Traveloteacher

It's been almost a year since I attended the first Partners in Learning Institute in Seattle along with 49 innovative educators from all over the world. We've stayed in contact ever since on the various social networking sites, the Dirty Fifty Facebook page being the one I like most.  All these educators have inspired and motivated not only their students, but also their fellow teachers. That's why they've been interviewed for Daily Edventures , a blog by Anthony Salcito, Vice President of Worldwide Education at Microsoft. I'm really proud and honored to be one of these global heroes in education . You can read more about what we've been doing and how we've been trying to change education and bring innovation into our classrooms. Here are the interviews in the order they were were published. Learn from your students and don't be afraid to fail Teaching teachers Learning and teaching: The twins of eTwinning Education is a fundamental...

I had the pleasure of hearing Professor Sugata Mitra at the Innovative Teacher Forum in Berlin in March 2010. In his splendid keynote he talked about his Hole In The Wall experiments and children from slums and poor, remote areas in India who acquire basic computer skills, even though they don't speak English and don't have a teacher to help them. They learn because they want to.

I know, I know, you've already seen Sir Ken Robinson's latest TED talk, but I want to have it here on my blog: together with this wonderful poem by W.B. Yeats: HAD I the heavens' embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half-light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet, Tread softly because you tread on my dreams ..... 'because every day, everywhere, our children spread their dreams beneath our feet. And we should tread softly!'

I was tagged by Shelly Terrell in her wonderful challenge to write about our most inspirational educators. German was my first foreign language. I studied it for 5 years before other languages came along. These days, however, it's all about English. At school, out of 21 classes that I teach per week only two are German. I write my blog in English, I google in English, I tweet in English, I sometimes communicate with other German teachers in English. However, the most inspirational educators who have deeply influenced me belong to the German side of my education. Mr. Kazimir Sviben was my primary school German teacher. It was him who opened the door to the amazing world of foreign languages. He was one of the first multitaskers and lifelong learners I have ever met and he always encouraged us to pursue our dreams. His teaching instilled a love of languages in his students, many of whom became language teachers later on. Professor Viktor Zmegac, my German Literature professor, is on...