one to tackle. Since there are many reasons as to why people are deciding to finish school prematurely, a holistic approach is needed to understand how to manage such cases. The new edition of the course “Preventing conflicts and tackling Early School Leaving” took place in Tenerife from 20/03/2022 to 26/03/2022. The participants came from all across Europe, with Bjork Erlendsdottir, Hildur Halla Gylfadottir, Kristin Linda Kristinsdottir from Menntaskólinn við Sund in Iceland; Roland Weißer, Marvin Morlock, Julia Böhme from Insel-Realschule Pforzheim in Germany; Inge Mersseman, Nele Lefebvre from SKOBO campus CVOSG in Belgium. Early school leaving is a widespread problem across Europe and being in a European context, participants got the chance to explore different perspectives at the national level. On the first day, they focused on defining what Early School Leaving means and on identifying the main risk factors. This allowed the participants to draw and share a realistic picture of their school experience with Early School Leaving, starting from the underlying causes, and finishing with the potential consequences. ![]() What was especially highlighted in our discussion was the importance of connecting with students. An empathetic approach and active listening were the base of every further action, as we continued with the week. The participants went on discovering the conflict management topic. After a little discussion about what is conflict, we moved on to gaining different perspectives. The group could discover that conflict doesn’t have to be a negative thing - quite the opposite. It could be a great opportunity to understand ourselves and the other person. Afterwards the group practised some non-formal activities to reflect the importance of membership and collaboration. Strategies for collaborative work and peer-education were analysed. The group focused then on how to battle negativity in the classroom. We analysed different conflict management styles and discussed their concrete application in different situations. Then the group defined and characterised the main “negative” student types and developed practical tips and suggestions on how to deal with them in the most effective ways. The participants engaged in a team challenge that allowed them to learn how to foster a mindset of growth in our students, moving away from having a fixed approach. In the end, we analysed the phenomenon of bullying. Through group reflection, the participants were able to bring structure the phenomenon, and come up with practical solutions and strategies on how to deal with bullying and how to prevent it in the first place. ![]() The key word of this week training course was “transformation”: we learned how to change perspective on conflicts, how to transform the strong and sometimes negative energy of some students into something positive and productive, how to change our mindset from fixed to growth, how to transform a group of people into a team. Discover more about this course in: https://www.erasmustrainingcourses.com/early-school-leaving.html There is a great and effective way to discover in a safe, friendly and supportive environment the best apps, web solutions and social platforms for teaching and student learning. We have been proving it together with five participants from Poland, Spain and Slovenia during our New Technologies and E-learning course which took place in Palermo from the 13th to 19th of March. We did a lot of digital steps and deepened ICT and e-learning knowledge. At first, we discovered Jamboard, a virtual whiteboard for interactive lessons and presentations where students can take part as well, then we were moving towards Powtoon: an extremely engaging visual communication platform that gives you the freedom to create professional and fully customized videos. Our participants made their creative videos using unique templates, scenes, images and music. They also had a chance to edit the photos we’ve taken during the city tour with the help of Snapseed photo editor and create a collage with PicCollage. It was a really nice moment of collecting the memories from sunny Sicily. Participants were really excited by Mentimeter as they could participate in an interactive presentation-quiz on Palermo and its history and thus gain students’ perspective. Then, they tried to create their own presentations with tasks about the cities, where they live and make us participate too:) It was a great experience as we exchanged cultures and found out many new things! Our trainees appreciated Socrative a lot: it gives them an opportunity to make various quizzes, monitor and evaluate the process and get immediate feedback. It’s worth mentioning that we had much fun exploring Bamboozle app for creating classroom games and Quizlet for interactive flashcards and quizzes. We were refreshing our knowledge in school subjects such as Math, Biology and English, but the game was not fair enough as there were three Math teachers involved:) These applications are perfect for increasing competition spirit and teaching in a new interactive way! We learned how to create posters and presentations in Canva, that has become rather common among teachers for a simple reason that it allows them to create the contents easily, and how to create “visual scenes” on Thinglink. On the other side, Edpuzzle and TedEd showed us how to create beautiful and interactive materials using ready-to-use Youtube or TED videos. Last but not least, Edmodo showed us how to deal with “classroom management” in and easy and engaging way. Besides course activities, our participants also enjoyed two city tours around multicultural and chaotic, but charming Palermo, its