Bridging INSULA EUROPAE

Enhancing Pupils’ Motivation by Developing a European

Dimension of Learning and the Use of ICT

Guidelines for the experimentation

Bridging Insula Europae

Enhancing Pupils Motivation by Developing European Dimension of Learning and the Use of ICT
134214-LLP-1-2007-1-IT-COMENIUS-CMP
Grant Agreement 2007-3435/001-001
This project has been funded with support from the European Commission.
This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which
may be made of the information contained therein
1. Introduction

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Starting from the experience of the Insula Europae project, Bridging_EI intends to :

• Encourage European teachers to use a new teaching method based on Active

Learning. This would increase the quality of both teaching and learning in class by
involving the participants in a European environment.
• Involve students in a new learning process that would increase the value of their
work and in turn make them more responsible of what and how they study.
• Define a way to positively exploit new technologies as learning and teaching tools.
• Find a methodology for the use of TICs that can be economically and
technologically sustainable for European schools.
• Develop a teaching method for a European culture of tolerance in school curricula
and increase a European civic conscience.

Following research on Active Learning (AL), in particular on Learning by Doing

and Cooperative learning the project has created a learning Environment based on
TICs for the use of the Open Distance Learning (ODL) method.

This step concentrates on the experimentation of the teaching method identified in

the previous steps. The main feature of the project is that learners will be active and
involved in the “building” of the curricula that the project aims to develop:

a. Being Europeans means (Experiences on European Civic Education)

b. Being Europeans reminds (Experiences on European Integration History)
c. Being Europeans tells (Experiences on European Literature and Culture)

Students will develop the content of the curricula by describing their national identity.
The activities will be carried out in an on-line environment and students will be free to
cooperate with their European colleagues and choose the tools (videos, presentations,
photos …) for their work.

At the end of the project all activities will be stored and presented in a “Virtual
exhibition of images” and a “Short film”.

The partners of this project are:

• Euneos Oy (Finland)
• Opetusalan Opeko - National Centre for Professional Development in Education
(Finland)
• Centre for Educational Initiatives Association – CEI (Bulgaria)
• Department of Information and In-Service Training of Teachers – DIUU (Bulgaria)
• Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia – SSIS Veneto (Italy)
• IMCS Intercollege Ltd – (Cyprus)
• Spanish Confederation for Educational Centers – CECE (Spain)
• Technical Railways Transports High School (Romania)
• Casa Corpului Didactic Iaşi - Teacher Training Centre (Romania)
• Mid Sweden University, Department of Educational Sciences (Sweden)

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2. The Learning Environment

It is based on a Moodle platform, engineered and personalised on the Bridging Insula

Europae specifications.
Moodle is a Course Management System (CMS), also known as Learning Management
System (LMS) or Virtual Learning Environment (VLE).
It is available on the Web and teachers can use it to create online learning
environments.

Access:
Through the web page www.era-edu.com/bridgingie
or from the project’s website www.http://www.edu-projects.eu/BridgingIe/index.asp,
and by clicking on “Bridging Learning Environment”, the platform for the
experimentation opens (see picture below).

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Enter username and password and click on “login” to visualise all the courses.

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3. The structure

The platform is structured in three paths (one for each curriculum)

Being Europeans means (Experiences on European Civic Education)

Being Europeans reminds (Experiences on European Integration History)
Being Europeans tells (Experiences on European Literature and Culture)

In each path teachers and students will find:

A ‘building room’:

This is a section common to all paths.

Here teachers and students will learn how to use the wide range of tools available to
interaction (social networks, blogs etc) and acquire a better knowledge of the
functions and usefulness applied to teaching and learning.
The aim is to overcome digital barriers and create personalised work environments
through the tools available on the web. This will help to learn how to use computer
technologies to teach, communicate and build a learning environment.
Teachers and students will define the open source tools, analyse them and share their
use. Teachers will familiarise with the use of web based learning tools by direct
experimentation aimed at building their own learning environment. Students will
analyse together with their colleagues and their teachers the tools available on the
Web.

