Our project organization

Our project organization is moving ahead! We have some specific ideas about how to get started, about specific topics for the first few months, and most importantly about which schools are going to be actively participating. So far, I have a strong commitment from:
- Gosia (Malgorzata Kulakowska) in Poland
- Enza Armiento in Italy
- Jacqueline Matthews in Ireland

Also actively discussing participation with me is:
- Branislav Lanscak in Slovakia

The other partners who were interested, but who I haven't heard from recently (perhaps because their school year is over and they're on holidays) are:
- Annamaria Karczagi (Axelero) in Hungary
- Jiøí Hrubý in the Czech Republic

And in my school, Lycée Astier, two other colleagues have already posted to our blog:
- Bruno Boddaert, English teacher
- Fabrice Foray, computer studies teacher.

It would be helpful if some of you could tell us whether there are other teachers in your school keen to participate. I've got 5 or 6 more here at Lycée Astier who are "interested" but who are waiting for September to really get involved.

About financing: I've already been able to use our project and the "labels" showing our participating schools to get 4000 euros and 30 extra hours for teachers for our project. We're going to use the money (from our regional council) to get a projector and PC and necessary accessories to set up a videoconferencing site. I've got several more requests for funding in the pipeline, but no confirmation yet. I strongly urge you all to make similar requests from your local administrations. I think in general they will be very keen to fund a potentially very interesting and useful project like this. Later, we can work towards getting Euro funding for exchanges through Comenius, Leonardo, and so on.

About themes: Although we've been discussing the theme "living spaces" I don't want anybody to feel "chained" to this theme, or to change their mind about participating because they are unsure about this theme. I think our project is big enough we can have several different discussions going at the same time. I know I'm still looking for some specific partners for our teachers in computer studies, electrical and mechanical engineering, woodworking and so on.

About tools: I'm sure most of us are most familiar with e-mail, and it is probably the easiest forum of exchange to manage. However, I'd also like to use a set of forums organized into a sort of "virtual village", derived from a different project I've been running for the last five years, and it would be great if we could also use videoconferencing, live chat, and perhaps other forms of communication. My colleague Bruno has also been involved in a video/theater project for a couple years, and he has several films made by students in our school, that could be fun for your students to see.

All these points would be useful to discuss here. Please jump in and post your thoughts whenever possible.

Cheers, --- Phil

Project registration and CSS support

I want to take this opportunity to share with everyone how helpful the central support services (CSS) team has been with my many questions about getting our project started, and in dealing with the E-Twinning tools interface. Nuria de Salvador, Katarina Bavorova, Brigitte Parry, Sylvia Binger and Silvia Spinoso have been a huge help in getting started, and very present in the weekly e-twinning chat sessions. Some of you may not have noticed those chat sessions, but they are linked directly from the www.etwinning.net website, and from your own dashboard. They are run from noon to 1PM and from 4PM to 5PM (Euro time/French time, GMT+2 for the summer) and while I haven't seen many struggling teachers there, the CSS team has been very present, helpful and friendly. I'll try to attend several more times this week, perhaps we can meet there some one of these days.

I have registered the project with one partner, Jackie in Ireland, and have just received the official notification of the project's acceptance. But please, I don't want any of the rest of you to feel left out. Just as soon as the tool allowing us to register multiple partnerships is ready, probably in 3-4 weeks' time, I will be registering all those who have confirmed with me their desire to participate. In the meantime, I suggest we do several things:
1) Let's continue discussing the specific details of how to manage the "Living Spaces" theme.
2) If any of you want to start a smaller side project with one of the schools I've listed, that would be great. For example, it would be logical for Fabrice's computer class to have a special side project with one or more other schools having upper-level students specializing in computer programming. I think one of Jiøí Hrubý's classes might be in that situation. As they'll have separate and very specific themes to deal with, it is logical that they have a separate project registered, even if both our schools continue to be involved in the "Village Europa" project. Some of you may have colleagues teaching in specialized sections, or wishing to have a special topic different from the one we're currently discussing. I think we could work that into our larger, school-wide project plan.
3) If any of you decide you'd prefer not to get involved in the "Village Europa" project, please let me know. I'm personally convinced that the project will be more successful if we have multiple schools involved, but some of you may prefer doing simpler, smaller projects with a single school. That's no problem, just please let me know.

Cheers, --- Phil

Computer Studies

I'm teaching computer sciences and computing languages to undergraduate students in the same school as Phil.
We are using Embedded platform using QNX, an Unix-like, or Windows XPEmbedded both with C/C++ applications most to create Web services, production control and multimedia applications; Java, Php, SQL are also in use.
During their studies, students have a period of professional training for at least six weeks, in any kind of computer related industries/companies : from programming applications to computer shop, the objective is to plug them into reality ;-)
May be we could share experiences, and why not exchange students for their professional training period.

Regards,
Fabrice.

Summer holidays and preparing September

Our classes at the Lycée Astier are pretty much over now, except for testing and corrections and meetings, but these will go on until the first week of July or so. Some of you have said your school year is ending, or has already ended, and one thing we all need as teachers is some time away from our students, to recharge for the next year.
Still, I think it'll help if we can toss around some ideas as to what sort of activities we can do with our students next year, especially what we can do to start the year in September. I'd like to get the project started with something that will make all our students realize that their education and their lives will be more and more linked to a greater community - a Europe-wide community. We mustn't let the recent referendums on the European constitution discourage this wider community building effort.

Please, respond to this message, describing your school, your students and what you'd like to do next September. I've already given some of my ideas in a nearby message, but this needs to be a group effort, a group concept.

Cheers, --- Phil