narrow ancient streets, mix of styles and shapes, local authentic markets and stunning seaside in Mondello. Moreover, we have visited Monreale cathedral with the biggest and the most impressive golden mosaics in Italy. It was totally a blast! Looking forward to seeing you again! More info on the course “Discover the best apps and tools for E-learning, Distance learning and Web Design” at the link: https://www.erasmustrainingcourses.com/diversity-and-intercultural-learning-in-the-classroom.html and of the course “Making the most of new technologies, apps and social media in the classroom” at the link https://www.erasmustrainingcourses.com/social-media-in-the-classroom.html. Migrations have been increasing during this century. The consequence: a mix of different cultures, traditions, and individuals all over the globe. In order to support the exchange of ideas and communication between cultures, intercultural and diversity education gives teachers the keys to make the most of intercultural encounters. How can we promote and celebrate cultural diversity in the classroom, transforming a multicultural classroom into a classroom that is welcoming and inclusive for all diversities?Teacher from all over Europe have been working towards shaping their answer to this question. The course “Intercultural learning and cultural diversity in the classroom” from 20/02/2022 to 26/02/2022 was planned to reach the needs of our participants ofshaping a welcoming and inclusive environment for all diversities. First, we started debating about key concepts of intercultural learning. Participants explored the differences between “multicultural, “cross-cultural” and “intercultural” concepts. The reason? To create an understanding of concepts to be more aware of intercultural phenomena.
We investigated the concept of identity as a first stepto go deep into diversity. From a visual activity, our participants thought about their own identity and the relation that identity has with culture. We discussed how reflective and visual activities can increase awareness of, respect and openness to diversity.
The last topic we worked on was inclusion. First, participants have been involved in simulation activities to acknowledge and discuss about the challenges of intercultural communication. The activities can help students questioning common assumptions while thinking about finding connections among different cultures. The second concept we investigated as a pillar for inclusion was empathy. Activities were proposed with the goal of recognizing the importance of every student of the class, their needs and diversities to make the most of each students’ potentials. Empathy linked with membership can bring about radical changes in the classroom to make everyone feeling respected end empowered. More info on the course “Intercultural learning and cultural diversity in the classroom” at this link: https://www.erasmustrainingcourses.com/diversity-and-intercultural-learning-in-the-classroom.html
How to engage your students into the process of education motivating and entertaining them at the same time? How to create engaging and interactive content using the best apps, web platforms and ICT solutions? How to create a website or blog? We have been answering these relevant questions at out Integrating ICT and new technologies into teaching and education course which lasted from the 26th of February till the 3rd of March. Together with 9 teachers from Estonia we were exploring a vast range of ICT tools and exchanging ideas on how to make a learning process more productive and interactive. ![]() We have started our journey from a tool which can help to conduct and manage an online lesson, thus we dived into the world of virtual whiteboard (Google Jamboard) to create engaging and captivating distance classes and collaborative learning experiences. Then we moved to the Powtoon app which teachers found very useful for grammar presentations and to outline and recap contents of the lesson. Mentimeter was appreciated for its effectivenesss to engage students and ask feedback during the lesson. We also explored some tools for video-editing, like Magisto, which is perfect for the creation of multimedia material. Ed Puzzle, showed his usefulness to assign homework and autonomous work after school, especially thanks to the functions that the application offers to create a video lesson adding questions and discussion prompts. Weebly is a web platform that allows you to easily customise web page designs through useful tools. The educational staff learned how to create their own engaging website, practising with the different tools that the platform offers. We created one common website dedicated to our course which teachers are going to present at their next school reunion. Our participants appreciated gamification and quiz apps like Bamboozle, Socrative and Quizlet a lot. They were extremely enthusiastic about creating their quizzes and games for the subjects they teach and they were also eager to compete and try their “fresh” creations with the colleagues fighting in teams, thus we’ve also increased competitive spirit! In fact, they discovered that some tools are perfect to wrap up lessons, to personalise learning, to assess in a formal and informal way, to break up lessons and make them more engaging, or to challenge students to produce something for the class! Teachers shared with us a lot of additional ideas on how to diversify classroom activities and shared with us their own Estonian education platform which is used nationally and seems to be really beneficial and easy-to-use. We were delighted to show our participants magnificent and multifaceted Palermo with its hidden treasures and mysteries, taste traditional Sicilian cuisine and go to a truly magical Monreale Cathedral where they could feel powerful energy and harmony! Everyone was happy and willing to apply for the next ELA course!:) More info on this course at: https://www.erasmustrainingcourses.com/integrating-ict-into-teaching-and-training.html
