Dear eTwinning 3.0 participants!

Dear eTwinning 3.0 participants,

ever since that warm June afternoon when Bart and I were asked to do yet another Learning Event in the Learning Lab, we lived with it and for it! We worked on it day and night, we looked for new tools and resources, did research, explored the tools and discussed their pedagogical value and usage in education, experimented, created new tasks, invented new  activities, tried them out with our students, reflected and reviewed, critized, praised and inspired each other, dealt with issues and problems, were excited to find something that worked perfectly and disappointed at other times because it didn't. And now after the learning event has finished, after ten days of intense online collaboration, fascinating connectedness and creativity, after having received so many compliments, beautiful comments, lovely posters and thank you notes, we know that we have inspired and motivated you and that together we have ... touched the sky! Thank you for flying with us!

From eTwinning with Love

Today is the last day of yet another learning event that Bart and I are leading in the eTwinning Learning Lab. Our event, eTwinning 3.0 is about education 3.0. We prepared lots of resources, tools and most importantly lots of creative tasks for our participants. Those past ten days were so intense, totally filled with collaboration, connectedness and creativity that I feel like we have reached the stars!All those comments that have been posted all over the web show that we have fulfilled our mission - to fly to the moon:

Here are some of the comments:

Words fail me - I'm so deeply touched and .... over the moon! A million thanks to all of you, dear participants, fellow etwinners and friends. It's been an out-of-this-world experience.

Dreams come true - in the CFC!

This time last year  this was only a dream. Today it's a reality. The Croatian Future Classroom was officially opened last week.

It all started with my visit to the Future Classroom Lab at the European Schoolnet in Brussels and a course I attended there. The FCL is a "living lab  for how ICT can be implemented in schools and where policy makers, ICT suppliers, teachers and educational researchers come together to reshape the use of technolgy in education and to develop new models of teaching and learning with technology. It was developed by European Schoolnet, its 30 supporting Ministries of Education and leading educational technology providers."

(No, the Croatian Ministry is still not a member, but hopefully it will become one soon - that'll be another dream of mine come true) 

The opening ceremony was grand.... it was just like a dream! So many good, positive, inspiring vibes! Sonja showcased the use of Samsung Smart School with students so successfully and effectively as only she can! My school's choir and our guest choir from Koprivnica were brilliant. We were joined by teachers from South Africa, Italy, Portugal, Brazil and the UK on the Adobe Connect Pro Meeting platform. There were many VIPs from the European Schoolnet, the  MoE, the City of Zagreb, CARNet, Samsung, Teacher Education & Training Agency, lots of memebers of the press - we gave so many interviews and felt like rock stars. 

Bart Verswijvel, the official representative of the European Schoolnet gave a memorable speech that I will never, ever forget. Among other things, he said:

I am quite sure that Arjana Blazic and her colleagues will make the Croatian Future Classroom into a lighthouse, a lighthouse for innovative education, a lighthouse that has an impact on the school but also on the rest of the country.

You can read more about it in Bart's blog post Croatian Future Classroom.

The icing on the cake was Karaoke night! Yes, I did sing!

On the day after the opening ceremony, Sonja recieved the official confirmation that our school, IX. gimnazija was selected to take part in European Schoolnet's project InGenious.

We're looking forward to more projects like this!