Enews: an odl platform to support environmental citizenship

Abstract

This article describes the main activities and approaches of the eNews Minerva (Open and Distance Learning - ODL) Project. eNews is an initiative of the European Commission SOCRATES Minerva Program 2001 with the primary objective to promote cooperation between European schools and departments of teacher education. This paper reports on the interim progress made by the eNews Project team to create and pilot suitable approaches and related tools to examine national and international environmental news through the eNews platform. It examines the needs of teachers and some of the pedagogical approaches in using the on-line and off-line Web tools developed in the project to enable, support and enhance cooperative learning, specifically associated with issues concerning deep European citizenship (Donert, 2002). The paper reviews and assesses the initial findings from the pilot phase of the project.