Link to the project https://twinspace.etwinning.net/27242/home
🙂 Description of the project and students involved: Grade 5 and 6 students of a Greek, a Polish and an Italian school retell popular fairy tales in their own version using English as a foreign language. Before reaching this goal the partner students engage in a number of tasks. First, they get to know each other by uploading images of their favourite things on a padlet wall and writing a short account of themselves. Next, they are introduced to netiquette and esafety issues and collaborate to produce a digital booklet on this topic. Then they exchange Christmas wishes and images. For the fourth task the students of each country present to their partners their favourite fairy tales, explore their structure (story elements) and critique their messages. For the fifth task the partners, in international groups, collaborate to fracture popular fairy tales by modifying the plot, the characters or other elements of the tales. Finally, the partners exchange farewell wishes.
🙂Duration: Seven months
🙂Objectives: The students will develop their reading and writing skills in EFL by communicating their ideas to a real audience. The students will use their English to create digital work such as a booklet on digital citizenship tips and collaborative stories.
🙂Tools teachers will use to plan the collaboration: google docs, doodle, skype, etwinning platform
🙂Collaboration tools students will use to complete the tasks: etwinning platform tools, web tools such as padlet, google docs, google slides, LittleBirdTales
🙂 Timeline and details of the project ‘Fairy Tale Retellings’:
October & November: The students get to know each other by taking a photo of their favourite object/ book/game/clothing item etc. To do that, they use their mobiles/digital cameras/ other devices. They upload their photo on a padlet wall and share a short description about the image (based on S. Terrell’s ‘Mobile Show N’ Tell’ activity; they also add some information about themselves e.g. brothers/ sisters/ free time activities etc. They edit the profiles in the twinspace and add an avatar. They can use http://www.faceyourmanga.com/editmangatar.php or http://avatarmaker.com/ to create them. They respond to each other’s profiles (this step can be done throughout the project). There is evaluation of the tasks through google forms.
December: The students discuss netiquette, code of conduct, right behaviour on the Internet and esafety issues. They brainstorm ideas and share thoughts. On a shared google doc/presentation all schools create a booklet which summarizes their thoughts on esafety and proper behaviour on the web.
January & February: The students of each class work in groups to present the main parts of their favourite classic fairy tale. To do that, they can create a video, a power point presentation or a digital poster. In the same presentation, they will also evaluate, analyze and critique their tales and identify problems with messages, characterization, meanings (based on S. Terrell’s ‘Fairy Tale Critics’ Activity). The presentations are uploaded on our twinspace. There is evaluation of the tasks.
March & April: The students form international groups (using the Random Name Picker to create groups) to rewrite/retell their fairy tales- write/tell their own version of tale based on their criticisms. They can use a padlet wall/ a google doc/slides Forum to share their story. The teachers transfer the stories to sites such as issuu and storyjumper and curate them on storify.com to be easily shared and viewed by others. The stories will be published in the twinspace. There is evaluation of the tasks.