The Contact Seminar in La Coruna, Spain

What a small world! Sitting here in my hotel room in La Coruna, Spain, listening to a daily news round –up in Hebrew from Israel Radio, waiting for a Skype chat wife my wife after she gets home from work. Had a very full enjoyable day at the Contact Seminar event which preceded the 22nd ESP (European Schools Project Conference) – “Bridging Education into Society”. Nearly 30 educators, principals and edtech experts from Denmark, Spain, Germany, England, Italy, Holland, Georgia, Portugal, Norway, Iran and Israel came together for a one day workshop on planning, developing, implementing and evaluating collaborative international e-learning projects. The workshop leaders, Kirsten M. Antilla and Morgen Eriksen of Denmark, past national coordinators of ESP, coordinators and partners in collaborative projects, and established teacher educators did a very professional job of preparing the participants to partake in and run International Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) projects.
Among the topics dealt with were:
• Getting to know you
• How international is my school?
• The life of a collaborative e-project
• The Star of Quality – a checklist for planning projects
• Doing teacher distance introductions
• Defining the school situation and determining the project objectives
• Non – verbal presentation and field work (or “The Digicam in Service of Education”)
• Using the mind map in planning the project
• Viewing workshop outcomes
• Evaluation & summary
Kirsten and Morgens accomplished the incredible task of bringing together educators from very different backgrounds, professional status, previous experience and getting them to work together harmoniously on structured tasks using excellent teaching materials in order to learn how to effectively participate in CSCL projects. Thank you! Some of their materials are available here:
I am truly amazed at the wonderful atmosphere here at the ESP conference. Feelings of warmth and openness, sharing and cooperation prevail. During the workshop sessions, while carrying out the group tasks and during informal sessions, breaks and meal times, information and empathy flow freely. One hears about the successes and issues faced by others, shares his and sets the stage for possible collaborations in the future.
For example, today at dinner I learned about a country that has one computer for every thirty six students and another that has one for every four. Well, I guess that puts Israel somewhere in between.
I hope the Conference which convenes tomorrow with over a hundred participants will be as rewarding.

I won’t write here about my foot tour of La Coruna with Adi, a local young citizen whom I met when I encountered his blog in preparation for this trip .It was a very memorable walk indeed for more reasons than one.

I’ll just add some fresh images of the day here for the benefit of the readers (if there are any).

At Work:

Our TV Mindmap!