At the end of this exchange of knowledge and competences a short report on the
results achieved will be published.

The above activities will be carried out with a teacher.

Time: 2 hours of group work.

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The following are some of the tools available on the platform:

• Gym Wiki
Students can browse the Web for information regarding all tools available to build
their curricula. A wikipage is a webpage in which each class can carry out joint
building operations with the browser with no knowledge of HTML processes.
A wikipage opens with a fist page and each contributor can add further pages by
creating a link with a page that does not yet exist.
This is a quick method to create a group content. Usually no one is in control of the
final content but the whole community writes, creates and develops it.
The class can therefore create its own product or alternatively each student can
produce his/her own wikipage and work together with teachers and colleagues.

• Gym Glossary – Language of the Web

This activity allows participants to draw up a list of definitions, like a kind of dictionary
that can be prepared by the students during their search for tools and for new terms
regarding the web and open source tools to be found in it.
Students will meet with unfamiliar terms, therefore this type of glossary may be
useful to build up the spirit of cooperation in a group since each member can be
assigned the task of finding a term, contribute to the search for a definition or
comment.
Multiple definitions can be classified by the teacher and the students, and those
considered more appropriate will be included in the final glossary.
The purpose is to make students feel responsible for creating the definitions and also
to feel more involved in the process which in turn will help to remember the terms and
their correct definition.

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 • Gym Chat
This model allows the participants to have synchronous debates in the Web in real
time.
It is an excellent way to acquire a different level of understanding of each other and of
the subject of debate.
The way a chat room is used is quite different from that of asynchronous forums.
Students and teachers can debate and exchange links and opinions on the tools
available in the Web and on how to structure the sections regarding the drawing up of
the curricula.

• Gym Forum
This activity can give a significant contribution to successful communications and to
the building of an online community.
A Report with the results of the activity will follow.
This will include the research carried out by the students and teacher on the open
source tools and their use in preparing the curricula as well as data and
methodologies for the use of the Moodle platform.

The studying room

This is a space in which students, under the teacher’s coordination, will develop the
planned activities contributing to define the three curricula

The sharing room

During the learning process, this space will be used by the students to exchange the
experiences and competences they have acquired with their foreign colleagues
involved in the project.

There will be an animator. His/her task will be to supply indications, check on the work
in progress and assist students and teachers.
Furthermore, when necessary, the teacher may ask the animator for additional help
during the students’ activities.
The coordinator will also create an international animation available in order to verify
and control the work carried out in other countries.

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4. The Studying Room: planned activities

Being Europeans means (Experiences on European Civic Education)

Task 1. What do I know about my country Europe

The teacher, after a brief explanation and a debate with the students, will verify their
knowledge of the structure of the European Union, its purposes and main objectives.

A teacher will be present and the work will take 1 hour.

Activities:

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Questionnaire: ”What do I know about my country Europe”

20 questions (e.g. on festivities and symbols linked to European identity) to test the
students’ knowledge on the topic.
The teacher will then carry out tests on the basis of a series of different questions,
some with multiple choice answers, true/false answers or short answers.

Starting from the curricula of the Insula Europae project (the relevant courseware
will be available for teachers and students) students will be actively involved in the
definition of the consents.

After having verified their level of knowledge students will have some useful tools to
continue examining the other ones available on the Web.

Teacher’s Speech:
The teacher’s explanation will help to integrate or examine the courseware contents.
The teacher will be able to supply the students with a resume on which they can refer
to to build the curricula.
The students will take active part to the definition of the contents through the use of
the following tools:

RESOURCES

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‘European Union Wikipedia’:
teacher and students will find further information and a detailed description of the
subject they are studying. In this way they will know more about the materials, links
and information available on the Web.

