Thessaloniki…….What an experience!

My colleague Fraser and I along with our pupils Matthew, Scott had a great time and received a tremendous welcome and consideration from our Greek hosts.

All our 8 other schools were present ,and like KGS, the schools brought student with them.  Although most of the other students were older that Matthew and Scott, the boys, once they gained their confidence began to enjoy working with and talking to the students from Greece, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Denmark and Hungary.

Our trip consisted of development planning, Web 2.0 tools workshops, interactive workshops presented by Aquatera from Stromness re our Climate Change project, site seeing and veritable feast’s of everlasting Greek meals, music and dancing.

It’s a hard life!

Just thought I would share with you some of the pictures I took while I was in Sri Lanka for my Easter hols.

20 million people live on the island..a bit more than that of Orkney!!!!

Unfortunately it was as if 20 million people were all on the same road I was being driven along……man it was frightening!!  The only road code is survival.

However I will show you the best side of Sri Lanka.

 80 % of the population are Buddhist’s

Just 3 of the hundreds of Buhhda’s I saw ………..

 The beaches..so beautiful, but unfortunately the ocean

was to dangerous to swim in.

The Elephant Orphanage near Kandy……they are so cute and powerful!

 The ‘jewel in the crown’….The botanical gardens in Kandy.

 As for the Orchids…………

The Tsunami….

The local people think at least 30,000 people lost their lives as a result of the Tsunami. The locals did not realise what was happening when the sea suddenly receded back a couple of miles. Instinctively people went out onto the sand and started collecting all the very valuable fish that were left stranded.  As result, when the wave came rushing back , these poor people stood no chance and were all drowned.

Tsunami monuments.

Depicted in a new Buddhist temple.

The wreckage from the train that was swept away.

High Schools New Face (Tues)

From: snbeach, 8 months ago

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This presentation was part of a 14 hour workshop in Western NY

SlideShare Link

KGS have just applied to take part in the proposed Web2class project that sees KGS working with 7 other countries across Europe.

Germany (2), Denmark, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Hungary and Solvakia.

Pupils will be investigating two topics over two years. In year one, pupils will be studying the effects of ‘climate change’ and in the second year, the effects of ‘immigration’ and the ‘mobility of workforces’ across Europe.

Pupils will be assisted in the use of  Web tools, that are free to use on the internet to-day, in order to allow pupils to work in real time collabaration with fellow pupils across Europe. These tools are known as Web 2.0 tools and are driving the progression from e-learning to c-learning (communication learning between peers) in recent times.

Go to http://web2class.edublogs.org to view the progress diary of this exciting project.

International Student Research Project  2007 – 2008.

 The Learning School project(LS9) is one school self-evaluation model, which in line with current social developments have seen young people become more active and participative in contributing to debate about matters which affect them and engages students as the evaluators of learning. School self evaluation readdresses outdated democratic imbalances in evaluation, encourages students to be participative and active contributors to learning evaluation and to be more responsible learners. This year’s research project for LS9 is investigating ‘A Curriculum for Living and Learning in the 21^st Century’. From this we have chosen to focus on developing ‘A Global Campus’ as an example of a curriculum for the 21^st 

Century could be. It aims to be created, developed and shaped, over the course of the year, through meeting the students’ visions of learning for the future. By the end of the research year (June 2008) it is intended there will be a visual presentation of what ‘A Global Campus’ is according to students across the world. It will incorporate what students of today feel young people of the future should study, how they should study, where they should study and with whom they would learn. 

LS9 will have the completed visual presentation on offer to schools may they wish to use the research to supplement their own investigations on a curriculum of the 21st Century and what the future of living and learning may be for students. 

Topic: The Learning school concept

The project has a uniquely international dimension, as the members which make up the research group represent the schools of an international partnership of schools known as the Global Classroom. Those nominated to become Learning School participants are typically either current or recent high school students. Over the course of ten months, the group conducts research into learning issues in each partnership school – taking them to a diverse range of countries and social, cultural and economic situations. This translates to a rich social, cultural, personal and academic learning experience for group members in particular, but also for students in participant schools, host families, wider communities and experts.

Learning School group researchers

Javier Vazquez, 26            Karin Rylander, 19   

Madrid, Spain                   Ånge, Sweden

Jade de Klerk, 17,            Desiree Risberg, 19

Cape Town, SA                Ånge, Sweden 

Marcus Nicolson, 17           Maya Whittall, 22     

Shetland Isles,UK               Shetland Isles,UK 

Stepan Pekarek, 17

Zlin, Czech Republic

Visiting the following Schools…
Bobergsgymnasiet, Sweden
Anderson
High School,
Shetland Islands
Kirkwall
Grammar School,
Orkney Islands
Gymnazium Zlin, Czech republicGraf
Friedrich Schule, Germany
West Windsor High School, USA
Lake Ginninderra College, Australia
South Pennisula High School, South Africa 

email: lwe.asrcnhinogoslocfhaomobl9ti@ognm.oargil.com

click on the image above to see more detail.

Get a Voki now!

click on following link to go to blog pages….

blog.eun.org/musica

 The second wonderful blog is from Vincent Mespoulet from France. His blog is called ‘Carolling across Europe’ and is part of his ‘School without walls’ series.

click on following link to go to the bog pages…

 http://horslesmurs.ning.com/

I hope you enjoy looking at these wonderful blogs.

The week will consist of a series of activities involving partner pupils from KGS and Moena, not only sitting in on classes, but also enjoying local excursions such visiting several of the Neolithic sites, the magical island of Hoy and of course the Italian Chapel .

Some links to pics…..

Standing Stone   Building new partners 

  Skaill Bay                   Lunch in the garden at Skaill House

View of Scapa Flow

Another striking feature of my visit was the Cuban health service, free to all citizens. Despite the lack of items in shops, every community has its own medical service. Cuba is currently helping some of the ‘poorer’ counties in South America setting up their own health service’s.

Che and me

More Blogs requested…please…

Click on my ‘latest podcast’ link below, hosted on Jellycast.com. Its a plea to all you eTwinners out there to get ‘blogging’ and send me your URL so I can host some up to-date blogs about your own cultures.

latest podcast