Since its foundation, Tollegno 1900 has established a strong connection with its territory of which it is an integral part as well as an active promoter. Developing initiatives that connect it with other local realities is part of the company’s philosophy. The partnership with Adorno Micca’s IC goes in this direction, expressed both in a company visit and in the supply of yarns for the creation of laboratories and projects of strong European caliber. Emanuela Boffa Ballaran, European projects manager of the IC of Andorno Micca, tells them.
How and when did your institute’s interest in developing European-level twinning experiences arise?
eTwinning is the largest European community of teachers active in collaborative projects between schools. It was founded in 2005 on an EU initiative which provides teachers who create collaborative projects between schools – from nursery school to high school – with a safe and guaranteed online platform. I joined the etwinning community in 2012 to open our classes and also our somewhat closed mentality to Europe and to make learning the English language real. The mission of eTwinning is in fact to “bring an improvement to the training offer of European school systems through the internationalization and innovation of teaching and learning models, to encourage openness to the community dimension of education and the creation of a feeling of shared European citizenship in the new generations”. A path full of stimuli and positive changes that allowed me to become an eTwinning Ambassador in 2016. Year after year, supported by the various managers who followed one another in the IC of Andorno Micca, I started an awareness and training activity that involved other teachers from our comprehensive school. In fact, since 2018 we have been the only school in the Biella area that has the eTwinning school certificate, which has become part of our training offer, as well as being included in the school curriculum.
A valuable project that has also led you to achieve significant results…
Exactly. In 2017/18, for example, with the project “IMAGINE…TOGETHER FOR THE WORLD”, with the fifth class B from Tollegno and together with our colleague Lina Tetradi from Thessaloniki, we won the national and also the European prize. But not only. This year the project TO READ OR NOT TO READ that I carried out last year in Andorno with the fifth class, obtained the National prize and was awarded in Cagliari during the National Conference.
How do these projects arise and take shape?
The projects arise from the idea and planning between teachers of different nationalities who want to delve deeper into some themes or aspects related to the education of their students. To be approved, however, the project must contain some specific elements such as the title, a brief description , the age of the pupils involved, the subjects involved, the key skills that are intended to be developed, the objectives that are to be achieved, the procedure understood as the duration of implementation and the expected results.
From this premise we understand how the projects are quite articulated and complex. What is essential to get them on track?
Given that motivation is always the first driver, good familiarity with new technologies and the ability to speak a foreign language are also important factors. In recent years many projects have been carried out in the IC of Andorno Micca, some even in vertical continuity between different school levels. On the website of our IC in the eTwinning area you can find links to the latest projects carried out which have been positioned in the “TwinSpace” area, a space specifically dedicated to each individual project of which some contents are made visible. To guarantee privacy, many data are not available to the public. Only the awarded projects can be shared after having obtained the necessary authorizations from the families.
What is the value of the projects you are going to develop?
The eTwinning mission already highlights the aims and strong added value of this initiative, but I want to add a further and not secondary aspect. European twinning has the merit of promoting language learning by making it more meaningful and motivating as it offers children the opportunity to interact in the English language in an authentic and real context.
Interaction, mutual contamination, creativity are some of the pillars on which eTwinning is based and which Tollegno 1900 fully shares. How did the collaboration between your school and the brand that has made merino wool its emblematic product come about?
This year the Andorno Micca nursery school has developed two projects with important themes: “Journey into the origins: places, colors and sounds of our lands” and “Wings of wool” which addresses the theme of diversity as wealth, since adds great value to the community. Considering the two themes, the teachers decided to organize a guided tour of the Filatura di Tollegno 1900, to introduce the children to and see the wool processing process before it becomes thread. One of the educators subsequently got in touch with the company representatives who followed the students and together they agreed on the type of path to take them.
How did the visit actually take place?
The meeting took place in three moments: the first was dedicated to explaining the entire manufacturing process, starting from the merino sheep and placing emphasis, for example, on the origin or the shearing methods; the second was dedicated to the creation of a hat with the knitting machine, to show the children how it works and, subsequently, how to knit wool. The visit ended with a snack together.
However, the collaboration with Tollegno 1900 went even further…
Absolutely yes. Thanks to their donation of white-red-green colored wool we created Italian flags which were then presented at the closing party of the eTwinning and English project.
Are there other projects that you, as an Institute, are working on with a view to 2025?
Every year some nursery and primary school classes participate in eTwinning projects. Usually during the summer we look for partners and start drawing up the projects that will start in October or November. Since the Andorno Micca IC is also the leader of an Erasmus+ consortium, some contacts between teachers take place during “physical” and not virtual mobility abroad. For next year we would like to increase the collaboration with TOLLEGNO 1900: one of the fundamental requirements to become an eTwinning school is in fact to open the school to the territory with exchanges and collaborations and to bring the realities of one’s territory to foreign partners.
