11

eTwinning
A Teacher Network in Europe
Arjana Blazic
IX. gimnazija, Zagreb, Croatia

Bart Verswijvel
European Schoolnet, Brussels, Belgium

The eTwinning action, a community for schools in Europe, is an initiative of the European
Commission (EC) to promote teacher and school collaboration in multicultural Europe
through the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). eTwinning is an
internet platform, available in 28 European languages, where teachers from pre-primary to
upper secondary (K-12) schools from 36 countries can conduct short and long-term collabo-
rative projects. eTwinning teachers, known as eTwinners, are teachers of any subject area,
principals, librarians, and other educational staff.
eTwinning was launched in 2005 within the framework of the EC’s eLearning Programme
2004–6, following the objectives of the Barcelona European Council (2002) to establish or
enhance internet twinning links with partner schools in Europe to promote the European
dimension in education through the use of ICT. Soon eTwinning was recognized as a major
catalyst to intensify and widen collaboration among European schools (Scimeca et al., 2009)
and in 2007, it became part of the EC’s Lifelong Learning Programme for 2007–13. With the
launch of the EC’s Erasmus+ Programme for Education, Training, Youth and Sport in 2014,
the eTwinning action was reinforced and its role expanded. eTwinning gained more impor-
tance as the Programme’s valuable online support for cooperation between schools, teacher
professional development (PD), and networking. eTwinning is regarded as the foundation for
cooperation between European schools and for knowledge exchange among European educa-
tors. Over the coming years, an external section is to be added to the eTwinning platform, for
networking and collaboration with schools and educators from other parts of the world.
The eTwinning action is funded by the EC and by regional or national education author-
ities (Vuorikari et  al., 2015). It is operated by European Schoolnet (EUN) in Brussels.
European Schoolnet coordinates the overall organization of the eTwinning action on a pan-
European level. European Schoolnet is a network of 31 Ministries of Education in Europe
and beyond. It is a not-for-profit organization, founded in 1997 with the aim to bring inno-
vation in education on the level of ministries of education, schools, teachers, and researchers,
to improve the quality of education, and to promote the multicultural European society.
European Schoolnet runs a wide array of programs and actions targeted at various entities
in the field of education, with eTwinning being one of them. eTwinning is not only its most
widespread, but also its most successful network in connecting schools across Europe both
from qualitative and quantitative aspects (Scimeca et al., 2009).

A TOP-BOTTOM APPROACH

There is a number of various factors that have brought significant growth and contributed
to the success of the eTwinning community. The success of the eTwinning action is clearly

