1. Why should schools get involved in eTwinning?

The main aim of eTwinning is to push the borders of learning and teaching further. I believe that it will help schools to understand the importance of the good use of ICT for pedagogical purposes, and especially to appreciate the impact of collaborating with partners from other European countries.
Teachers will be able to engage their students in activities they could never think of a couple of years ago. We hope that the eTwinning experience will be a decisive step for young Europeans to get to know each other better thanks to the educational potential of the new technologies

2. How will eTwinning change European schools?

In my opinion, it will motivate schools to make changes. If heads, teachers or school librarians share their ideas and problems with other European partners, they may become more open to new opportunities because they see that things at school can work differently and sometimes better in other countries.

3. What are the expected results for schools, teachers, pupils?

The ideal would be to find a life-long partner for each European school, each teacher and each pupil :)
Of course, we should not forget that eTwinning offers possibilities for exchange for other important people at school, such as headmasters and librarians.
We expect that schools will display the results of their collaboration on the eTwinning website, which will give them visibility, but also highlight the linguistic and cultural diversity of our continent.

4. What concretely can be done?

I imagine that for example two teachers, from two different countries, will decide to work on a common project. The eTwinning site will give them tools to prepare and share lesson plans and Internet resources, to ask for pedagogical and methodological help and to display final products of their work. There will also be space provided for pupils, where they will be able to chat and swap information on the topic. This project is particular as it aims at the whole school twinning, which is why there will be help and tools for headteachers and school librarians too.

5. When will the action start?

It starts right now but the full website with all the necessary tools will be launched in January 2005. Until then you can get all the information on the eTwinning website and address all your queries to national (NSS’s in eTwinning language) or to the European (CSS) helpdesks.

6. What will eTwinning achieve that other actions don’t?

As a really large-scaled project, supported by a network of national coordinators (NSS’s) in each European country, it will reach to teachers who are so far afraid of using ICT for international collaboration. We would like to help teachers and the other actors of the action to overcome old barriers and to feel that the eTwinning action is really useful and enriching on both personal and professional level.