21st century skills and eTwinning

It was a great honour for me to be one of the invited speakers at the national eTwinning conference, held in Zagreb, on Friday 26th. Even more so, when among the invited speakers is Bart Verswijvel, who is not only my co-host of the virtual TeachMeets and StudentsMeets, but also one of the best and most confident speakers who I have ever listened to (and I've listened to many, many distinguished speakers worldwide).

At the conference, four Croatian teachers were awarded for their eTwinning projects carried out in 2011/2012. It was fascinating to hear how they implemented their wonderful ideas and how their students loved such innovative ways of learning. One of them is Tea Horvatic, who has written a wonderful post about the conference and whose excellent etwinning project about mini hotels can be found here. Our faithful teachmeeter, Nataša Ljubić Klemše,  was also awarded for her excellent project My first ICT hello.

We also had a wonderful opportunity to hear about amazing projects carried out by our colleagues from Slovenia. It was a pleasure to meet the Slovenian etwinning ambassadors Dejan Kramžar, Tatjana Gulič and Irena Rimc Voglar.

The Croatian eTwinning ambassador Lidija Kralj and her Comenius project partner Niilo Alhovaara talked about e-safety and etwinning.

My presentation about the 21st century skills was based on the Microsoft LEAP 21 program, which studies and  measures innovative teaching and learning practices. I had a great opportunity to learn about LEAP 21 at the first Microsoft Partners in Learning Institute, held in Seattle in July 2011 and I wanted to share it with the teachers in my country.

Vještine 21 stoljeća from Arjana Blazic

Festivals of learning

As November is getting closer, we're all getting super excited about the three events that we're organizing in Croatia: two teachmeets and a studentsmeet will be a real treat for the edu community in Southeastern Europe.
The calls for proposal are open for all these events. If you happen to be in Croatia in the week between 12-17 November, don't hesitate to join us for these grand festivals of learning:
TeachMeet CUC in Rijeka on Tuseday, November 13,
TeachMeet INFO in Zagreb on Saturday, November 17 and
StudentsMeet INFO in Zagreb on Saturday, November 17.

Teaching students how to present

No one has ever taught me how to present. I learned it first by watching good and not so good speakers at virtual and IRL conferences, then by reading about it online and finally by doing it. And I'm still learning.

No one has ever taught me how to teach presenting. I have never been asked to teach my students how to acquire presentation skills. But I'm doing it because I strongly believe that presentation skills are as essential for 21st century students as are critical thinking or problem-solving skills.

My students learn how to present by doing it, not only in front of their classmates, but also in front of an international audience of their peers. Yes, I'm talking about StudentsMeet, an informal gathering of students, which we first organized in February and which gave the students from ten schools in seven countries a great opportunity to talk about their interests, to connect with their peers in real time, to speak English, to listen to many different accents, and to learn how to become a confident speaker.

We're doing it again, on April 24.This time our students will talk about their countries - we'll learn more about Croatia, Turkey, Italy, Poland and Romania. We'd love to learn about other countries as well. Your students are more than welcome. Just sign up here.

Twinning with eTwinners

I've been on eTwinning since May 2010 and have connected with many teachers from all over Europe. My students have collaborated with peers from Belgium, Germany, France, Romania and Turkey. I myself have launched several projects which have been more or less successful. But somehow I had always felt less  close to my fellow eTwinners than to my Twitter PLN - until last week when I attended the annual eTwinning conference in Berlin.

600 teachers from all over Europe gathered in Berlin to share ideas, to get inspired, to find new partners, to discover new worlds and above all to learn, learn, learn! Three days filled with passion and commitment, creativity and innovation passed in a flash. Such an event where you mingle with hundreds of enthusiastic life-long learners who are on the same wave length is bound to exceed all your expectations. When it comes to the incredible ease of connecting with teachers from all nationalities, the effortless flow of communication and a genuine willingness of all the participants to engage in a variety of projects, this conference is second to none.

Click here for more pics from Berlin

For me the Berlin conference was even more special because I was given a great opportunity to speak about StudentsMeet. I obviously haven't conquered my public speaking jitters yet (and let's face it, I probably never will), but I immensely enjoyed talking about my project that connects students from across Europe in a flipped... webinar.

To find out more about Studentsmeet and to get the feel of what it is like to attend a webinar without walls, watch the video clip below.

If you like it and if you teach 14-18 year olds, join us for the next session of Studentsmeet on April 24, 2012.

Learning from students

 Isabella was the only student from my school who took part in StudentsMeet last week. Her 4-minute presentation was about Windows Movie Maker. She gave the same presentation to Comenius students who were visiting our school a month ago. She made it clear that this user-friendly video editing tool will enable us to make great movies - quickly and easily.

Windows Movie Maker Basics, IX.gimnazija, Zagreb

View more PowerPoint from stuteachmeet

Isabella talked about it with such ease that she inspired me to give it a try. And here's the result: my first movie ever. It's far from perfect, but I really enjoyed making it. The bottom line is that if it weren't for Isabella and her inspiration, I would have never made it!

StudentsMeet: Teaching the teachers

We did it today! We switched the roles and we gave our students a voice. We gave them the opportunity to teach the teachers and to share their ideas and experiences with their peers from across Europe. And thanks to their enthusiasm and commitment, their competence and expertise, today's StudentsMeet session was a great success!

The students from 10 high schools from the UK, Belgium, Romania, Turkey, Hungary, Italy and Croatia gave fantastic talks about different topics that they're interested in: Internet safety, Tumblr, Facebook, voluntary work in Morroco, 3D printers, movie makers, globalization, digital media, SOPA, online gaming, mobile phones... They have shown what great teachers they are and how much we can learn from them. I'm delighted to have had this wonderful opportunity to be there with them this morning.

Virtual TeachMeets and StudentsMeets - yes, we can!

On March 3, the TeachMeet Int'l Team (Sonja, Bart and I)  will be hosting another virtual TeachMeet. I think it's not an overstatement to say that  the first one, held in December 2011, was a great success. There are two reasons for its success. Firstly, the teachers were given the floor! They had a chance to talk about practical matters and ideas that worked in their classroooms and they embraced this opportunity with burning and contagious enthusiasm. Secondly, all the participants, be it presenters or the audience, were given  a wonderful opportunity to connect with educators from all over the world without leaving their home.

I  believe that the same can be done for students as well, so we'll be hosting our first StudentsMeet on Feburary 7. We are eager to bring together all the students (and their teachers) who want to share their ideas and their creativity with the rest of the world, no matter where they live, what language they speak or what school they attend.  What matters is willingness to share and to learn from peers.

I think it's time to give the floor to students! Let's switch the roles. Let's give the students the opportunity to teach the teachers. I'm ready, are you?