E-Twinning is a platform for staff (teachers, head teachers, librarians, etc.), working in a school in Europe or one of the neighbouring countries involved (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, Tunisia, Ukraine, and Jordan), that allows them to develop and collaborate in projects, communicate,share and be part of the most exciting learning community.

eTwinning promotes project-based learning in a safe environment with the use of information and communication technologies. The collaboration with partner schools in a project is done virtually, in a creative and friendly way. There are established goals and objectives from the start, with a thorough plan and activity timeframes.

Each country has its own „National Support Service” – the agency running the programme and providing assistance (or called „Partner Support Agency” - for the eTwinning Plus countries). In Moldova, eTwinning is run by East-Europe Fundation and it has done so for the last 4 years. During the 2017-2018 school year  Heritage students have been part of two eTwinning projects:
1. Let’s Vlog, with partners from Czech Republic, Italy, Spain, Poland, Bulgaria, Norway, Romania, France, Malta, Turkey, Greece and  Egypt;
2. Heritage Matters, being partners with Romania, Greece, Germany, Belgium,Portugal, Croatia.

Let’s Vlog is a project in which students have discussed their favourite YouTubers, analysed popular videos, learned about e-safety and first of all, they started creating their own videos. They will vlog in English about anything they find interesting - they can talk about their daily lives, their skills and interests, make tutorials etc. They will learn how to promote their work, there will be collaborative tasks and a competition, peer evaluation will be used as well. Besides, teenagers dream of becoming famous. So we will let them experience that. We plan to create a magazine about new YouTube stars (our students) where they will be introduced and interviewed.

Heritage Matters is a project whose aims are: to create strong intercultural relations between partners, to raise awareness of our common heritage and the importance of European values, to build the confidence of our students to speak up for themselves and to speak out against injustice. We tend to help create new citizens with a better understanding of basic values such as equity, respect, tolerance, diversity, among others. As teachers, our goal is not only to teach literacy, but also to help our students become better citizens of the World.

We have had numerous contacts with our partner schools, having discussed various topics – among them the Holocaust and history of the 20th century, education systems and our respective schools, national heroes, monuments, traditions, literature etc. We have done live reading for the World Read Aloud Day, reading ‚Anne Frank Diary’together with other project teams. We inspired our Croatian partner school to create a Mannequin Challenge video, after seeing our own short video. National pride is something to be learned in school, and also here students develop tolerance, show respect towards other people and create nice things collaboratively. eTwinning is just a platform offering necessary tools for doing things together with other schools and never noticing the distance between us.

With our partner school in UK – Wyedean School and Sixth Form Centre – we have had many video conferences on various topics, our students having the possibility to interact with native speakers of English and showing their best as an international school in Moldova.
Thanks to eTwinning, we connected to a school in Helsinki, Finland, later in the year, and our students had the possibility to ask and answer lots of questions regarding the educations system and the school life of Finnish/Moldovan students. What an experience! They are looking forward to chatting again to their European counterparts and find out things that captivate them the most.

Through eTwinning, we extend our wider community to  the whole Europe and not only. We share worldviews, express opinions, share our lifestyle and learn to respect other cultures. With the help of eTwinning we break all barriers and become citizens of the World – a friendly, peaceful and safe place for every student and teacher. And there are still many other interesting projects to come.

Where there’s a will, there is a way.

Tatiana Popa,
eTwinning Ambassador Moldova, EFL Teacher, Heritage International School