Communication in School Project Work

Communication and project work

Project work always includes communication - without communication between the project actors the outcomes would be different. In transnational projects the students and teachers communicate at own school and with the other participating students and teachers in rest of the project schools.

Objectives of communication can be such as:

• to share the overall understanding of project goals
• to agree how the goals will be gained (work plan, responsibilities of each partner)
• to learn to know partners
• to build commitment
• to implement the work plan on local level
• to follow up the procedures
• to discuss openly possible different point of views and deviation of work plan
• to find solutions when encountered problems
• to gain support (in-house; external)
• to share the outcomes and experiences
• to disseminate
• to evaluate the project work [More info].

Various types of collaboration

Goals of project work can be done either by dividing the tasks or doing everything together. In various transnational projects the first option is quite common. Coordinator together with partners divides up the tasks and each partner accomplish the work. By using collaborative tools some work can be done together.

Types of collaboration:

• project planning (e.g. draft by mailing list, suggestions and comments by , the
• meetings (using chat room, videoconferencing)
• exchanging opinions, outcomes (e.g. e-mail, NetMeeting)
• project evaluation.

Guidelines

• when you start the project define the communication & collaboration and the tools
• make together common rules how the tools will be used
• make sure all learn how to use tool
• comply with the communication rules
• if problems arise discuss them openly with the particular person(s)
• in the end evaluate how you have managed to use tools and what you have learned

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