‘Glossary – Being European Citizen’:

the purpose is to create a list of definitions linked to the European Union and
European Citizenship.
Students can be actors by searching for and giving a meaning to new terms regarding
Europe’s structure and objectives. They will also have the opportunity to create their
own glossary when meeting with unfamiliar terms. Each member of the class can
contribute to find a definition.

‘Wiki Europe’:
A wikipage can be considered a structured table of contends organised through its
own links.
Students can, as a joint effort, find in the Web all the information related to the EU as
well as data and documents on the main characteristics of the Union itself, its
structure, its main representatives and how it operates.
The purpose is to create a wikipage in which each student can give his/her
contribution by adding other pages by simply creating a link to the already existing
material.
The result should be the development of contents by a group of students.
The whole class can create a joint page or have his/her own wikipage and work on it
with teachers and colleagues.

Task 2. “Traces” of Europe in my town (persons who know something,

flags, documents)

Teachers and students together will develop a table of useful indications to direct the
research.
Students will find emblems and symbols identifying Europe in their country or in their
home town. The purpose is not that of carrying out a generic research on Europe but
rather finding and discovering elements closely linked to the EU and understand their
importance and their history.
Students working in groups and following a conceptual map will describe the results
achieved in their search for ”Traces of the European Union” in their home town.
They can add multimedia products to their work (e.g. images showing the European
flag, pointing out where and on which buildings it is flying, MP3 files with the
European anthem; files with interviews to fellow citizens who can contribute to the
understanding of the European Union, e.g. the impact the introduction of a common
currency has had on the country’ economy …).
This type of activity will be carried out in groups, with the teacher’s coordination
and in the students’ free time.

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Time: 3 hours

The platform

Assignment

‘Conceptual Map’: the student and the teacher will develop together a conceptual
map showing the work to be carried out in the following step. Students can therefore
discover useful elements for their activity and produce a meaningful and well
distributed research.
Each student will develop his/her own product, an own “map” which will include the
results of the work and add MP3 files, videos and images. All these products will be
described following the studies carried out in the previous step and on the basis of the
teacher’s explanations.
(see index Group 0)

Resources

These are the most important tools provided by the platform. Each tool refers to a link
to a web page dedicated to the project containing a series of very versatile tools which
the student will find useful for the search of materials (e.g. photos, files, audio
interviews, videos …)

An image and video hosting website and online community platform for users to share
personal photographs and images.

This is a photo slideshow maker to create slide shows with photos. Music and effects
can be added.

This is a video sharing website where the students can upload, view and share video
clips related to the theme of the conceptual map.

Search engine to find data and documents on the Web.

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This is a is a free, multilingual encyclopedia created by web users. Its like a traditional
encyclopaedia and a state of the art dictionary. Its purpose is to create and distribute
an encyclopaedia that is free and rich in content.

Task 3. What the EU does and what Member States do

Students, working in groups under the coordination of a teacher, will develop a

conceptual map showing the data collected during their research, describing briefly
the meaning of each of them. In order to carry out this part of the research the
guidelines for the map must be defined to be able to find useful elements to explain
the topics singled out within the area.

Student will carry out a study and research based on a wider spectrum than in the
previous step which was more focused on their own home town or native country.
In this case it will be more appropriate to think about how to find the information and
how to pass it on to a tourist who would like to know more about this “country”.
Therefore, students must find, just as a tourist would do, key data on the EU in order
to understand more about the country they are interested in.

The class will examine, with help from the teacher, one specific topic that can explain
the relationship between the EU and its Member States (e.g. economy and currency,
agriculture and environment, justice, freedom and security ..)

Output:: at the end of this phase the output will be a sort of Tourist Guide compiled
through the use of tools found in the platform.
The basic subject will be the one previously chosen and the Guide could be enriched
with a kind of Virtual Journey (created with Web tools – see in the ‘mapwing’
Platform).

Activity carried out by the students in their free time. 3 hours.

Activity carried out with the teacher: 2 hours (at school).

