Traveloteacher

 Isabella was the only student from my school who took part in StudentsMeet last week. Her 4-minute presentation was about Windows Movie Maker. She gave the same presentation to Comenius students who were visiting our school a month ago. She made it clear that this user-friendly video editing tool will enable us to make great movies - quickly and easily. Windows Movie Maker Basics, IX.gimnazija, Zagreb View more PowerPoint from stuteachmeet Isabella talked about it with such ease that she inspired me to give it a try. And here's the result: my first movie ever. It's far from perfect, but I really enjoyed making it. The bottom line is that if it weren't for Isabella and her inspiration, I would have never made it!

We did it today! We switched the roles and we gave our students a voice. We gave them the opportunity to teach the teachers and to share their ideas and experiences with their peers from across Europe. And thanks to their enthusiasm and commitment, their competence and expertise, today's StudentsMeet session was a great success! The students from 10 high schools from the UK, Belgium, Romania, Turkey, Hungary, Italy and Croatia gave fantastic talks about different topics that they're interested in: Internet safety, Tumblr, Facebook, voluntary work in Morroco, 3D printers, movie makers, globalization, digital media, SOPA, online gaming, mobile phones... They have shown what great teachers they are and how much we can learn from them. I'm delighted to have had this wonderful opportunity to be there with them this morning.

Yes, today is the long-awaited day for Croatia - today we're voting in a referendum on whether to join the European Union and I do hope the Croatian citizens say yes. But no, this post is not about the referendum. This post is my way to extend a warm welcome to the participants of the Comenius project Imaging Europe. My school is one of the 8  participants of this project financed by the European Comission and I'm the coordinator of the Croatian team. 50 people are coming to Zagreb today and they are going to be our guests over the next five days. 31 students from Belgium, Denmark, Poland, Romania, Turkey, Greece and Spain will be hosted by the students from my school while 19 teachers will be staying at a hotel. Over the next week we plan to show our guests all the sights of Zagreb and the surroundings, visit several muesum, go to a musical, learn how to make movies and actually make them, eat delicious Croatian food, speak English and most importantly, get to know eac...

On March 3, the TeachMeet Int'l Team (Sonja, Bart and I)  will be hosting another virtual TeachMeet . I think it's not an overstatement to say that  the first one , held in December 2011, was a great success. There are two reasons for its success. Firstly, the teachers were given the floor! They had a chance to talk about practical matters and ideas that worked in their classroooms and they embraced this opportunity with burning and contagious enthusiasm. Secondly, all the participants, be it presenters or the audience, were given  a wonderful opportunity to connect with educators from all over the world without leaving their home. I  believe that the same can be done for students as well, so we'll be hosting our first StudentsMeet on Feburary 7. We are eager to bring together all the students (and their teachers) who want to share their ideas and their creativity with the rest of the world, no matter where they live, what language they speak or what school ...

What an incredible year 2011 has been for me and my professional development! While I was nothing more than an ordinary yet enthusiastic lurker in 2010,  I  dared and I did in 2011! Despite being a shy presenter I plucked up the courage to present at two ELT conferences and a Teach Meet and I gave a talk on new technologies in education to teachers in two schools in Zagreb. I'm extremely proud of the series of webinars for students that Sonja and I launched in the spring. There were 13 webinars that I co-hosted and/or presented at and they proved to be extremely successful, useful and popular among the student population. Besides student webinars, I delievered two webinars for teachers, entitled School Without Walls and Safer Internet Day - How They Do It. I was a co-presenter at the webinar about the Microsoft Partners in Learning Institue 2011. The highlights of the year have been by far the two TeachMeets   that I co-organized and co-hosted with ...

If anything deserves to be described as a truly out of this world experience, then the two yesterday's webinars should be it! The iTDi webinar and the TeachMeet Int'l definitely set new standards for professional development and I'd like to express my heartfelt thanks to all the speakers and participants who shared their experiences, ideas and best practices and sent out a great deal of good vibrations into the cyberspace.   I'm especially grateful to Bart and Sonja , my co-hosts for the TeachMeet Int'l  for their wholehearted support before, during and after the event. The Twitter back channeling was absolutely amazing and I extend my huge thanks to Jeannette @7MrsJames for compiling  the tweetdoc  and for being there with us although it was middle of the night in Australia. Jeannette has written a wonderful post about this special day, and so did Vicky , who was one of the TeachMeet Int'l esteemed presenters.

I first presented at a webinar a year ago - and got hooked immediately! When it comes to webinars, it doesn't matter if  I'm a moderator, a presenter or only a listener, I simply love them. They're really contagious - you do it once - you want to do it all the time! And on Saturday Dec. 17 there is going to be a real treat for all the webinar fans out there. Two fanatastic events will take place in the virtual world:  At 10:00 am CET,  iTDi will be hosting a special webinar What's a Teacher? moderated by Shelly Terrell with live online presentations by Scott Thornbury , Luke Meddings , Marcos Benevides , Steven Herder , Chuck Sandy , and John Fanselow. 300 teachers from 57 countries have registered for the event. Are you one of them too? Immediately after the ITDi webinar, at 2:0 pm CET, Sonja, Bart and I will be moderating our first virtual Teach Meet Int'l . In this webinar, 25 speakers from 15 countries will be sharing their ideas and projects...