Traveloteacher

Two and a half years ago I was invited to join a group of teachers and students from seven European countries who were about to apply for a Comenius project about movies and students and the future and Europe.   Our project "Imaging Europe 2011-2013" was accepted by our national agencies, and now, two years later, we have proved that it really was an outstanding project that has left a huge mark on all the participants. It made us realize how similar yet different we are and how important it is to get to know each other in order to better understand our differences and to respect people from other cultures. The main task of the project was to create a road movie about Europe's past, present and future: as our students see it today, what it looked like to be a European from the perspective of an 18-year-old student 20 years ago and how today's young people see the Europe of the future, in 2020. We worked on the videos in our schools and then showed each othe...

Yesterday we held yet another virtual Teachmeet. Just like the previous three teachmeets, this one was a true celebration of teaching, learning and sharing. There were 16 speakers from 16 countries from across six continenets. They talked about eTwinning projects, classroom publishing, concept mapping, Edmodo, extensive reading, writing, gaming, entrepreneurship, mentoring teachers and Wordle, just to mention a few. The atmoshpere was incredible - you could feel the immense enthusiasm, energy and passion that radiated not only from the speakers, but also from the audience, both in the chatbox and on the stage. Technology, however, is another story.  Everything that could go wrong went wrong. At one point, the ACP simply refused to obey our orders, requests and pleas to upload the speakers' presentations. I was devastated, even though I know very well that  technology often lets us down, but we still love it ! Luckily, having teachers in the audience means that  all p...

In July 2011,  I was proud and honored to be one of the top 50 educators selected by the Microsoft Partners in Learning Network to take part in the first PIL Institute that was held at the Microsoft Headquarters in Redmond, WA. This event has greatly impacted both my professional and personal life - it influenced the way I teach, the way I learn and the way I connect with educators worldwide. I'm still in close contact with most of the educators from Seattle -  on the PIL Network and on our Facebook page, fondly nicknamed the Dirty Fifty.  Some of us have also had the pleasure of f2f meetings in different countries worldwide and we all know, more or less, for most members of our group what they are up to, what they have done since Seattle, where they have traveled and how they have implemented the knowledge they gained at the Insititute. A year and a half later, Bart and I are organizing a virtual PIL Insitutute Alumni Reunion - or an informal follow-up meeting...

The ten-day long Learning Odyssey that Bart and I were running in the eTwinning Learning Lab moved from the virtual to the real world in Portugal last week. At the annual eTwinning conference, held in Lisbon, we delivered two workshops about The Pedagogical Value of eTwinning projects. The workshops were well received by the teachers who wanted to learn more not only about the web 2.0 tools that they can use in their eTwinning projects, but also about the pedagogy behind the tools (or ahead of the tools). We received fantastic feedback and I'm still over the moon about it, because so many teachers approached us after the workshops to tell us that our sessions were the best or among the best sessions of the entire conference.   Also, after the first workshop the good word about what we did and how we presented this topic spread around and we were asked to let in some other teachers who hadn't previously signed up for our workshops. What the teachers liked most about t...

The learning event The Pedagogical Value of eTwinning projects that Bart and I are running in the eTwinning Learning Lab is now in full swing. The warming up part was well received by more than 150 participants. Bart and I have collected not only a lot of resources and tools to engage our particpants, but we've also prepared some fun tasks for them that they have been doing with pleasure and passion. We're delighted to see how enthusiastic and inspiring the eTwinners are and how committed they are to lifelong learning and collaborating with peers from across Europe. Our first fun activity was a Thinglink map of Europe where they were invited to introduce themselves with a video, photo or link to the website of their school, hometown or country. We have two maps now - one bigger ,  the other smaller and both are filled with beautiful videos and images. The second task was to write their favorite saying on the 21st century education and learning on a Linoit Board. T...

Today I'm proudly announcing and inviting you, dear readers, to take part in the learning event The Pedagogical Value of eTwinning projects , which I'll be running with my Belgian colleague Bart Verswijve l in the Learning Lab from February 28- March 9. This is the first time that I'm running such an event, and also the first time that a Croatian educator is doing it. Learning Events are short online courses aimed at improving teachers' skills and putting them in touch with other eTwinners. Learning events take place in a specifically designed platform called the Learning Lab . Our learning event is about technology, but technology that is used only as a means to achieve the learning goals set by the teacher and to develop students' 21st century skills.  As you can read in my bio, I'm an avid user of web 2.0 technology and have been using it in my classroom for quite some time now. I must admit, however, that at the beginning of my tech journey, ...

As a token of appreciation, the BaW team sent me this personalized badge of the 10th anniversary! This is my BaW story: But first some background: Every year  the Electronic Village Onlin e , a project of TESOL's CALL Interest Section, organizes five-week long professional development courses for teachers of English. Teachers can choose from a variety of topics. Becoming a Webhead (BaW) , a hands-on workshop on how to use web 2.0 tools in the classroom, is  EVO's longest running workshop. This year, the BaWers are celebrating their 10th anniversary. BaW represents an excellent way to get started with new technologies in education. It encourages teachers to pursue new ways of teaching and to bring changes into their classrooms. This is exactly what BaW did for me when I applied for the 2010 workshop! It opened up a new door and let me enter a new world of digital delights, which I continued to explore, to experiment, to learn! And the icing on the cake was me being ...