We came to live in a time where teachers and mentors are required to switch to a completely different way of teaching, just like that. We realize that transporting material online exactly the way it was taught in class is almost impossible. That’s why we make sure our participants get familiar with some handpicked apps and programs to help them make more engaging content. In the first week of March we had the pleasure to host teachers from Spain, Portugal, Czech Republic, and Germany. After establishing our expectations, everyone was eager to get started with the ICT course! The first thing we thought of was how to grade students and check their knowledge, so we started with quizzes. The group made some great quizzes, and they even had the chance to feel like students when our trainer tested them on their knowledge of Bologna. Simultaneously, we were learning how to present material in a more creative way with Canva and Jamboard. The participants could learn how to use Jamboard as a team, and explore its interactive boundaries. In Canva, our teachers made interesting presentations and really discovered everything this website has to offer. Other than that, the group learned how to edit their own videos, how to make a virtual classroom, and how to communicate through an app like Padlet. On Thursday we decided to explore the Actionbound app - first, our teachers took part in a scavenger hunt in the city center, and when they got back, we showed them how to create such city games themselves. ![]() In between our intense classes, the group got to explore the beautiful city of Bologna and its surrounding towns. This not only gave them a glimpse into Italian culture, but also helped us during class - this is how they gained knowledge of Bologna for the quiz, and how we could take them along for our city game. This course is not only good for learning about creative ways to teach online, but it also helps the teacher to gain perspective of the student in the classroom environment. Our participants left the training with a lot of tools that we’re sure they’re going to put to good use! Ciao, hope to see you again! This week ELA hosted one of the most powerful courses for the new generations of students. Participants from Hungary, Iceland and Belgium were attending the course “Teaching languages in the digital era: the best apps, web platforms and ICT solutions for learning languages” in Bologna. These 7 language teachers from different countries, were discussing from the beginning of the course the needs of their, and they were looking for the bests tools to make the most of them for their classes. Their main expectation form the course was to explore websites and learning apps to promote students’ motivation and participation in the language class. In order to learn how to create a visual whiteboards and get the attention of the students in their lessons, they explored Google Jamboard. Working with this tool, they were able to create a presentation about theirselves in a digital way. Talking about creation of multimedia or videos, we tested some different tools and discussed about the benefits of each one. We started with Powtoon: teachers found it extremely engaging for creating grammar presentations and videos to recap the content. Instead using Canva we agreed that it is a user-friendly interface to create the best worksheet and explainer videos in a easy way. In the following days, the course was focused in useful platforms to start using game-based learning in language classes. We are talking about Quizlet. Quizlet was the most valuated tool according to our students for making use of flashcards and to practice vocabulary and grammar. Nowadays, tools for creating online classes are very handy. Then we explored Ed-puzzle which is a tool that allow teachers to turn videos into real listening comprehension tasks. Students created their own video, editing it with many different options as adding notes, questions, discussion prompts… ![]() In order not to spend too much time in the classroom we wanted to propose a fun activity with the participants to congratulate them for their hard work. We planned a treasure hunt in the city centre of Bologna. In this way we got participant´s attention and motivation to do an activity to learn about curiosities and historical information of Bologna. For this activity, we used Action Bound which is a tool that help teacher to create an interactive activity for their students when doing a day trip. Other useful web platforms which we were working with were Socrative to test students and get immediate feedback from them and Mentimiter for brainstorming vocabulary and for creating interactive presentations. The main reflexion after the course when discussing about these tools, was the idea of getting students attention in a visual, controlled and adapted version of education for the new generations needs. Tools like these are a great way to engage the students in the contents of the lessons and creating effective teaching methods. |
Welcome to the ELA Blog. Here you will find articles and photos of our courses and have a look at the topics addressed during the week in Bologna, Palermo and Tenerife. You will also have the chance to take a peek at our projects and check out what we have been up to.
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