Growing beyond innovators - ICT-based school collaboration in eTwinning

Abstract

We investigate how eTwinning, the community for schools in Europe that promotes teacher and school collaboration through the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), has grown in its first five years. eTwinning currently attracts over 130'000 teachers in Europe who can be identified as "innovators" in using ICTs in cross-border school collaboration projects. Using the indicator called eTwinning reach, we find that on average, 2.64% of European teachers already participate in eTwinning. In this paper, we investigate the synergies between eTwinning and professional development. We argue that in order to grow beyond innovators and to attract early adopters in innovative use of ICTs in education, eTwinning should be given a more prominent and official status among national teachers' professional development activities. This, in turn, would greatly enhance both formal and informal teachers' professional development schemes in the countries that participate in the eTwinning action. © 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.