Fotis:

When we came across the “Safer Internet Day Competition 2007”, we thought it a good opportunity to teach our students “prevention”. Our pre-teen eleven year-olds would need this knowledge for dealing with the internet in simple situations such as school projects. Everyone in the class was very enthusiastic with this idea, not to mention our European counterpart in the Czech Republic.

After several class discussions we pin-pointed the differences between natural and electronic communication, possible dangers of online exchanges and the consequences of ignoring them. Some students had given their personal details over the internet, so we analysed the risks and discussed how to develop critical thinking.

Working with the Czech school, we identified proverbs, in both our cultures, as value references in terms of dealing with internet dangers. After sharing the proverbs in English, having ‘chat’ and ‘skype’ communication with each other and discussing several possible culminating activities, the students created scenarios about forest animals surfing on the net. Using forest animals made the stories like a modern version of a fable, a story with a moral.

Three scenarios were selected and the accompanying pictures were developed in groups. Other groups practiced the dialogues and finally the pictures and dialogues were put together on movie-maker. Movie-maker was a joint effort between the two schools and students had real and authentic interaction in developing the final project. Some of the proverbs were selected to be pronounced at the end of each story by a wise owl.

Through this project, students realized that the internet is a useful tool depending on how you use it; that English is communicative rather than yet another school subject. They acquired new technical skills such as using movie-maker and voice recording. They learned that simple technological skills can support communicative goals and they developed a feeling of responsibility to make the whole school community aware that internet should be used with care. The pupils worked together towards common goals on a European level.

Ivana:

I found our Greek partner school through eTwinning and we worked together on a common project called “Revealing proverbs“. Our cooperation was really wonderful, so we decided to enlarge it by working on an important topic such as internet safety. Our 12 year-old students were frequent internet users. Were they, however, aware of potential dangers?

First of all we discussed different dangerous situations on the internet in the class. Then Fotis, our Greek partner had the great idea of writing short stories for children where the main characters would be animals. It was funny to write about squirrels chatting about their nuts or pigs arranging a date on internet.

We found suitable proverbs in both languages, Greek and Czech, which a wise owl uses as hints in order to help the animals solve their problems. The children really enjoyed working on these stories: drawing pictures, writing texts and then taping animal’s voices. Moreover, they loved watching the whole films of their partners as well as their own. I think this is the best way for warning children of hidden online dangers.

Our international cooperation was a great experience with small technical problems that were solved mostly thanks to the help of my Greek colleague. We learned lots of new skills and practised our foreign language skills.

Thanks to the Greek and Czech teachers Fotis and Ivana for sharing their experiences on setting up their award-winning school project.