173
174  Arjana Blazic and Bart Verswijvel
visible in the growing number of registered users, schools, and projects. At the time of its
inception, there were 11,100 registered teachers from 8,000 European K-12 schools. In
the fall of 2015, it comprised more than 340,000 teachers from 140,000 European K-12
schools. More than 45,000 projects have been carried out in the safe online environment of
the eTwinning platform since its launch.
The quality of the projects has significantly improved as well. The number of projects recog-
nized with a quality label certificate on the European level increased from 668 in 2005 to 3,023
in 2015. The reason for this qualitative improvement can be recognized in the continuing PD
opportunities for teachers, personal, technical and pedagogical support, peer learning, sharing
and dissemination of tangible, and intangible project results, showcasing inspiring practice as
well as public recognition, prizes, and awards that teachers receive for outstanding projects.
The reasons why European K-12 teachers have embraced the eTwinning community are
manifold. One of the main reasons can be recognized in the ease of connecting with teach-
ers from different European countries. With just a click and without any formalities, teachers
can create a safe, user-friendly online environment for multicultural collaboration and bring
authentic learning to their students. Such a non-bureaucratic, bottom-up, and flexible approach
makes eTwinning appealing to teachers. Besides, teachers have a wide variety of online tools at
their disposal on the eTwinning platform to make the learning process engaging and motivat-
ing for their students. The tools include partner search engines, discussion forums, chat and
videoconferencing tools, social media tools such as profile page and journal with a comments
section, learning management, and internal messaging systems.
Furthermore, teachers are encouraged to implement various innovative pedagogical
approaches in their collaborative projects and in their teaching practices. To be able to teach
in innovative ways, teachers are provided with numerous opportunities for formal and informal
PD training. PD courses take place both online and onsite and are free of charge for all eTwin-
ners. The content of eTwinning PD courses is often ICT-related and as such of great interest
to teachers because it enables them to acquire digital competences and to keep abreast with the
latest developments in teaching with new technologies.
With ICT training still not being obligatory PD requirement for the majority of European
teachers, eTwinning can be regarded as a platform where teachers can acquire and enhance
their digital skills and explore and learn how to leverage technology to transform the teaching
and the learning process. According to the EC’s Digital Scoreboard 2012 in Vuorikari et al.
(2012), only one out of three students in Europe are taught by teachers whose PD includes
compulsory ICT training. In OECD’s 2013 TALIS report, 19 percent of responding teachers
report that they need more ICT-based PD training. In Eurydice Report from 2015, 57 percent
of lower secondary school teachers expressed moderate or high need levels for PD training that
supports technology-enhanced teaching. An online survey of eTwinning teachers conducted
in 2009, showed that 42 percent of the respondents claimed to have received ICT-related PD
training (Ferrari et al., 2011). In a recent online survey (Kearney C. & Gras-Velázquez, 2015),
66 percent of eTwinners have reported that eTwinning has had a moderate or large impact
on their technology skills for teaching. This is in line with the survey results of Wastiau et al.
(2013), which indicate that 70 percent of European students are taught by teachers who have
participated in a form of personal PD training in their free time.
A specific feature of eTwinning PD services is that teacher training on the eTwinning
platform is performed not only by experts, but also by eTwinners themselves. They are
empowered to design and facilitate their own training courses based on their mastery of the
topic and on their extensive experience in the classroom. eTwinners are encouraged to learn
from and with each other and peer learning and teacher autonomy are constantly promoted.
Teachers are autonomous in their eTwinning work and empowered to bring independent
 eTwinning 175
decisions regarding their project work and professional development activities. However, if
needed they are provided with reliable support on regional, national, and European levels.
On the European level, the main operating body of the eTwinning action is the Central
Support Service (CSS). The CSS, run by EUN, is responsible for the central coordination of
eTwinning activities across Europe. This includes running the eTwinning Portal, providing
monitoring analysis, creating publications, organizing the annual eTwinning Conference, and
coordinating pedagogical and technical support for teachers. On the national, i.e. regional
(in the case of Belgium) level, each country/region taking part in eTwinning has a National
Support Service (NSS) to implement the eTwinning action on a local and national level. The
CSS closely cooperates with the NSSs and they meet on a regular basis. Each NSS provides
training and support, organizes events, and runs media and communication campaigns at
regional and national level (Crawley et  al., 2010). Both the CSS and the NSSs run online
campaigns, organize face-to-face meetings as well as webinars for experienced teachers and for
newcomers alike, and use social media to promote eTwinning.
Besides the pedagogical and technical support provided by the CSS and NSSs, in the eTwin-
ning community there is a strong network of experienced eTwinning teachers, also known as
eTwinning ambassadors. They are appointed by their NSS and work at local and national level
to support other teachers and assist with the promotion of eTwinning (Crawley et al., 2010).
Currently, there are more than 1,000 ambassadors in the eTwinning community (Vuorikari
et  al., 2015). The ambassadors visit local schools to introduce teachers to eTwinning, run
webinars, lead workshops, speak at conferences, share good practice, and provide support to
novice eTwinners.
As in other online communities, there are a number of barriers that prevent newcomers
from active participation in the community, such as insufficient foreign language skills for
communication with partners (or teachers’ belief thereof), poor collaborative skills, or inad-
equate digital competences, to mention but a few. However, the support newcomers are
provided within the eTwinning community both from the top-down (CSS and NSS) and the
bottom-up (expert teachers, ambassadors, peers) structures can minimize newcomers’ passive
participation and empower them not only to be actively engaged but also to take initiatives
and design new, innovative PD opportunities. This complementary top-down-bottom-up
approach (Petko et  al., 2015) in which the top-up agency provides support for bottom-
up initiatives (Law et al., 2015) leads to more engagement in participating in PD courses and
creating learning opportunities for teachers by teachers.

