This keeps us going

Last night Sonja and I led the first in this year's series of webinars for senior students. This is the fourth year in a row that we organize webinars aimed at students to help them with their exit exams. We had special guests from the Ministry of Education, the National Centre for External Evaluation of Education, the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, the Agency for Science and Higher Education and the Open University Algebra. Technical support was, as always,  given by CARNet.

Today Sonja and I received a wonderful thank -you message by Hrvoje Lisac from CARNet, who made this (and many other previous webinars and teachmeets) run smoothly and without any glitches. In his message, Hrvoje said that this was one of the most visited webinars ever - all 200 seat were taken almost as soon as we opened the "door". Live streaming was functioning perfectly, with more than 350 views- 

So yes, we proved again that students really want to use new technologies for learning. And despite all obstacles, Sonja and I made it all happen. Together with our guests, we brought first hand information to students' homes in all parts of Croatia. One of the students wrote in the chatbox that the wind was blowing fiercely on his island making the internet really slow and even though he struggled with the sound, he was happy to be there with us. It's this what keeps us going, isn't it? 

Highlights of 2011

What an incredible year 2011 has been for me and my professional development! While I was nothing more than an ordinary yet enthusiastic lurker in 2010,  I  dared and I did in 2011!

Despite being a shy presenter I plucked up the courage to present at two ELT conferences and a Teach Meet and I gave a talk on new technologies in education to teachers in two schools in Zagreb.

I'm extremely proud of the series of webinars for students that Sonja and I launched in the spring. There were 13 webinars that I co-hosted and/or presented at and they proved to be extremely successful, useful and popular among the student population. Besides student webinars, I delievered two webinars for teachers, entitled School Without Walls and Safer Internet Day - How They Do It. I was a co-presenter at the webinar about the Microsoft Partners in Learning Institue 2011.

The highlights of the year have been by far the two TeachMeets  that I co-organized and co-hosted with Sonja and Bart. The first one was aimed at Croatian teachers, the second one was international with 22 presenters from 15 countries.(See the video clip below)

So that makes 23 presentations in one year! Not bad for a shy presenter, huh?


In 2011 I finally had a chance to meet many great educators in person - Vicky, Eva, Chiew, Chuck, Vladimira, Ann, Ania, Anna, Ceci, Sue, Brad, Fiona, Dan, Kelli, James..... I've been lucky enough to have met some of my Twitter and Facebook friends twice - Fiona, Shelly, Marijana, Cheryl, Beyza, Isil, Valentina, Sue, Denize, Luke, Rakesh, Ania, Ken, Julie....  and even three times - Jugoslava,  Dede, Tatiana, Jan and Bart.

The world has become a small place, literally! It doesn't matter where they are - we're in touch - be it virtually or f2f! Nothing is impossible any more. At least not when it comes to travelling. Of which I've had my share in 2011 - I've travelled to Egypt, Turkey, Ireland, Northern Ireland, the US, Greece and France. Not bad for someone who is just a teacher, huh?

Free webinars for students

A month ago I blogged about a series of webinar presentations given by a bunch of enthusiastic Croatian teachers to high school students from all parts of the coutnry as part of the preparation for their exit exams. (More about it here.)

The webinars turned out to be a huge success both among the student and teacher population, so that we're now planning the second series of webinars for the next school year - but this time with even more teachers involved - because presenting online does not only pump up adrenalin, but it's also very contagious and addictive.

The number of attendees (or webinarees) shows that this type of e-learning is what students want and need. The number of downloads of the webinar recordings over a short period of only two months shows that we have struck the right chord:

No.of attendees: 998
No. of webinars: 13
No. of presenters and guests: 14
No. of downloads: 2525

That's the reason why we want to keep on doing it during the next school year as well. Another thing that we especially like is the song that we play both at the beginning and the end of every webinar - Barry White's My First, My Last, My Everything has become an inseparable part of our webinars. I have even made a video listening task for the webinarees.

Volunteers and webinars

Have you ever wanted something so much that it almost hurt? No, nothing personal, but something for a greater good. And you knew that you could achieve it only with the help of a bunch of other people? And when those people responded with an enthusiasm and commitment that matched yours, did you feel that you could fly and touch the sky?

Well, I just did! Sonja, my friend and the co-cofunder of Moja matura and I came up with a terrific idea of organizing free webinars for school-leavers from all over the country. In the webinars, given by teachers who teach different subjects, students would be able to get all the necessary info on the upcoming school-leaving exams and also ask as many questions as they wanted. So all we had to do was to find a platform for free webinars and teachers who would be willing to present online - for free.

And we managed to do it! The Croatian MS Partners in Learning community kindly provided as many Live meeting rooms as we needed, eight teachers from IX. gimnazija (my school) and Medical school from Varaždin enthusiastically embraced this unique opportunity to share their knowledge not only with students from their schools, but with the students throughout the country.

So over the next week, eight teachers will give nine webinars covering 12 subjects for the national school-leaving exams. Now we just need the students.