Traveloteacher

Last night Sonja and I led the first in this year's series of webinars for senior students. This is the fourth year in a row that we organize webinars aimed at students to help them with their exit exams. We had special guests from the Ministry of Education, the National Centre for External Evaluation of Education, the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, the Agency for Science and Higher Education and the Open University Algebra. Technical support was, as always,  given by CARNet. Today Sonja and I received a wonderful thank -you message by Hrvoje Lisac from CARNet, who made this (and many other previous webinars and teachmeets) run smoothly and without any glitches. In his message, Hrvoje said that this was one of the most visited webinars ever - all 200 seat were taken almost as soon as we opened the "door". Live streaming was functioning perfectly, with more than 350 views-  So yes, we proved again that students really want to use new technologi...

I've just finished reading yet another must read by Ollie Bray  -    Using 1:1 to Unlock Learning . It's a fantastic resource on how to deploy 1:1 computing at your school.  It can be downloaded for free on Slideshare and as a pdf. Using 1:1 to Unlock Learning from Microsoft Education UK Ollie gives lots of practical information on what teachers, school administrators and policy makers need to take into consideration if they want to deploy a 1:1 learning environment. I highly recommend this book, even if you don't have any plans for using 1:1 computing whatsoever. Because it's learning and teaching that this great e-Book is about. Or as Ollie says, " Adding technology doesn't mean more learning and adding technology to a boring lesson may not make a lesson more interesting ." With Ollie in Swindon, 2012 

Looking back at 2013, I can say that never before has there been a year with so many ups and downs as this one.  There are both good and bad moments every year, but in 2013 the oscillations between the ups and downs were really huge. But now, at the end of the year, I'm going to leave behind all those disturbing, terrifying and utterly devastating moments, along with all those failures and disappointments and take stock of the good moments only, of achievements, of successes which will hopefully continue in 2014 as well. 1) Academically, it's been a terrific year - my husband got his Masters, my older son is just about to get his Bachelor's and will continue to pursue his Masters and my younger son enrolled at college. And I got a grant for a year-long ELA - eLearning Academy by CARNet, so this year I'm a student again - studying about e-learning and pedagogy, writing papers about it and getting grades for my work! 2) We travelled a lot - on stand by, of course. ...

I've been tagged in a blogging meme by my dear friends  Eva Buyuksimkesyan ,  Janet Bianchini  and  Cristina Silva . The task includes: Acknowledge the nominating blogger. Share 11 random facts about yourself. Answer the 11 questions the nominating blogger has created for you. List 11 bloggers. Post 11 questions for the bloggers you nominate to answer, and let all the bloggers know they have been nominated. Don’t nominate a blogger who has nominated you. So here I go: 11 random facts about me 1. I'm a proud mom of two boys who are now at university, studying mechanical engineering and ICT. 2. My husband and I swim 2 kilometers every Sunday. We've been doing that  for 12 years now. 3.  I travel a lot, but always on stand-by, which means that we can travel only if there are free seats available on the plane. It can get really nerve-racking, but it's worth it. 4.  Until last year I thought  jogging was not my kind of spor...

I love Twitter, I always have, ever since I first started following Ashton Kutcher @aplusk, (yes, really!) in April 2009. Only a month later, my PLN began to take shape. That was also the time when the first educational Twitter chat took place. 4,5 years later, my PLN plays a very important role for my professional, but also personal development and Twitter chats are events I take part in whenever I can.  I have grown both professionally and personally over those 4,5 year, as Italian educator Alessandra Pallavicini aptly said: Yesterday, I went even further than that -  I led the first eTwinning Twitter Marathon together with Bart Verswijvel , with whom I have already done lots of educational projects that have inspired a huge number of educators worldwide. ETWION as we called it, brought together more than 150 educators from all over the world. It lasted for 5 hours non-stop, with Bart and me welcoming the audience, involving them in the conversations, making ...

These days when the West Jet Christmas video is going viral, I've been thinking about the message it conveys - Miracles do happen if we all work as one. Yes, I know, it's a fairy tale, but still, I want to believe and I do believe that miracles really happen - if we join forces we can make things happen, do the unthinkable, make dreams come true! Take my school for example. It's old, it desperately needs a complete makeover, which will most likely not happen, not even in the distant future, with all these cuts in the field of education (unfortunately, my government doesn't understand that investing in education brings prosperity to a country). This time last year our computer lab looked like this: Today it looks totally different: Inspired by the Future Classroom Lab in Brussels, it is now a flexible learning space that motivates students, sparks creativity and instills the love of learning and teaching. I've written about it so m...

#ETWION is an eTwinning Twitter Marathon that Bart and I are organizing for eTwinners and educators from all over the world on December 19. We're really pleased to see that lots of teachers have opened a Twitter account and are getting ready to take part in the twitterathon. Here are some tips for newcomers on how to make the most out of #ETWION: First and foremost, we communicate with other Twitterers (or tweeps) by sending short messages or tweets which are up to 140 characters long. Even though this may seem really short, we can add links, photos and even video clips to our tweets. Every Twitter user has a Twitter name, also known as Twitter handle , which consists of the symbol @ placed before the username. If you don't add the @ , the user might not see your tweet, so make sure you always add the twitter handle of the person who you're addressing this tweet to. For example, I sent out this tweet to no one in particular so it appeared on the timelines of all t...