If 2020 has taught us anything, it is that no matter how we feel about technology and the digital era, we cannot ignore the major lifeline it provided us with when face-to-face interactions were no longer an option. The educational context was no exception to this. From Google Classroom assignments, to Zoom meetings, the teaching-learning experience had been reduced to the digital space for months in a row, forcing teachers to adapt their methods and strategies overnight.
In 2021, inspired by this new reality and also faced with the challenges of refining our digital skills in online or blended learning settings, we set forth to apply for an Erasmus + grant that would help us better adapt to the new situation. Eventually, on the 1st of November 2021 we managed to launch the KA122 Erasmus + Project "Bilingual Approach: New Digital Dimensions" or B.A.N.D.D. at "William Shakespeare" High School in Timisoara, Romania.
The main scope of this Erasmus project is to integrate new digital interactive methods in day-to-day English bilingual classes. What this entails is a merging of the original identity of our school, which is that of a bilingual school, with the challenges of today’s education, which seems to have become more and more digitalized.
A "BANDD" of Teachers in Verona
A first step in our journey was a training course for 14 teachers from our school held over a 6-day period, in Verona, Italy, in spring 2022. The course, organized by Europass Teacher Academy, focused on the topic of "ICT in the Classroom: Innovative Tools To Facilitate Students' Learning, Collaboration and Creativity".
At the end of the course, participants enriched their teaching portfolios with a variety of digital instruments and teaching methods centered around collaboration in the classroom, flipped lessons through video technology, quizzes for initial and formative evaluation, fueling students' creativity and much more. Back home, these teaching portfolios became a much needed aid to creating new ways of engaging students through interactive lessons and stimulating learning activities.
Get Inspired
Therefore, through this blog we aim to share some of these tools, methods and teaching experiences from the perspective of the 14 participants to the ICT course presented above and hopefully inspire other teachers in their day-to-day search of new ideas for painting the learning process in brighter colors.