PARTICIPATION IN ETWINNING PROJECTS AS A FORM OF

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Participation in collaborative projects contributes not only to the development of collabora-

tion and communication skills with students, but it also enhances the twenty-first-century
skills of teachers who learn by doing when conducting or participating in eTwinning projects.
According to Vuorikari (2010), teachers start an eTwinning project without thinking of it as a
professional development activity; however, in the course of the project they realize that they
are gaining new skills and competences.
eTwinning projects can be set up by two or more teachers, teams of teachers, librarians, or
principals from schools across Europe. As eTwinning fosters teacher autonomy, project part-
ners make all the decisions regarding the topic, the subject area, the duration of the project,
its goals and expected outcomes, the number of students, the language of communication,
curriculum integration, the use of ICT tools, the visibility of the project, and the dissemination
176  Arjana Blazic and Bart Verswijvel
of tangible and intangible results. Teachers can come up with their own idea for a project, join
an already active project, browse through hundreds of project proposals in the partner finding
forums or use one of the many ready-made starter kits to help them with the first steps in the
project. Each project has to be approved by the partners’ NSSs. Upon approval, which usually
happens within five working days, the partners are assigned a safe online workspace, known as
Twinspace, where their project will come to life. Twinspace is a safe digital platform contain-
ing tools for scholastic collaboration (Crawley et al., 2010). It is up to the project partners to
decide how they will use the Twinspace and its tools with their students, which parts of the
Twinspace will be open to the public, and how they will manage the project in the Twinspace.
Before October 2014, projects could be set up only by eTwinners from different countries.
The majority of the projects, 52 percent, have been carried out in English, followed by French
(11 percent) and German (8 percent). However, to help teachers to get acquainted with the
platform and its tools and to collaborate more easily without language barriers, national pro-
jects were introduced. This program is still in its pilot phase and it is yet to be seen if teachers
find this option valuable and useful for their teaching. The first results show that during the
first six months of the pilot (October 2014–April 2015), 20 percent of new projects were
national eTwinning projects. In the same time frame the total number of projects increased
from 4,488 to 6,598.
Teachers’ work in eTwinning project does not go unnoticed (Crawley et  al., 2010).
Teachers are recognized for the work they do in eTwinning. If their project meets certain
criteria, e.g. pedagogical innovation, curricular integration, collaboration between partner
schools, or innovative use of technology, they are awarded national quality labels and national
prizes by their NSS or European quality labels by the CSS. The best projects are awarded with
eTwinning prizes, which means that the project participants are provided with an opportunity
to meet in person at the annual prize-awarding ceremony. The labels and the prizes represent
an achievement for teachers, students, and schools and this recognition indicates that a project
has reached a certain European standard.
European Commission’s Impact study (2013) shows that out of all registered eTwinners,
only 26 percent in any country are actually involved in one or more projects. However,
this does not mean that the others are not actively involved in other eTwinning activities,
e.g., in social networking and informal contact and exchange between teachers (Crawley
et al., 2010) on the one hand, or in a plethora of different PD services on the other. Over
the years eTwinning has grown from a platform for project development to a community
with diverse opportunities for PD and networking, as teachers wanted more than just school
collaboration. Accordingly, its motto changed from school partnerships in Europe to the
community for schools in Europe (Crawley et al., 2009), where teacher PD and networking
are nurtured and stimulated.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR ETWINNERS BY ETWINNERS

Providing teachers with multifold opportunities for continuous PD training is yet another
valuable segment of the eTwinning community. Teachers  can participate in  a variety
of courses and workshops, attend expert talks, receive support in special interest groups, be
active in peer teaching and design, and facilitate their own PD courses. During the school
year 2008–9, more than 28,000 teachers participated in eTwinning PD opportunities in one
way or another, despite the fact that in 58 percent of the 28 surveyed eTwinning countries
the credentials gained in eTwinning PD training will not be recognized for job promotion or
advancement (Vuorikari et al., 2011). The reason why the majority of teachers attend these
courses can be seen in their enthusiasm and motivation for professional growth that will
 eTwinning 177
enable them to build their teaching capacity, connect and learn with like-minded teachers
from across Europe, and enhance student learning. PD training in the eTwinning community
is conducted both online and onsite.

Onsite Professional Development

Participation in onsite PD activities is either by invitation (e.g., PD training is an award for
outstanding eTwinning work or best project) or by application. The application process differs
from country to country; however, it mostly comprises filling out an application form, writ-
ing a motivational letter, and in some countries (Croatia) creating a multimedia presentation
to showcase the teacher’s work and motivation for attendance. It depends on every coun-
try’s budget how many teachers are sent to a PD training event, but the numbers are usually
between 2 and 5 per course. All costs are covered for all the attendees. The CSS and the NSSs
organize different types of face-to-face PD training events, on a national and European level,
lasting from half a day to three days.

