Traveloteacher

On Saturday Bart and I gave a keynote on Global Networking at the SMILE conference in Milan. We were invited by Italian educators Mariella Brunazzi and Elena Fusar Poli, who organized the conference that marked the closing of their multinational Erasmus + project SMILE. There were 300 educators from 8 countries at the conference. Our keynote was very interactive and involved a lot of activities that the audience had to do. We even made them dance and they greatly enjoyed it.

I just discovered that Padlet introduced some excellent new features which are definitely going to make  our teacher lives so much easier. Besides creating a Padlet as a blank page, it is now possible to choose from one of the eight different templates (BTW, more templates are about to come and what's more,  the kind Padlet folks will even create a new template if you tell them what you want!). My absolute favorite template, one that I've been dreaming of for many many years is the interactive KWL chart! It's easy, it's user-friendly, it's intuitive and it takes just one click to create - simply put, it's perfect. And you can add as many columns as you wish! The other templates that I'll no longer be able to teach without are Q&A, To Do List aka Kanban Board and Storyboard ! Moodboard, Bookmarks, Video Playlist and Org Chart will come in handy too! Another thing that Padlet recently introduced are  formats ! There are no layouts a...

On my Croatian blog The Fellowship of Twitter , I write about new tools that can be used in the classroom. Today I wrote about Typeform, a very nice, user-friendly and intuitive tools for creating forms, surveys and quizzes, but as  Wordpress.com is very restrictive regarding embeds, I embedded my sample Typeform here. You can read my post about Typeform here . Powered by Typeform

Split, the largest city in Dalmatia, was founded in the 3rd century when Diocletian, a Roman Emperor built himself a villa in Spalathos.  More about Split and its history here: www.visitsplit.com/en

Korcula is a medieval city surrounded with walls and situated on the eponymous island in Southern Adriatic. The streets of Korcula  resemble a fish bone: a main street with 26 side streets. The eastern streets are slightly curved, the western ones run straight, and the reason is - the breeze: during hot summer  days the streets provide an escape from the boiling hot weather, while in winter the city is protected from strong winds.  The streets are very narrow and all but one, are in fact stairways. The one that isn't is called Philisophers Street because you can safely walk up and down and be lost in your thoughts and dreams, without having to watch your step.  Marco Polo was born in one of the stone houses here in Korcula. Yes, really! A fun fact: There's more wine than water on the island. If you want to learn more about Korcula visit this excellent blog:  http://www.ikorculainfo.com/

Zadar is well known for its Sea Organ, a unique instrument made of tubes beneath marble steps and played by the sea waves. The bigger the waves, the louder the music.  Photo by Croatia.hr  Nikola Bašić, who designed the Organ, also designed the nearby Greeting to the Sun - a beautiful 22-meter circle made of 300 multi-layered glass plates that produce a unique show of lights. But Zadar is more than that: The Church of St. Donatus dates back to the 8th century. Its shape is circular and it belongs to the Pre-Romanesque period. The Silver and Gold of Zadar is another must see. Situated in St. Mary's Benedictine convent and guarded by nuns, this permanent exhibition of religious art is one of the most amazing displays of gold and silver artworks. A real treasure!

In August I was invited to give two talks and a workshop at two great events:  - a plenary: "Curricular Integration of eTwinning Projects" at the PDW eTwinning from A to Z, in Rimske Terme, Slovenia; - a plenary: "The Future Is Now" and  a workshop "eTwinning - the most exciting community for schools in Europe" at LEND International Summer School in Sirolo, Italy. Both events provided me with a wonderful opportunity to connect and network with European teachers and to attend some excellent workshop and talks delivered by expert educators. Peer learning at its best.