Just clic…” “

Ploteus. An occasion to grasp the many opportunities in the field of schooling and further education provided by the European Union is offered by the new Internet portal of the European Commission, a centralized system of information that will help all young people who would like to study abroad. Just key in www.ploteus.net to access all the necessary information on education and training courses in the thirty European countries covered by the portal. Ploteus (Portal on learning opportunities throughout the European space) was presented in Brussels in recent days by the European Commissioner for education Viviane Reding. Access to information is easy and immediate, and the information is available in the various European languages. Anyone who clics on www.ploteus.net will find a huge repertoire of links, subdivided into five different sections: learning opportunities, educational systems, exchanges, contacts and possibilities of moving to another country. In the section “learning opportunities”, it’s possible to access numerous links with national or regional data banks and sites of education and training bodies in thirty countries. Searching is facilitated by the possibility of selecting information according to country, teaching language, discipline or educational level. In the “section on exchanges” it’s possible to access information on exchange programmes at all levels, from training schemes in companies to European volunteer service and specific student exchange programmes like Erasmus and Leonardo da Vinci. The “contacts section” provides information on national education guidance and counselling centres. And to know something more about the practical aspects of life and study abroad, just clic on the section “Moving to another country”. Here you can find information and tips on accommodation, cost of living, tax regime and relevant aspects of social security. “Zap”. Another valuable internet source linked to the European Commission is “Zap”, the “educational portal that’s fun for children and adolescents”, though a bit hard to find, to tell the truth. It can be accessed from the site of European Schoolnet (www.eun.org) by clicking on the links offered under the word “pupils”. Otherwise you need to key in a long and rather improbable address: www.eun.org/eun.org2/eun/en/index_zap.cfm. Once you have accessed the portal – available in various languages: Portuguese, Spanish, German, French, Dutch and Italian – you can then browse through a series of links grouped in six sections: activities (either for the single surfer or for a hypothetical school class), news, e-cards, netiquette (proposing and promoting rules for “surfing effectively” on the world wide web, suggestions for teenagers, children and parents). In the “info” section it’s explained that “the Zap website for children forms part of a project called Euncle (European Collaborative Environment), that involves European Schoolnet, coordinator of the programme, and seven European partners”. Zap is financed by the General Directorate for information of the European Commission, in the framework of the action plan for safer use of the Internet. The aim is the Euncle project is “to identify, develop and maintain an international and multilingual collaborative environment for children aged from 8 to 14, compatible with the various national teaching methods and with the various ways of controlling safety on the Internet”.