Professional Development Workshops

Professional Development Workshops (PDWs) are pan-European events aimed at teachers
who want to learn more about eTwinning, enhance their collaborative skills, and share their
knowledge and experience. The participants can attend training sessions led by experts and
in-service teachers.

Contact Seminars
Contact seminars are organized to enable teachers to connect and to find partners for future
projects. To make it easier for teachers to connect, the seminars are targeted at a specific
teacher population, be it subject teachers, elementary school teachers, eTwinning ambassadors,
eTwinning beginners, or teachers from a European region (e.g., teachers from the Danube
countries, the Northern-European countries, or the Slavic countries).

Annual eTwinning Conference

PDWs and contact seminars are organized by the NSS, whereas it is the task of the CSS to
organize an annual eTwinning conference. Every year, the conference is held in a different
country, with around 500 attendees who are encouraged to share their experiences and
showcase their projects.

Online Professional Development

While teachers who want to attend onsite professional development courses usually go
through a selection process, there are basically no restrictions for teachers who want to take
part in online activities for professional learning, which include groups, online seminars,
and learning events.

Groups
eTwinning support groups are private platforms for teachers where they can share their
thoughts, engage in discussions on teaching and learning methodologies, take part in a variety
178  Arjana Blazic and Bart Verswijvel
of hands-on activities, and get help from peers and experts if needed. Every eTwinner can start
their own group and decide if the group is open to everyone or the membership is by invitation
only. There are ten groups supported by the CSS and moderated by ten eTwinners who had
successfully completed a six-week eTwinning Moderator Course on how to facilitate online
groups. These groups focus on bringing e-Safety to eTwinning projects, teaching English and
French as a second language, entrepreneurship in education, game-based classroom, inclusive
education, non-formal education, STEM, the sustainability of the network, and creativity in
the classroom.

Online Seminars
Online seminars are short intense courses focused on a topic of interest to teachers. They
are led by the CSS staff and usually last up to 5 days. The central part of an online seminar
is a webinar. Before and after the webinar teachers engage in discussions. The seminars are
announced on the eTwinning portal and participation is on the first-come-first-served basis.
Around 200 teachers can usually take part in a seminar. Teachers who want to participate in a
seminar need to fill out an application form a week before the beginning of the seminar.

Learning Events
Learning events (LEs) are short intense online courses designed and facilitated by an expert or
a team of experts on a platform known as the eTwinning Learning Lab, a specially designed
platform that enables teachers to connect, communicate, discuss, share, and exchange ideas
in a user-friendly way. The facilitators of LEs can be and often are in-service teachers who are
experts in a certain field, for example in using videos in the classroom, learning with Google
maps, or teaching with iPads. Every eTwinner can propose their topic for a LE and if the
CSS accepts it, they are given a space in the Learning Lab to design and facilitate the event.
The facilitators are completely autonomous in the design of their learning course. Because of
the autonomy in design, the variety of topics, and the preferences of the facilitator, each LE
presents a unique learning opportunity. However, all the events contain at least one discus-
sion forum, materials, and resources to deepen understanding and knowledge and hands-on
activities for the participants. An event usually lasts between 10 and 20 days and is divided into
sections focused on specific subtopics.
On average, there are about ten LEs per semester. Most of them  are in English, but
other languages are becoming more popular. The upcoming LEs are announced on the
eTwinning portal and in the eTwinning Learning Lab in September and in January of each
year. A week before an event starts, teachers interested in participating in the event sub-
mit a short application form. The “seats” are allocated according to a country quota and
are assigned on a first-come-first-served basis. LEs are very popular with teachers and for
the majority of events it takes less than a week to fill up the 200 available seats. For some
events, such as those facilitated by the authors of this chapter, less than a couple of hours
are needed to fill all the available spaces. The number of participants can be higher, but
based on our experience in facilitating LEs, having around 200 participants is optimal for
supporting and enhancing peer-to-peer and facilitator-to-participant interaction. Selected
teachers are notified by email by the CSS and are provided with the link to the LE platform
one day before the start of the event. Attendees follow the activities and engage in discus-
sions. The number of hours required for participation is about 15 hours in total. At the
end of the event, teachers receive a certificate of completion provided they have completed
the required activities.
 eTwinning 179
EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES IN ETWINNING

