eTwinning Collaborative Learning Environment in Initial Teacher Education

Abstract

This paper aims to describe the eTwinning Teacher Training Institutes Pilot (TTI)1experiment during academic year 2014/15 with 550 undergraduate students from first and second year of Educational Technologies degree courses. The research was given start with the purpose of preparing tomorrow's teachers for a future where the use of ICT and is in everyday teaching, to promote their digital skills and communication skills, and their use of English as a foreign language within a cross-cultural context. The teaching presence was proved through proper supervision and the emergence of mutual support from 36 tutors and 550 students. The results of the research contributed to our understanding of how an online learning community can offer a significant pedagogical experience in support of teacher training and how it can foster their linguistic and digital skills. eTwinning’s reported impact on teachers’ foreign language skills thanks to its international dimension, as well as teachers’ collaborative skills in working with teachers of other subjects. All four of these skills which teachers most highly rated eTwinning to have impacted (particularly the ability to teach cross-curricular skills and collaborate with teachers of other subjects), can be said to be areas which are particularly well catered for within eTwinning and which teachers otherwise may have difficulty or less opportunity to develop. eTwinning has great potential to improve teachers’ initial training and continuous professional development, fostering lifelong learning at the European level and as national and local level. It is as a professional development network where plenty of opportunities arise for its members to participate in informal dialogue to improve teaching. Establishing and acknowledging eTwinning as a teachers’ professional development network that gives opportunities for a variety of professional development activities could enhance eTwinning’s status among the other professional development activities on offer in all the participating countries. eTwinning help teachers develop individual’s skills, knowledge, expertise and other characteristics as a teacher; is also seen as something that allows up-skilling in areas such as the use of ICT to support teaching, language learning, project management skills and other areas of personal development.