Första nordiska Mästerskapet i CRAFT någonsin!

På skolor över hela Norden har det pågått spännande och utvecklande projektarbeten under det senaste året och kulmen på det nåddes under de senaste dagar som varit med det första Nordiska Mästerskapet i CRAFT någonsin.

CRAFT är en didaktisk projektmodell, noggrant utarbetad och som använts i Danmark i fem år. I fem år har pedagoger över hela Danmark utbildats och stöttats i hur de kan implementera CRAFT i sitt dagliga arbete för att sedan omsätta det i sitt arbete med eleverna för att utveckla deras förmågor identifierade som 21st century skills. Modellen går ut på att eleverna får ett verklighetsbaserat problem och de får sedan arbeta sig igenom modellens olika stadier för att undersöka området på djupet, skapa en prototyp, prova den, skapa en ny prototyp osv

En gång om året tävlar elever från alla regioner i Danmark genom att visa upp och presentera sina ideer på Danmarks Läringsfestival på Bella center i mars. Där får de under en hel dag presentera sina ideer för inte bara besökare utan också för grupper av domare som bedömer dem efter kriterier baserade på forskning av Deirdre Butler som forskat fram 21st Learning Design som har tagit fram kriterier för hur vi kan arbeta maximalt för att utveckla elevernas förmågor.

Det danska mästerskapet gick av stapeln igår den 4/3. På Läringsfestivalen den dagen låg spänningen tät över rummet där eleverna hade sina montrar, luften dallrade av förväntan. Jag besökte den tillsammans med nordiska elever som anlände till Bella center den 3/3 för att arbeta i två dagar tillsammans med mig för att förbereda sig på att skriva historia och som de första deltagarna i det Nordiska Mästerskapet i CRAFT. Nordiska ministerrådet ligger bakom en satsning som gjorts för hela norden då de initierat ett projekt som heter Nordic CRAFT som går ut på några olika saker:

1. att sprida den didaktiska projektmodellen CRAFT till alla de nordiska länderna
2. Att underlätta samarbete i det dagliga arbetet mellan skolor i olika nordiska länder där de får stöd av vardera lands koordinator
3. Att introducera eTwinning som plattform för dessa samarbeten men också för att utöka dem

 

I tisdags 3/3 deltog 4 av de sju lagen som skulle tävla i årets nordiska mästerskap i ”icebreaking activites” och förberedelser inför morgondagens arbete innan vi åkte till ett Makerspace tillsammans; de svenska, finska, norska och danska eleverna. De danska eleverna var värdar åt oss andra. Väl där åt vi pizza, testade så många saker vi hann med på de timmarna vi var där. TekX erbjöd en oerhört stimulerande miljö och jag kan varmt rekommendera alla att boka in ett besök dit!

Onsdag den 4/3 träffades vi alla igen tidigt på morgon för en kort breifing innan vi gav oss av till Danmarks Läringsfestival för att där prata med de danska eleverna som ställde upp i det danska mästerskapet, studera deras montrar, lyssna på deras ideer och se hur det gick till när domarna kommer till montern. Allt för att de skulle vara så förberedda som möjligt! Resten av den här dagen så pitchade eleverna sina ideer för varandra, gav varandra feedback, gick igenom CRAFT-modellen och kriterierna noga för att sedan jobba vidare i sina respektive lag för att utveckla presentationerna utifrån feedback och det de fått med sig från förmiddagen. Dagen avslutades med att de fick stå framför alla 30 deltagare på det nordiska eTwinningseminariet med deltagare från nästan alla nordiska länder och där pitcha sina ideer som en generalrepetition inför den stora morgondagen.

Torsdag den 5/3 var det så äntligen dags för alla champions från de fyra länderna som hade möjlighet att vara med i år att delta i det första Nordiska Mästerskapet i CRAFT! Eleverna såg lugna ut på utsidan, men det syntes att de var nervösa och spända när vi hade peptalk på morgonen. Till denna dag anslöt också tre lag till som alla kom från Värner Rydénskolan i Malmö. Förutom de tre lagen var det fyra elever från Hendriksholm skole i Rødovre i Danmark, tre elever från Havukosken koulu, Vantaa i Finland, tre elever från IES Kista, Stockholm i Sverige och slutligen tre elever från Rothaugen skole, Bergen i Norge. Alla elever var grymma ambassadörer för sina respektive länder och de gjorde ett fantastiskt arbete när domarna kom till dem för varje lag fick träffa inte mindre än 6 domargrupper där de var lika entusiastiska, lika engagerade och lika proffsiga vid varje möte. Det var magiskt att höra dem presentera sina ideer, att få höra deras lösningar på en hållbar framtid, att få känna deras tilltro till en framtid som de känner att de kommer att vara en akt

