Our Lady of Mercy College has been participating in eTwinning projects for a number of years.
These projects are in collaboration with various other countries around Europe through our online platform ‘Twinspace’ and also through video calls on our interactive whiteboard.
The students thoroughly enjoyed these projects such as creating emagazines, radio bulletins and even poetry. eTwinning creates an awareness of the importance of Europe to us while also making our students aware that by working together we can make a change.
We have won a number of both Nation and European quality labels for our projects over the years. The students have been doing such outstanding work that our National Support Service, Léargas sent a film crew into our school a number of years ago to capture some of the great work taking place in European Studies class.
We have had a number of teacher exchanges over the years and last year we decided to develop our eTwinning projects and apply to participate in an Erasmus+ Project. These would allow us to participate in student exchanges too.
Our Lady of Mercy College is currently involved in the Erasmus+ Programme as part of the European Parliament Ambassador Schools Programme and building on our prior exchanges.
This year we are working with Peder Skrivares Skola, Varberg, Sweden and Staatliche Fachoberschule und Berufsoberschule Neuburg, Neuburg An Der Donau, Germany on the Re3 Project. This project is focused on updating on the 3 R’s of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle to Reduce, Reuse and Replace.
Each school is focusing on one area. Our Lady of Mercy College will be focusing on “Replace”. We will share our findings and ideas both in-person on our school-exchnages and using the eTwinning live online platform.
There is also a wider project focusing on mobile phone recycling. The Transition Year class of 2020/21 researched, wrote and produced a series of three videos on the topic. These videos will be shown to our whole school community during the October Tutor Class and kick off our old phone collection drive (with all phones/technology being donated to the Jack and Jill Foundation recycling programme).
We were lucky enough to be awarded funding from the European Parliament Erasmus+ Programme to fund this project. Students from Germany and Sweden will be visiting Ireland and we shall be paying a return visit to both Germany and Sweden during the 2021/22 and 2022/23 academic years with our Transition Year students.
This is a very exciting opportunity for our students and has been helping them develop their communication, digital technology and modern foreign language skills. It has also allowed us to develop as teachers, sharing best practice across Europe.
