» Our project
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Recently there has established in our city (San Sebastian - Spain) a Room of Video conferences, incorporating the last technology. There has offered to schools the possibility of using it with a educational purpose.
We are sure of the educational advantages that in certain circumstances a video conference might have, and for it we have start to search other Schools that want to realize some experience with us: Australia, The United States, Mexico, Argentina, Bulgaria, Sweden, France, etc. We try to establish a net of Schools all over the world that have access to this technology in order to take part in this Project.
This is only an initial offer: every session would be prepared by the teachers who are going to take part in it with their students. I am going to describe some of the possible uses that the video conference might have.

The aims:
We think that an experience like this might help studens to reach -between others - the following aims:

1. Utilization of the second and third languages in a real context. The ideal thing would be that both centers were from different countries, with not common languages, and that we had to use a third common language (English, French, Basque...). Though this one would be the ideal one for both centers this condition neither would be the only one, if we might obtain with the video conference other educational benefits But if we form a net of schools, we would interlace the classes in order that we all could benefit from this first aim.
   
2. We will use the current technology to develop an educational experience that differently would be completely impossible. We want to find a useful use of the New Technologies of the Information and Communication.
   
3. We will foment the knowledge of other cultures, other languages
   
4. The pupils would be the protagonists of the education and learning: every class would explain the topic to the other one, after preparing it properly with the teacher. In the preparation the pupils might use -if possible- audio-visual media, video, PowerPoint, etc.
   
5. The content of the classes would be very different: students should use very different kind of knowledges for every video conference.

Ages of the pupils and periodicity of the video conferences:
Our School would be ready to take part with pupils of ages between 12 and 17 years. We think that the smallest pupils would not benefit so much of this type of experiences.
And the periodicity, at the moment we would propose to realize a video conference a year, for each educational level. It would be an extraordinary activity, prepared by the pupils for several weeks, in order to serves the teacher to develop many other activities in the classroom: preparation of papers, oral exhibitions, multimedia presentations, etc.

A first (possible) video conference:
The first video conference might have the following scheme. It would be a question of presenting both schools framing them in the own Region and Country.

Duration: 60 minutes

Scheme of the session:

- Presentation of the first school: 10 minutes
- Presentation of the second shool: 10 minutes

The presentations have to incorporate audio-visual material -a brief video, a few photographies - of the school, about some activities realized recently. On having finished both presentations, the first school make 3 very easy questions to the second school, and vice versa. It is a simple trick to motivate the students and to realize a simple evaluation. Hereby they will be more attentive during the class

- Presentation of the Region of the first school: 10 minutes
- Presentation of the Region of the second school: 10 minutes

Presentations must incorporate audio-visual material. The exhibition must contribute information about geography, economy, culture and traditions of the own Region.
As before, on having finished both presentations, the first school make 3 very easy questions to the second school, and vice versa.

- Presentation of the Country of the first school: 10 minutes
- Presentation of the Country of the second school: 10 minutes

Besides the previous aspects, there can be included a reference to the politics, languages of the regions, sports, music...

A second (possible) video conference:

Duration: 60 minutes

Possible topics to be treated:

• After the initial presentation, the implied teachers would choose the area curricular in the one that they were more interested in making work to their pupils and would define the content of the following video conference.
  
• If the two classes are in the same educational level, each one might prepare the content of the half of a lesson and expose it during the video conference allowing questions of one or another group.
  
• If it is a question of including topics of history, economy, art, etc., every class might explain the same topic from the perspective of his own Country and / or Region.
  
• Also two or three brief multidisciplinary exhibitions might be prepared on the part of every school and to expose them during the video conference allowing questions of one or another group.
  
• We might invite some specialist to give us a class from his country: two groups of pupils of different languages in their own schools...
  
• It is a question of seeing the enormous didactic possibilities that the video conference can have and resolve the one that more convinces to the implied schools.

Indispensable requirements, organization and contact:
It is totally indispensable to access to this technology of video conference. The suitable scene is to have a room specially prepared for this, with possibilities of interchanging the image of the attendees with diverse manners of treatment of the image: video, DVD, a computer that could project presentations PowerPoint, etc. It would not be sufficient to be able to connect to Internet across anyone of the conventional programs (NetMeeting, etc.). Nowadays there are institutions that have incorporated these technology and that probably offer it free with educational purposes.
A good way of organization would be that teachers who are responsible in each activity, should realize before (several weeks before) a video conference between them, in order to verify that the technology works correctly and in order to focus the session..

The responsible for this project in our school is:

Jose Ignacio Mir Montes
Principal of Erain School
Alto de Gaintxurizketa s/n.-Ap. 100 .-20300 Irun (Gipuzkoa - Spain)
Email: jmir@erain.es
Http:// www.erain.es