Höjdpunkten på dagen tänker man skulle kunna vara prisutdelningen där eleverna från Henriksholm skole tog hem priset för collaboration "God Motion Gir' God Kondition", gruppen ”Fire Trashers” från Värner Rydénskolan tog hem priset for ”problemsolving and innovation” och där eleverna från Havukosken tog hem hela Mästerskapet i CRAFT i den nordiska finalen med sitt projekt TMF. Trots att det var ett mycket starkt ögonblick då alla hejade på alla och visade glädje för de som fick priser så var inte detta höjdpunkten för mig, utan den kom strax efter när det var dags för alla att åka hem. Att se dem säga hejdå till varandra och kramas om och om igen - det var mäktigt - hur det på så kort tid har gått från att vara blyga för varandra och rädda för att prata med varandra till att komma så nära varandra - DET ger mig hopp om framtiden, tillförsikt och en fortsatt mycket stark tro på CRAFT i kombination med eTwinning som en framgångsfaktor i skolan.

Varmt välkomna tillbaka som besökare eller som deltagare i de Nordiska Mästerskapen i CRAFT 2021 under Danmarks Läringsfestival. 

Ta tillfället i akt du med och kontakta Annie Bergh, Sveriges koordinator i Nordic CRAFT och eTwinningambassadör sedan 2007; annie.bergh@malmo.se för att få veta mer om hur du kommer igång själv.

What is eTwinning

What is eTwinning; Collaboration - A key to sucess for deeper learning

A brilliant new year approaches

And we need to keep up the good work such as

What is eTwinning?

Working with the keys to success

Leave behind us the analog mess

Structure our common work digtially

And find what is for our students essentially

What is eTwinning?

Bare in mind that you are not alone - as long as we reach out,

work together, we will all do more than fine and grasp what it is all about

As teachers our benefits by working digitally are plenty but for our students even more

they get to express themselves, work with real life tasks and much more in store.

What is eTwinning?

But the utmost important thing is our students and how to develop

Their skills well and efficiantly and put to all extra work a stop

Finding out how to Work with the keys to success

The key competences from the EU gets you started without stress

What is eTwinning?

Find strenght and rely in them and let your students thrive in knowledge

Get motivated, work with what is important to them and learn on the edge ...

The edge of new methods, new ways of looking at knowledge and creativity

Creativity is an essential part of our work digitally, how to keep your sensibility

What is eTwinning?

Online, work with esafety and how to behave in the positive openess

Working with open source, visualisation all together in a common process

By working digitally we will get more motivated and above all

Both teachers and students will save time all in all

What is eTwinning?

time we can spend on important and real tasks

And tell everyone who is in doubt and if someone asks

We are working digitally, with eTwinning as our platform

and in doing so we have authentic recipients as a norm

What is eTwinning?

using eTwinning, Mystery Skype or World Children's Prize as a tool

is motivational, inspirational, extremely educational and above all - cool

and least but not last implement the importance of sharing

Sharing ideas, what we do, what we think and how we are adding

What is eTwinning?

How we in a demokratic World is caring

For each other, the world we share in awing

The keys to success

is nothing less

What is eTwinning?

Believe it or not but the keys to success are already in our hands

let´s work locally as well as globally and together education expands

Let's take the next leap together

and together continue this adventure

;)  ;)  ;)  ;)  ;)  ;)  ;)  ;)  

Hop on - we are going together!

Where the past meets the future

Annual eTwinning conference
After having spent three magical days at the annual eTwinning conferens along with
650 colleagues from all over Europe I was so inspired that I wrote a poem to conclude it;

eTwinning and our heritage; where the past meets the future

I guess you are all feeling like your head is spinning

after three days of intense work with eTwinning

eTwinning and our heritage; where the past meets the future

that was the title of the conference which gave 650 people nurture

in a pedagogical figure of speaking where the sharing, talking and discussions

started almost immediately and went on all through the variety of sessions

many, many new collaborations and partnerships were formed

and old relationships were deepened, developed and warmed

Much to the warm-up activity where we started bonding

which grew during the days and deepend by dancing

The content of the conference was well thought through

and so smoothly taken care of from everyone in the crew

You made us feel welcome and well taken care of both in account

of service, food, time for networking and useful workshops in amount

All the networking and the creativity

where ideas grew defying gravity

We had a number of workshops to attend to with different content to explore

They were about useful ICT tools, cultural heritage and poetry, STEM and more

I myself can strongly recommend the once I attended - they were truly useful,

building a useless robot, true and false on the internet and hate speech, for every pupil

