Romualda Liutkuvienė
Kaunas Jonas Jablonskis Gymnasium
Recently, Kaunas Jonas Jablonskis Gymnasium took part in the international Comenius Multilateral Partnership project: “Photography as a Pedagogical Tool” (2011–2013). The project involved seven countries: Spain, Portugal, Italy, Turkey, the Czech Republic, Poland and Lithuania. One of the aims of the project wasto enhance intercultural communication and international cooperation.
The focus of the project was active learning with the help of photography. The project participants used the E-Twinning platform to share their ideas, show their creative works to other project participants and exchange information and opinions. Such activities encouraged the students to develop their creative powers and taught them to work in teams, which was both pleasant and meaningful.
The project helped the students to improve their English skills as they used the English language to communicate with their partners, read literature and make presentations.The students had an opportunity to travel and visit some unique places, such as Kapadokya in Turkey, the Montserrat Mountain and the Monastery in Spain. The students lived with the host families and got acquainted with the traditional cuisines and customs of the project countries. Newly-made friendships continue – project participants keep in touch and exchange visits.
This project was awarded the “eTwinning Quality Label” and won the first prize in the European eTwinning competition (age category 16 – 19).On 7 April, 2014,representatives of different project countries participated in the “European eTwinning Prize Event 2014” which was held in Brussels. We were very happy to attend the award ceremony and reunite with the project participants. We visited a number of museums and the Parlamentarium – the visitors’ centre of the European Parliament. We also had an exciting meeting with the parliamentarian Jaroslaw Walesa, the son of the famous Polish politician Lech Walesa.
The students and teachers were involved in a number of activities, such as Ice-breaking or Geocaching. “Celebrating our Country” was a special activity during which we watched the films created by the project participants after Pharrell Williams’ song “Happy”. Also, while the teachers had a workshop in the Future Classroom Labof the European Schoolnet, the students had parallel workshops in the hotel – they became eTwinning reporters and wrote articles on the topic of youth ambitions. The award ceremony ended with the European Talent Show. Lithuanian students were among the best participants in all project activities, which was particularly pleasant to know. I am sure that the students of Kaunas Jonas Jablonskis Gymnasium will always have fond memories of the award ceremony as well as the project.
