Global collaboration with iTEC cycles 2, 3 & 4

Harald Wilfer, Adil Tugyan and me

As part of iTEC cycles 2, 3 & 4 activities, and taking advantage of the experience of previous cycles, my 10th grade students of SEK-Atlántico International School (Poio - Pontevedra, Spain) have experienced international collaboration.

Harald Wilfer's students blog

On cycle 2 we chose the Learning Story (LS) "Learning in Teams" which contained collaboration as a main goal. As the iTEC official partner in Spain and Germany is SMART Technologies, our National Pedagogic Coordinator, Ainhoa Marcos, made the effort of searching another SEE participating in iTEC with the same LS in Germany. After contacting with Harald Wilfer, Biology teacher at Bertha-von-Suttner-Schule (Mörfelden-Walldorf, Germany) and after agreeing in what we could share as part of our pilots, we programmed the exchange of learning material between our students, in an interdisciplinary way: Maths from Spain and Biology from Germany. Taking into account the programmed development schedule of our respective pilots, this exchange would take place through two different channels: as German students were using blogs as the main tool for their pilot, my
students should share feedback through comments of their posts, while as Spanish students would develop a Notebook 11 presentation, we would share it with our counterpart though Skydrive or

Page of the Spaninsh summary presentation

Dropbox and they should give us feedback through email. Although we tried different solutions, we couldn't finish the project as scheduled due to the different timing of the scholar year on Germany and Spain; despite of this, the overall experience was positively assessed by both partners, as it permitted some profitable contacs between our students and a deeper understanding of our respective educational systems with their similariries and differences.

On cycles 3 and 4, and after meeting at the 3rd iTEC International Teachers Workshop held in Brussels on September 2012, Adil Tugyan, a Turkish EFL teacher, and me thought about stablishing a kind of permanent collaboration program while developing our respective pilots with the same LS ("Redesigning School" on cycle 3 and "Telling a Story" on cycle 4). For that, apart from the use of our school blogs, iTEC platform, Facebook open "iTEC students collaborate" and Youtube channels to share our experiences, we decided to open a Facebook closed group for our students to communicate, share experiences and give feedback to one

Closed Fb group

another. During the last scholar year, a permanent flow of information was exchanged and our students took advantage of that extended expertise. Even although our subjects are completely different (I teach Maths) and our students chose completely different ways of redesigning school and stories to tell, the experience was really useful, and it took us to define a new project inside the eTwinning format. In this case, we focused on the advantages of exchanging experiences from different cultural and social points of view, and the enrichment that those exchanges can bring to our students. At the start of this new scholar year, our eTwinning project received the European Quality Label, an award that recognises its contribution to build European awareness on our students.

Encuesta sobr el uso de soluciones SMART - Survey on SMART solutions use

Como parte de los retos de GoldStar, algunos SEE hemos realizado encuestas sobre las soluciones que SMART ofrece al mundo educativo.
En mi caso, pregunté a mis compañeros profesores sobre el conocimiento y uso de las soluciones de SMART que tenemos instalados en el Colegio (algunas de muy reciente implementación, lo que explicaría alguna de las respuestas). A continuación se resumen los resultados sobre un total de 32 respuestas:


Respecto al uso de las PDI: 

• el 60% de los profes utiliza la PDI todos los días, y sólo un 12% la utiliza sólo una vez por semana.

• el 52% utiliza preferentemente presentaciones de PowerPoint, frente a un 32% que las utilizan de Notebook 11; el 16% restante sólo usan la PDI como pantalla de proyección.

Respecto a la autopercepción en el uso de la PDI:

• sólo el 24% se considera usuario avanzado, mientras que el 68% se considera un usario medio. Afortunadamente nadie dice no usar nunca la PDI.

Respecto a la autopercepción en el uso de Notebook 11:

• el 24% dice ser usuario avanzado, frente a sólo un 40% que dice ser usuario medio; en este caso sí hay un 4% que dice no utilizarlo nunca.

Respecto al uso de otras soluciones SMART, encontramos algunas observaciones interesantes y otras curiosas:

• el 48% de los encuestados ha usado una cámara de documentos más de una vez, frente a un 28% que no la usado nunca... incluso hay un 4% que ni siquiera sabe lo que es!!
• sólo un 20% sabe utilizar las características de RA de Notebook 11.
• un 32% han utilizado Response al menos una vez, mientras que un 4% ni siquiera sabe qué es...
• sólo un 18% conoce el uso de XC, que por esperado no deja de ser curioso...

Finalmente, un poco de información respecto a SMART Exchange:

• sólo un 4% usa habitualmente este portal para descragar o subir material, pero hasta un 60% no lo ha usado nunca para descargar y un impresionante 72% no ha subido nunca material...

As part of Goldstar challenges, some SEE have made a survey on the use of educational SMART solutions.
In my case, I've asked some of my colleagues about their knowledge and use of SMART solutions implemented at our school (some of them so recently implemented that can explain some of the answers). You can see below a summary of the results having a total of 32 answers.
Regarding the use of SMART Board:

• 60% of the teachers uses the SMART Board daily, and only 12% uses it only once a week.
• 52% usese preferently PowerPoint presentations vs 32% that uses Notebook 11; 16% left only uses IWB as a projection screen.

Regarding self-perception as SMART Board user:

• only 24% sees themselves as advanced users, while 68% sees themselves as normal user. Fortunately everybody uses IWB.

Regarding self-perception as Notebook 11 user:

• 24% sees themselves as advanced users, while only 40% sees themselves as normal user; in this case, there's a 4% that never uses NB11.

Regarding the use of the other SMART solutions, we can find some interesting or, at least, curious answers:

• 48% of teachers have used a document camera at least once, while 28% have never used it... 4% doesn't even know what's that!!
• only 20% knows how to use NB11 AR features.
• 32% have used Response at least once, while 4% doesn't even know what's that...
• only 18% knows how to use XC: expected but curious...

Finally, just a little information about SMART Exchange:

• only 4% uses it in a daily basis to download or upload material, but up to 60% have never used it to download and an impressive 72% hase never uploaded anything...