Socrates Project – Comenius I / School Exchange between Vocational School of Odemira and Group Scholar Olchim - Romania

Project Title: “How to use Information Technology in the classroom”

Number of people involved:

 20 (16 students and 4 Portuguese teachers);

 20 (15 students and 5 Romanian teachers);

Aims of the Project:

·            Get the students interested in learning languages and make them understand the importance of knowing languages when you meet people from other countries;

·        Give the students and teachers an opportunity to get to know another European culture and learn, to some extent, a new language. Give the students the opportunity to communicate in the new language in the natural environment;

·        The students will increase their social skills and get na opportunity to evaluate their lifestyle from a different point of view;

·        Make the students aware of the fact that even though Romania and Portugal are very different countries, all students are European and have many things in common. They will compare the educational systems in both countries;

Brief description of the Project:

          This projects aims at comparing the way how Information Technologies are used both in Portugal and in Romania by identifying similarities and differences and learning through sharing experiences. The students will compare the way they use Information Technologies not only at school but also at home during their free time. At the same time they will acquire knowledge about other cultures and languages. During the exchanges and contacts via Internet the students will be able to answer the following questions and solve the following problems:

• How does the use of the computers/Internet differs in both countries? How much time do teenagers spend at the computer after school?
• Do people have access to computers/Internet at home, at work, at school in both countries?
• Do people use computers/Internet for the same purposes?
• How are Information Technologies used at school both by teachers and students? How are they used in the classroom? What can we learn through sharing experiences?
• Do adults have any knowledge of Information Technologies? How many parents use computers/Internet regularly?
• Do institutions such as banks and schools have websites?

The Portuguese students went to Romania from 13th to 26th February 2006 and the Romanian students visited Portugal from 27th April to 7th May 2006.