Since 2013, we have designed and facilitated five LEs on a variety of topics including teaching
twenty-first-century skills, teaching with social media, and using emerging technologies in the
classroom. More than 900 European teachers have participated in our events. According to the
feedback of the participants, the events were successful, not only because of their up-to-date
topics, but also because of the strong sense of belonging to a supportive community where
peer teaching, sharing, exploratory learning, and immediate implementation of new tools and
approaches in the classroom were encouraged and promoted. In such a vibrant and engaging
community of practice (Wenger, 1999), teachers were motivated, inspired, and encouraged to
learn, to communicate, and to collaborate with their peers from different educational contexts
and from different parts of Europe.
Our first three LEs focused on new pedagogical approaches to using web 2.0 technologies
for teaching and learning. Web 2.0 technologies, typically including blogs, wikis, social net-
working sites and e-portfolios, are referred to as “common” or “first-order innovations” that
teachers use in their teaching to facilitate learning and engage learners (Groff, 2013). In two
LEs, we introduced emerging technologies or “second-order innovations,” including aug-
mented reality, simulations, game-based learning, and wearable technologies (Groff, 2013), to
enhance the teaching process and engage learners in authentic, real-life situations.
We facilitated the first run of the LE entitled “Augmented eTwinning Reality” for 257 teach-
ers in October 2014. As there were many more teachers interested in exploring the potentials
of emerging technologies in the classroom and in eTwinning projects, we ran another, slightly
modified, event for a new group of 217 teachers in February 2015 under the title “Augmented
Reality in eTwinning.”

THE STRUCTURE OF THE LE “AUGMENTED REALITY IN

ETWINNING”

Zones
We divided this 11-day LE into four subtopics or zones (Social Networking as introduction
to the LE, Augmented Reality in different subject areas, Situated and Outdoor Learning,
and Art), each lasting for up to three days. Only when a new zone was opened could the
participants access its content. In each zone, the participants were provided with a plethora of
resources and materials with theoretical background and research-based information for read-
ing and discussion. Social media sites were used to engage the participants in discussions. For
each zone, we designed 20 hands-on activities or tasks on how to create rich opportunities for
learning. To successfully finish the LE and receive a certificate of completion, the participants
were asked to complete some of the proposed activities and collect a certain number of points.
Each activity carried a certain number of points, from 1–3, depending on its complexity. The
total number of points for all the activities in the LE was 130. Fifty points were needed for
the certificate, which provided the participants with ample time for completing the activities.

Asynchronous Activities
Most of the activities were asynchronous. We designed them for different devices and for dif-
ferent educational contexts so that the participants could have a choice to complete only those
that were relevant and applicable in their teaching context, linked to their curricula and benefi-
cial and useful for their students. The participants were encouraged to explore the potentials of
180  Arjana Blazic and Bart Verswijvel
augmented reality technologies, experiment, design their own tasks and activities, and imple-
ment them in their classrooms “on the next day.” This can be linked to “situated professional
development” (Sugar, 2005, cited in Ertmer & Ottenbreit-Leftwich, 2010), an approach
which enables teachers to learn within their educational context and to apply the gained
knowledge within their classrooms (Ertmer & Ottenbreit-Leftwich, 2010). The approach of
experimenting with new ideas, trying them out in their classrooms, and immediately seeing
what impact new learning activities have on their students (Holmes, 2013) motivated teachers
to learn, grow professionally, and bring change to their daily teaching practice. The outcomes
were shared and discussed among the participants, and feedback was used to improve, modify,
and adapt the implementation of new tools and apps in different educational settings. We also
encouraged the participants to experiment not only in the classroom, but also in the staff room
with their colleagues and at home with their families to gain more confidence before imple-
menting new ideas in their instruction.

Synchronous Activities
We organized two synchronous activities: an Ignite Webinar at the beginning and a Twitter
chat at the end of the LE. The purpose of the webinar was to provide the participants with
guidelines for active participation and successful completion of the LE. The Twitter chat served
as a wrap-up and evaluation of the results of the LE.

