Guest Post

Valued Reader/Visitor,
It's time for some changes. I've been running this blog for some years now and it's high time I opened it up to other educators - EFL teachers just like me - to exchange their ideas and share their experiences; it will also be a different chance to have their voices heard.
I truly thank my colleagues / longtime friends who are doing so - it's as rewarding for them as it is for me and for all readers/visitors!

[Glitterfy.com - *Glitter Words*]

Lifelong Learning Experiences

The European Commission’s Lifelong Learning Programme – Comenius Sub – programme enables teachers and trainers to participate in enriching and motivating training sessions across Europe.

The Course “Digital Storytelling in Classroom” was organised by the University of Piraeus Research Centre and it was held in Crete, Greece from July, the 15^th till the 19^th.

This course included 30 hours of teaching and workshops, as well as collaborative, project work that required about 5 hours of individual work and it was attended by teachers of Portugal, England, Ireland and Poland.

Together they had the opportunity to explore several WEB 2.0 tools in order to facilitate Storytelling in classroom:

• Photo Story 3  http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=11132

• Comic Strip Creator  http://www.comicstripcreator.org/

• Comic Life  http://comiclife.com/

• Pixton  www.pixton.com

• Toon Doo   www.toondoo.com

• Garfield’s Comic Creator  www.garfield.com/fungames/comiccreator.html

• SP – Studio   http://www.sp-studio.de/

• Zoo Burst  www.zooburst.com

• Storybird  http://storybird.com/

• Microsoft tools for Digital Storytelling (Photosynth, Deep Zoom, Movie Maker, Songsmith, Photostory) - http://www.microsoft.com/education/en-us/teachers/Pages/free-products.aspx

• Glogster  www.glogster.com

• Go Animate  http://goanimate.com/

• Animoto  http://animoto.com/

The sessions were led by the trainers Dr Simeon Retalis Assistant Professor; Theofili Smprini M.Sc.; Foteini Siameti M.Sc. and Maria Kourakli M.Sc

It was a great opportunity for professional enrichment and for sharing  experiences among teachers of different countries.

Ana Cristina Simões, Agrupamento de Escolas de Figueiró dos  Vinhos

Cristina Silva, Agrupamento de Escolas da Lousã

CAMBRIDGE: Arrival and Day 1

Here I am, attending a refresher course aimed at practising teachers of English at Bell Teacher Campus in Cambridge based at Homerton College and only a 30-minute walk into the city centre!

This was the first picture I took on Sunday as soon as we arrived: beautiful buildings in secluded wooded grounds and incredible lawns with squirrels. Absolutely lovely!!!

After the first impact, our group was guided into our single en-suite bedrooms. Here is another picture, this time, of my own room: “student residential accommodation, not hotel accommodation” as Jim Scrivener so well put it.

At 7pm all participants gathered for a warm welcome reception at a bar called Nusha and it included drinks, cold buffet supper, music and chatting. It was really nice for a first contact with other participants, teachers like ourselves, who had just arrived from 16 different countries. Wow! Amazing, isn’t it? 16 different nationalities from faraway places such as Japan at Bell Teacher Campus.

Monday was our first course day and it was fantastic: breakfast at around 8 am in a gorgeous Harry Potter-style dining hall, and classes from 9am to 12.30 and then from 2pm up to 3.30. After that, off to the city centre to be back at 6pm for dinner (served from 5.30 to 7pm) also because there was a general meeting at 7.30. Hard work, folks, yes, but loads of fun and many opportunities to socialize.

                A picture of my first dinner here in Cambridge at the campus - Yummy!


Many, many thanks to PROALV and to our APPI colleagues, mainly to Manuela, who, in different ways, have made all this possible.