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The ICT Summer school for English teachers 2002 at the Kraslava Gymnasium in Kraslava, Latvia
The first of August we arrived in Kraslava and we went to meet Ligija Kolosovska and Luba Makarevica from the Kraslava gymnasium.
From the contact we had had with them the weeks before, we knew that they were the organizers of the Workshop ICT Summer school for English teachers in which we were going to participate the coming days.
Their hospitality was enormous and they organized everything that was needed to make our stay in Kraslava convenient.
The following days we worked at the Kraslava gymnasium. After we defined the contents in detail with Ligija and Luba, we knew what to do and started with the final preparations for the courses.
We were very impressed by the present technical infrastructure. Two computer labs with 10 computers each. A well organized and maintained network and all the necessary presentation materials.
05.08.02
The first day of the two-day-workshop, Ligija opened the workshop with a presentation in the video hall. Twenty teachers from Latgale, the southern part of Latvia (Kraslava, Daugavpils, Preili and their districts) were invited and they had all come.
We introduced ourselves and told them about our working history and our future travelling.
After lunch, the group was divided and we started the first session "PowerPoint as a teaching tool". The complete course would take 4 hours, divided over the two days. The teachers in the first group had some good computer background and we succeeded in teaching most of the functionalities of PowerPoint.
The second group of teachers did not have that much basic knowledge, so we started with the real basics. The second day we reserved for repeating the theory, rehearse and doing some exercises.
The teachers were very concentrated and did their best to learn as much as possible. We were impressed!
Our main purpose was to teach each group PowerPoint in a way they can work with it. Because both of us were helping with the exercises, we could give personal attention and provide additional information to those participants who had more advanced computer skills.
During the evening program, we watched the video from the Summer ICT School for country teachers 2001, listened to a speech from the headmaster of Kraslava Gymnasium and had a fantastic evening with music and dance.
06.08.02
This day, we started with the second session of the PowerPoint course. We repeated the information from the first day and there was a large final exercise. As far as we can judge, we succeeded in providing the necessary knowledge.
The second part of the workshop, we taught "Internet for English teachers". We introduced different searching strategies, explained the several communication technologies and improved the participants' skills with examples and exercises.
At the end of the day we closed the workshop. All the participants received a certificate of attendancy and we got beautiful flowers and cards with the best wishes of all participants.
The evening programme today was a visit to the Russian sauna. First the participants performed sketches about what they had learned the last days. There was food and drinks and we had a wonderful and unforgettable night together.
07.08.02
In the morning, we said goodbye to the participants of the last workshop and made some last preparations for the coming two-day-workshop about web design.
08.08.02
The workshop started with "Web design in theory". The participants were 4 teachers and 6 students. For some participants Ligija and Luba translated the course into Latvian.
The participants were asked to think about structuring the information for their website first and then collected relevant material for their website.
After lunch, we started the course "Programming websites with MS FrontPage" and after this course the participants could start building their own website.
In the meantime, we started designing the new Summer ICT School-website.
09.08.02
We continued the workshop for some of the participants. They continued building their websites and we were there to answer questions. A number of free web space providers were presented, as well as several web design and imaging software.
In the afternoon, we continued the Summer ICT School-website.
For us it was a fantastic experience to participate in these workshops and to share our knowledge with such inquisitive people. The dedication of the gymnasium teachers was staggering and their hospitality and friendliness overwhelming.
We hope our future projects will be just as positive as this one!
Coen
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