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 Being Europeans reminds…
(Experiences on European Integration History)

Task 1. Some main points about the history of the EU

The teacher after a brief explanation, a debate and an opinion sharing session with
the students will assess their knowledge on the history of the European Union, its
constitution and development up to the present.

This activity requires the presence of a teacher.

Time: 1 hour

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The activities will be the same as for the other curricula (see page 10), that is: one
questionnaire to assess the student’s level of understanding about the topic and to
examine the theme through the use of web tools.

A courseware on the theme developed in the Insula Europae project will also be
available for this curriculum.

Teacher’s Speech:
The teacher’s explanation will integrate and widen the courseware content and allow
students to synthesise the material they will be using to build the curriculum.
The students will also be involved in defining the contents by using the following tools:

‘History of Europe - Wikipedia’:

teacher and students will find a detailed description of the History of the EU and
collect information on the topic they are studying.

‘Glossary –European Integration History’:

its purpose is to create a list of definitions related to the history of the EU and to the
entry of the new countries up to today.

‘Wiki – Europe’s History’:

students can browse the web for all the information about European history. The can
also define data and documentation on the main steps of the birth of the Union and its
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development.

Task 2. “Traces” of Europe in your personal history and in the history

of your Country

With the students, the teacher will develop a scheme containing useful indications to
direct their research activities. Based on those indications they will find emblems and
symbols marking the history of Europe. The purpose is a research on Europe from the
viewpoint of its historical development in connection with the history and the evolution
of one’s own country.

Therefore, students must find elements of precise significance with the European
history.
They will work in groups following the teacher’s directions, and on the basis of the
indications given by the conceptual map will describe the results achieved in their
respective native countries.
They will also be required to look for, find or create multimedia products briefly
describing their significance in connection with the initial theme (e.g. photos of
monuments or of historical events, videos etc.)

This activity will be carried out in their free time.

Time: 3 hours.

In the platform:

Assignment

‘Conceptual Map’: students and teachers will create a conceptual scheme giving
indications on the theme to be developed in the following step.
Students can therefore follow the instructions to discover useful elements to create
their own work in this way giving meaning and distribution to their research.
Each student will develop his/her own product, an own “map” to which elements from
the research work will be added.
They can add MP3 files, videos and images that describe these elements on the basis
of what has been learnt from the teacher’s explanation and from the study done in the
previous step (see index group 0).

The aim is to find emblems and symbols of some significance in European history and
in the history of one’s own country trying to understand and explain their meaning in
connection with the latter and therefore find and understand the relationship between
European history and integration and national history.
Students can for instance collect images of monuments and events describing them
on the basis of what they have previously learnt.

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Resources

As for the other curricula, the platform will supply a series of tools for the
development and integration of the elements in the conceptual map.

Task 3. Heroes in my Country, European personalities

As in the previous phase, this part of the research will define a series of guidelines to
create a map including elements useful to better explain and determine the topics
within the “My national heroes, European personalities” area.
Students, working as a group under the teacher’s coordination, will produce a
conceptual map describing the research methods adopted and adding some further
elements and describing their significance.
These elements will be related to historical figures whose lives and actions are linked
to the building of the EU. Students will explain their meaning and importance in their
national as well as European History.

Time: 3 hours (in their free time)

2 hours (at school)

In this case, students can be better directed in their research work considering the
wider range of action allowed after the previous step more focused on their home
town.

Output: the end result could be a Photo Album created by the students 8including
descriptions, captions, MP3 files …)

Time: 3 hours (in their free time)

2 hours (at schools)

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 Being Europeans tells (Experiences on European Literature and
Culture)

Task 1. What do I know about EU Literature and Culture

In this section the teacher verifies the students’ knowledge of European literature an
culture.

The activities will be carried out with the help of a teacher.

Time: 1 hour.

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The activities will be the same as for the other curricula, that is: one questionnaire to
assess the student’s level of understanding about the topic and to examine the theme
through the use of web tools.

