"Through eTwinning, each class will be able to contact any place of Europe, and the students, as well as improving their computer skills, will learn more about different cultures and languages". Ján Figel’, EU Commissioner for education and training, presented the conference, due from 23rd to 24th February in Brussels, about the EU program that "has a double purpose: to boost the use of computers to communicate between schools and thus boost inter-cultural dialogue". Over 23 thousand schools used eTwinning in 2006, and tomorrow six "virtual interchange" projects developed by schools of different countries will be given awards. The six runners-up have been developed by schools of the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Spain. The winning projects, divided into three age groups (4 to 12, 13 to 15, and 16 to 19), show some recurring features: educational innovation (how the use of IT has changed the daily life of the partner schools); integration in the syllabus; creative use of IT; transferability, i.e. the possibility of sharing "the benefits of the project" with other classes and schools.
