About ESP - more

The European Schools Project (ESP) started in 1988. A central concept was introduced and refined to structure computer-supported collaborative learning: the teleproject. The concept encompasses Internet-based collaborations between teachers and pupils around ‘conversation’ topics that are thought to be relevant for learning and teaching of all participants in the project. The topics demand active and authentic learning of the pupils, while for the collaboration a mutual foreign language, and electronic mail or Virtual Learning Environments are used.

Since 1988 (when ESP’s conception happened) , thousands of participating teachers have designed and organised many thousands of teleprojects, on hundreds different conversation topics, using many languages. Tens of thousands of pupils in many countries of the world, many of which European, have taken part in it. Various aspects were researched, educational materials were developed and produced, examples of good practice gathered, and teacher education, both pre-service and in-service, organised. And slowly ESP as educational network organisation emerged with a culture of generosity: as collaboration is at the heart of educational activities, One is no-one without the Other with whom the mutual learning is done.

Within the Comenius3 action the European Collaborative Learning ECOLE-network was created in 2001, in which is built both on ESP-experiences and expertise, and on Comenius best practices. Its aims focussed on making available web-based content for computer supported collaborative learning projects, e-learning courses for teachers’ professional development, information on new ICT-tools and electronic learning environments, and support for transforming Comenius projects into interactive electronic collaboration projects. The theme of the network is ‘Educational Use of ICT’. ECOLE has one sister-network in this thematic area, the COMP@CT network.