eTwinning offers them a wide variety of opportunities to exchange ideas with colleagues, to cooperate and to develop projects. The OeAD coordinates eTwinning for all Austrian schools and issues an annual call for applications for the National eTwinning Award and the National eTwinning Quality Label.
Roswitha Zeger won the National eTwinning Award 2020 and the special award for the best climate project for the primary school am Tabor in Neusiedl/See (Burgenland). As an eTwinner from the very beginning – she has worked in eTwinning projects since 1999 – we asked her for her tips and tricks.
You have to do it from your heart and be convinced of the project content. The primary school children especially feel this. You have to grab the “little ones” by their emotions and show them how the project content relates to their everyday lives. They have to understand it. It is also very important to get the support of the parents and to make it clear to them that despite the project work the subject matter will not be neglected.
The children particularly enjoyed our visits to the farmers’ market and the supermarket. There they were allowed to interview the farmers and taste their products. At the supermarket they were asked to choose seasonal and local food products with the smallest possible ecological footprint. These activities, which they did as a team, made them feel very “grown-up”. In class they cooked simple dishes with it. The excursions to the various food producers also excited the children.
One aspect of this project was to keep their own footprint as small as possible. At the parents’ evening in the second year of the project the parents told me what they were learning themselves and how great they thought it was what their children knew but that it was so exhausting and nerve-racking to go shopping with them because they had to constantly pay attention to the countries of origin of the individual products. That's when I thought to myself “Yes, it has got to them”.
eTwinning is coordinated for Austria by the OeAD as the national agency for Erasmus+ Education.
You can find out all about eTwinning here: www.etwinning.at
Primary School am Tabor: www.vsamtabor.at
Author: Frederic Bayersburg, in conversation with Roswitha Zeger/Primary School am Tabor
Photo copyright: VS am Tabor