The Participants
The participants of this event came from 28 European countries. In terms of the age group of
their students, only 5 percent of the participants taught pre-school, whereas the other age groups
were rather equally distributed: 34 percent of the participants mainly taught 15–19-year-olds,
31 percent 7–10, and 30 percent 11–14. Figure 11.1 shows the age of the participants. The age
bracket of the majority of the participating teachers was 35–45 (38 percent), closely followed
by 46–55 (34 percent). The completion rate was 45 percent: 98 of the participants reached the
required number of points and received the certificate of completion, with 41 percent of them in
the 35–45 age bracket and 37 percent in the 46–55 age bracket.
Figure 11.2 shows the participants’ proficiency in the implementation of web 2.0 technolo-
gies or first-order innovations (Groff, 2013) in their teaching practice, based on self-reported

1.2

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

0
25-35 36-45 46-55 55+ AGE
TOTAL

enrolled completed

Figure 11.1  Age bracket of participants.

 eTwinning 181

Beginner Somewhat experienced Advanced user

62% 8% 30%

Figure 11.2  Participants’ proficiency with web 2.0 technologies.

data. At the beginning of the LE, 62 percent of the respondents rated themselves as beginners
and 30 percent rated themselves as advanced users.
Interestingly, at the same time, when asked about their experience with augmented real-
ity or second-order innovations (Groff, 2013), only 2 percent considered themselves to be
advanced users, which shows that even though they use web 2.0 technologies in their teach-
ing, when it comes to emerging technologies they consider themselves to be novices. Further,
50 percent reported no experience and 48 percent considered themselves to be somewhat
experienced with augmented reality (Figure 11.3).
Eleven days later, at the end of the event, the participants reported to be significantly
more confident about the use of augmented reality. Figure 11.4 shows the Likert scale
ranging from 1 (not confident) to 5 (very confident). Only one participant reported to
have gained no confidence at all. Of the respondents, 55 percent felt very confident and

No experience Some experience Very experienced

50% 48% 2%

Figure 11.3  Participants’ experience with augmented reality.

182  Arjana Blazic and Bart Verswijvel
0.6

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0
1 2 3 4 5
not confident very confident

Figure 11.4  Participants’ confidence in the use of augmented reality in the classroom.
Note. Likert scale: 1 = not confident, 5 = very confident

37 percent felt confident about using augmented reality in their teaching. As one teacher
commented, she was ready to amaze her students. This is in line with the findings of Ertmer
and Ottenbreit-Leftwich (2010) that the most successful strategy for gaining confidence for
using technology is through personal experience in situated professional development.
The final survey showed that out of 100 participants, only nine did not try out any of the
activities with their students, colleagues, or families. Five of them responded that they would
definitely do it in the future and four would probably do it. More than 90 percent of the
participants immediately incorporated their learning in their classroom.

CONCLUSION

This learning event showed that teachers from across Europe regardless of their age, the age of
their students, and their teaching context are motivated and open to learning about the use of
emerging technologies in education, to experiment, to bring changes to their teaching prac-
tice, and to adopt new approaches in their classroom. Being part of a supportive community,
engaging in peer teaching, exploratory learning, and immediate implementation of new ideas
boosted their confidence and empowered them to integrate emerging technologies and new
pedagogical strategies in their teaching to improve student learning. Collaborative learning in
a peer-based, bottom-up PD training event (Eurydice Report, 2015) with no institutional bar-
riers (Holmes, 2013) enhanced their motivation to experiment and learn how to use emerging
technologies resourcefully and adapt them to their educational context.
Technology has brought substantial changes to our everyday lives and if used properly, it
can bring change to traditional teaching practices. Yet this will not happen without teachers
receiving adequate technology-enhanced training where they are no longer only receivers but
creators of knowledge who actively explore and experiment with new ideas and technologies,
and engage in enquiry and research (Groff, 2013) and exploratory learning. It is important to
allow teachers to acquire knowledge on effective pedagogical use of technology to maximize
the impact on student learning (Wastiau et al., 2013).
To improve the impact of ICT on classroom practice, the focus of teacher PD training
should be placed upon “technology-enabled learning” (Albion et al., 2015) and its practical
integration in the context where learning takes place (Crawley et al., 2009). eTwinning can
significantly contribute to teacher PD in that it provides teachers with formal and informal
 eTwinning 183
PD opportunities (Vuorikari et al., 2011) and engages them in collaborative and exploratory
learning and peer teaching. By supporting bottom-up innovation, eTwinning teachers
are encouraged to take ownership of their PD and to shape it according to their needs
(Kearney & Gras-Velázquez, 2015).

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