A courseware on the theme developed in the Insula Europae project will also be
available for this curriculum.

After the in-depth study of the subject (including the Teacher’s Speech) the student
will be able to use more tools to continue their work.

RESOURCES

‘European literature - Wikipedia’:

here students and teachers will find a detailed description of the topic they are
studying, links and additional information.

‘Glossary – European culture’:

the aim is to build a list of definitions linked to European culture and literature.
Students will have an active role in finding and defining terms regarding both
European culture and literature. The information can come from their own country or
from other countries that have contributed to the development of today’s Europe.

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Wiki – Europe
Here students will be able to find information about European writers and figures
whose lives and works have contributed to the development of a European culture.
Through Wiki – Europe they will be able to work together.

Task 2. “Traces” of the EU culture and literature in your personal

experience

With the information supplied by the teacher students will carry out their own
research. They will find those specific elements (in music, cinema, literature, TV …)
that testimony the presence of Europe. All the new information acquired will be added
to the map with a brief description of each element and its significance.

This activity will be carried out by the students in their free time.
Time: 3 hours.

In the platform:

Assignment

‘Conceptual Map’:

Students and teachers will build a conceptual map showing indications on the topic
that will be developed in the following step and adding the elements of research and
the work carried out by the students.
These elements will be important personalities found in music, cinema, literature etc.
who through their works identify European culture and literature.
Students can add to the map MP3 files, videos, images.
(see index Group 0)

Resources

As for the other curricula, here will be several tools to choose from to continue
building the conceptual map.

Task 3. Finding personalities that in your opinion represent European

literature and culture

Students will work together with the help of the teacher and present the conceptual
map they have created as well as the research methodology they have used and the
various elements that compose the map.

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In this way they will create a sort of guideline to explain the topics listed in this task.

The elements that build the conceptual map will be historical figures whose lives and
actions are linked to both European culture and literature and their importance for
their country and for Europe itself.

Output: a “Free E-Book” where students can write their personal book using tools
such as Youtube, Wikipedia, Flickr, adding links, images form Google Images etc.

This activity will be carried out (in their free time).

Time: 3 hours
2 hours (at school – coordination and explanation of material).

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 5. The Sharing room: Four themes to think about European identity

This section shows the students four themes to make them think about what being a
European citizen means.
The results will be shared among the students of the other participating countries.

There will be a national animator that will supply indications, check the work carried
out and help both students and teachers.

The activities planed for this section will be carried out alongside the curricula and the
whole work will take 8 weeks:

1-2 week

First theme: Us, Europeans

Students, with the coordination of the teacher, will have to describe their
school and their class and what they usually do in their free time.

Topics:
As we are
Our school
Our class
We, out of school (what we do just for fun)

Suggested output: Facebook, a social networking in which students could talk

and exchange information.

3-4 week
Second theme: My place, Europe

Students, with the coordination of the teacher, describe their own country,
region and town in order to give a general description of the country they live
in in a European perspective.

Topics:
-Our country
- Our region
- Our town

Suggested output: a Blog in which students could add information they have
gathered.
5-6 WEEK
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Third theme: Being young Europeans

Students, with the coordination of the teacher, will have to explain what being
a European citizen means through the use of music, films, books …

Books
Movies
Cartoons & Strips

Suggested output: a product that could be a Web TV in which students could

add and share information

7-8 WEEK

Fourth theme: European new society

The students, with the coordination of the teacher, will describe the problems
and issues today’s society in order to have an additional tool to better
understand what is Europe today.

Topics:
The problems as young citizens
Crime and safety at school
Addictions
Family relationships
How we meet friends

Suggested output: a product that could be a News Magazine.

This section will be in English (a simplified version of the language through images
signs and symbols …).

A meaningful and exemplifying motto could be:

“Leave the Kids Alone!”
Students will be free to elaborate concepts, carry out their own work and produce
results. The teacher is just a guide and supplies inputs and indications.

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