Etwinning Seminar

Etwinning Seminar

Azerbaijan 21st-23rd November 2014

It is not  very often as a teacher that you get the opportunity to travel far for professional development.  The chance to go to Azerbaijan to meet teachers new to etwinning looking for partners for history and geography projects was hugely exciting.

After a five hour flight we arrived in Baku, followed closely by the french etwinning delegation.  Fortunately, our hosts had organised travel to the hotel, which was a fantastic hotel!  The seminar didn't officially begin until the next morning so we had a chance to get to know some of the French and German teachers who had arrived.

The following morning we were transported to the venue for the next few days seminar.  We were greeted by about 50 very enthusiastic Azerbaijani teachers all of whom were relatively new to etwinning.  The program of events introduced teachers to the new twinspace, provided clear guidelines for developing etwinning projects, demonstrated the ways in which web tools could be integrated into the new twinspace and provided plenty of opportunity for partner finding and project planning.

The enthusiasm of the Azerbaijani teachers at working with UK, French and German teachers made partner finding easy.  However, this keenest was at times hard as the UK, French and German delegations did not have enough teachers for the number of Azerbaijani teachers.  Therefore, if you are looking to begin an etwinning project and would like an etwinning plus partnership there are plenty of teachers looking for European partners.

As etwinning is relatively new to Azerbaijan it was great to see the teachers learning to use the twinspace and try out other web tools such as padlet.  It was also good to see that by the end of the seminar when teachers presented their project ideas they were incorporating what they had learnt from the seminar.  

Visiting Baku's sights by both day and night was fascinating, it is clear that it is a city that has rapidly expanded but fortunately we were able to see some of the old town whilst exploring.  The Azerbaijanis were incredibly proud of their country, customs and traditions.  I am really looking forward to working partnership with the teachers  I met. I am sure that having had the amazing opportunity of actually visiting the country this can only strengthen our project as I certainly got to know a little more about my partners than I would have done if it had all been virtual.   

As with all etwinning events I am always impressed by the support and dedication that the NSS provides the etwinner's with.