Discussing the criterias for an eTwinning school made me learn a lot

eSafety goes first - as the most important thing to acknowledge as a hot spot

and then it is important to focus on the impact the headmaster has for a success

the criterias give structure and guidelines to gain confidence and reduce stress

It was very noticable that the best for all pupils in the world was  for our eyes

it is time to roll up our sleeves, and let deepened collaborations arise

Now the CSS and our national NSS:s has done their hard work

and we have enough ideas and contacts to with eTwinning just go beserk

Let’s meet in eTwinning, help, support each other, learn from each other and grow

whilst we let our pupils work with authentic recipients who motivates them into a flow

Let’s create amazing projects,small/big where we all use eTwinning in a context integreated

in our own specific curriculums which even if they are not perfectly alike they are related

I hope you are all looking forward to our continous sharing and eTwinspirations

between pupils, teachers, schools and nations!!

Big eTwinning hug to all of you wonderful eTwinners out there!!

Annie Bergh, Swedish ambassador

A Golden Opportunity for Learning

I want to give you an example of a tool that really combines learning and outdoor activity at the same time. It combines studying in a more traditional way with ICT and gives the teachers and the students the opportunity to learn collaboratively and in a real context. The teacher prepare the tour/treasure hunt on the computer while planning the lesson and combine all the material that you see fit. you ca add audio files as narrations, games, maps and pictures. Why not letting the students themselves create a GoldHunt for their classmates.

Through a tool on the web called Locatify you create a content for your students in any subject and then you locate questions/information on the map for your students to follow. Here you give the students the possibility to learn within a context and move around at the same time which is most often a very good combination in several ways; first of all when we engage our whole body we remember more and second it is of essence to create as stimulating environments as possible and these does not have to be within the walls of the classroom. Locatify gives us all that and more. The treasure hunt can also be used as a game and add a bit of an excitement into the activity as well, since you can gather points and solve challenges.

Look up Support för Locatify SmartGuide to find out more about these exciting treasure hunt games.

The app you use to take the treasure Hunt is called GoldHunt Education. The students needs some kind of device when they go for a GoldHunt. THey can play in teams or individually. On a map the students can see the locations that the teacher has posted and when they get within range of a location a question/a challenge or information appears on the screen.

If you perhaps remember an app called TurfHunt - then this is similar to that one but GoldHunt does not have third party in-app advertising. Turf Hunt has been popular in the Nordic countries.


With these Treasure Hunt Games the students gets involved, they get to experience their nearby environment but it is important to not add to many locations in one hunt because it gets tiring. 6 - 8 locations is my suggestion - it is better to make several shorter GoldHunts instead of a few longer. You need to keep them focused and to participate in follow-up activities as well.

Anyone can use your Treasure Hunt Game whilst you have published it and imagine how we can share and use each others GoldHunts and how much time that would save, the students could give feedback to each others hunts and maybe even adjust them according to the feedback. you can use them again and again when needed.

The opportunities with this tool are limitless and only your own imagination sets the limits. You ca engage the students in any subject, any time of the day and can be used even if they do not have internet on their devices. They have to download the game at school where they have connection and then as soon as they are back at the school again they can download their score.

I am looking forward to see how more and more Treasure Hunts are being created all over the map/the world. See you in GoldHunt Education.

DSoE in progress

For the fourth time during the project, the eight countries involved in DSoE met for a Transnational meeting. THis time it took place in Limoges and it was arranged by the Université de Limoges and lasted from the 12th of October until the 15th of October.

We got a very inspirational introduktion by André Tricot, Professor of Psychology in the Work and Cognition Lab (French national council for research - CNRS), Gerard McHughes and Robbie O´leary. They really set the theme on the conference and showed us that we are on the right path and that together we can overcome and accomplish anything. This was meant in a larger view than only the project but everyone in Europe.

Andre Tricot told us about the French school system and Gerard talked about the importance of preparing ourselves for the future that is already here. The development is going fast, very fast and we need to keep up and prepare our pupils for this exciting but unsure future. Finally Robbie talked about the enormous benefits of working digitally, what we need to do in order to become digital schools and and to help teachers to use digital tools in their everyday life.

The partners spent the entire conference doing administrative work and plan for how we are proceeding in the project. This was very fruitful. We are well on our way and we help each other out as much as we can.

It was an interesting meeting and it was very noticably that we now is half through the project and the interest in starting eTwinning projects within the project is increasing. Several eTwinning projects saw the light of day and will start during the next fw weeks. The networking started immediately for the teachers and kept going through the entire conference until our meeting was over and even though many of us didin't know each other to begin with we departed as friends.