Description of the activity:

The first short term joint staff training event was held in Turkey. Organizing the first meeting as a joint staff training was crucial to make sure that everybody in the team is on the same starting line, for showing and sharing enthusiasm and training the teachers about the outcomes. Two key people from each partner country joined this LTT and both participants were required to have a high English level skills in order not to experience any language obstacles. The key person from each country who was responsible to carry out the tasks joined the first meeting. The teachers attended three seminars. One of them was an informative serminar for teachers on how to use the e-twinningplatform. Each seminar was followed by a meeting of partner teachers to discuss the implications to the project in this LTT. Thus all participants had a chance to share their thoughts in each step. The first seminar started with a presentation of an expert on children's literature. The participating teachers were provided training regarding the literature for children, they were informed about the genre, plots, illustrations and the language used in the stories. The second seminar was about a research method and the third seminar focused on how to make an academic poster. As one of the final products of this project is the production of an academic poster prepared by the teachers, the seminar covered the importance of making a research based project, the steps needed in order to make a poster and the presentation of some examples of academic posters. Ça?daş Schools have connections with the local universities, they organized a seminar, lead by an expert. As a last session, all participants got training on etwinning. Pages section of the project were ready before this LTT so, the teachers had the chance to see concrete working areas and tasks and they stated their ideas by clearly seeing the demanded tasks.

The project started on the etwinning portal. After each session the participant teachers took part in discussions about the implications of the informative sessions and they were expected to take decisions. The concrete results of this training session were the minutes of discussions, which were also disseminated on the etwinning portal.

Another point was that, in the last day, the teachers were also informed about the necessary competences for each LTT. That was served as a framework to each participant school management. Thus, the participants were able to take precautions, integrate those specified topics to their teaching framework beforehand.

The main focus of the meeting was the traing on how to use the Etwinning portal in each phase of the project.The first session was about providing mentorship to less experienced partners and inform the participants on how to use twinspace properly. The etwinning tasks were distributed to participant countries by the coordinator. Before the arrival of the participant teachers, the “PAGES” section had been organized and clear explanation about the tasks had been provided befoehand. In this meeting, the details of all the tasks were discussed. Each partner country was properly informed on how to fill its part according to the monthly program of the project, on how to upload photos on a concrete template, on how to involve the participants in the ongoing a-synchronous discussions, set up the teachers buletin, journal, forums, email, project events and surveys. After this transnational meeting, the meeteing minutes, the photos and the decisions taken were shared on Etwinning.

Benefits for the involved participants

Two of the participant countries key people from each country didn't have a prior knowledge about producing a children’s book. Through the informative sessions provided by experts, they gained an understanding of the process. On the other hand, the cooperation and assemblies were important in terms of devising and reshaping the activities, giving feedback to specified activities, evaluating them and planning the further stages. So, the details of the activities were negotiated with all the partners and possible risks were evaluated. These activities included making suggestions on how to make it better as these activities are flexible and are a part of an ongoing process, it was crucial to act together while carrying out the planned activities. Furthermore, the teachers had a chance to get acquainted with their partners. They had a chance to get an insight of the Turkish Educational system and could also comparare different learning and teaching environments. They had a chance of exchanging expertise of innovative methods of teaching, which is one of the most striking effects of the project.