The first day of the Conference opened with a speech by Jan Figel’, Member of the European Commission in charge of education, training, culture and youth. Commissioner Figel’ - a long time supporter of eTwinning, who has now attended all four eTwinning conferences - spoke of the strength of eTwinning as a force to unite the teachers of Europe in a common purpose, to work together and to collaborate together with their pupils. He stated that “apart from what the pupils involved in projects can learn about each other, I think that the most important thing eTwinning gives them is a disposition of openness and curiosity towards others. And perhaps this disposition is what a united Europe is all about.”

Following the opening speech, Cristian Mihai Adomniţei, Romanian Minister for Education, Research and Youth, welcomed the delegates to Bucharest and gave an overview of the importance of eTwinning to Romanian schools since they joined the action in September 2007. He spoke about how well eTwinning fits with the educational objectives in Romania in better integrating education into a European as well as international context.

Doris Pack, Member of the European Parliament and the person responsible for the conception and introduction of Comenius in Europe, then spoke about how her work had grown and developed. She congratulated the teachers on their achievements in eTwinning and spoke about the diversity of activity that existed within it. Brian Holmes from the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) gave an overview of the place of eTwinning within the context of the Lifelong Learning Programme. He spoke of the challenges for the future in seeking synergies between teachers involved in eTwinning and those involved in other Comenius activities.

A major highlight of the first plenary session to follow was a very inspiring keynote address by Professor Sugata Mitra who is known worldwide for his research experiments called “Hole in the Wall”. Professor Mitra provided a lively presentation on how children in remote areas in India learn by teaching themselves and those around them.

The final highlight of the day was then the eTwinning prize-giving ceremony where the winners and runners up of the 2008 Prizes were announced via an impressive media presentation. During the ceremony, Krzysztof Stanowski, Polish Under-Secretary of Education, was present to award the Science and Maths category winner and share a few words about Poland’s activity in eTwinning.

For full details about the rest of the Conference - including photos and detailed information about the Saturday workshop sessions, the exhibition areas and the Sunday closing session -  information was posted throughout the three days by participants on the conference blog.

From the EUN office, participants included Marc Durando, Santi Scimeca, Anne Gilleran, Silvia Spinoso, Jean-Noel Colin, Sophie Vandeputte, Alexa Joyce, Sylvia Binger, Thomas Maier, Petru Dumitru, Riina Vuorikari and Christina Crawley.

www.etwinning.net
http://blog.eun.org/etwinningconference2008

Podcast of Professor Sugata Mitra: Download file