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Improving communication skills by connecting safel..
Improving communication skills by connecting safely and with respect
Start date: Sep 1, 2015,
End date: Aug 31, 2017
PROJECT
FINISHED
Education systems must generate new skills, to respond to the knowledge society and the need to improve education attainment. It is crucial to equip people with key competences, including the basic skills: good communication in mother tongue and foreign languages and digital abilities.
Technological change is one reason for the shift towards higher skills. Demand for problem-solving, coding and communication skills has risen.
The project aims to develop the young people’s key competences in communication, mathematics and digital, plus encourage pupils to think about good digital deeds that they can do safely, whilst considering the need for a positive personal online footprint. It is clear in schools that the students engage with the online world at an increasing rate but the face to face contact and verbal discussion is weaker. This work will develop their understanding of speaking a common language and listening and reacting positively to different cultures, therefore improving co-operation and cohesion.
The two schools involved in the partnership have pupils coming from families belonging to a medium-low social economical background. The pupils experience outside the immediate area, the opportunities of travel and knowledge of other cultures are very limited. The pupils unfortunately cannot see the use of modern foreign languages in their limited context, therefore are not motivated to develop language skills. The current economic status of European countries is affecting the employment opportunities of both sets of pupils. The target group for this project will be students 14-16 years old, with 15 from each school being offered the opportunity to travel; whilst many more have access to the resources, lessons and project results. The project will offer a chance to improve their social level and move up the social ladder.
This project will allow pupils to experience the commonality of ICT content across two different schools, whilst developing new computing skills They will experience different teaching strategies and they will use foreign languages in a full immersion context, in concrete situations of learning and of ordinary life. The project will use coding and programming in a foreign language together with role play, alongside the theory in practice. The enhancement of communication skills will be enriched together with the knowledge. The students will be asked to write algorithms in both languages.
The groups of pupils will, hopefully as a result of this project, improve their skills in foreign languages, problem solving, coding, critical thinking and ICT, whilst developing their knowledge of other Education system, culture, habits, communication and e-safety. The staff will improve their professional and languages skills, increase their professional developments and develop skills in the learning/teaching process of foreign languages and ICT.
An important product of the project will be a booklet done by students about how to grow up through positive and constructive results in communication skills, digital competences and e-safety to be use in peer to peer activities. Also the students will generate a portfolio of simple programs and algorithms using coding and foreign languages.
The teachers will disseminate the results of the project during whole school training events, staff meetings and conferences at local, national and international level. At school level, all pupils will engage with the end product, plus the partnership staff will be users of the outcome of the project, at local level and be shared at international level by newsletter or websites. After the two years of the project, we plan to maintain the availability of the open sources in the platforms.