Great reactions on posting

This evening I want to thank Karl, Léon, Marc, Marc, Marc, Dirk (Lambik), Michael, Haloewie, René, Thierry and Joëlle for the quick and marvelous reaction on the mail I have sent, containing the announcement of the new site!
Strange that I hadn't heard in a long time from most of you (and you hadn't heard from me...), but that was really thrilling. I continue to find this medium the biggest revolution since rock 'n roll!
Today I met a former student of mine, Raf Verbeeck, who is head-deep in the IT-business - his mobile emitting noise every three minutes or so... Apart from technical stuff, we talked of our Jesuit school and his quote was one of the best I have ever heard: This school? I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy, but I'd surely send my own kid to it!

Launching now!

So today is the launch of the new version of the website. Be welcome!
There are two parts for the moment: this one on ICT (computer stuff) - for those who have forgotten Information and Communication Technology... - and the other one on photography.
I use service-sites to fill up mine:

• www.blogger.com for the two Blogs
• www.thebigpicturelibrary.com for the pictures

The former gives me some problems since it has become a victim of its own succes after the BBCWorld's Click publicity... It's sometimes down, showing an unreachable page, or it doesn't pop up in the website. Maybe a Frontpage problem, but I'll find out later.

Anyway: have fun! and comment if you have time!

16:9?

Today there was some discussion on the size of the 16:9 movie on our new projection system. The movie image appeared to be too stretched. The sun set egg-shaped and bullies were far too broad-shouldered. Colleague DD explained to me the history and system of the movie image sizes. Problem is that you can set the DVD-player ànd the projector. Non of the settings appeared to be right until I found that the initial settings of the Panasonic DVD-player were wrong (4:3). On installing the player you have to indicate the type of TV or projection device you have. After that you can change the setting for each individual DVD (or leave on the auto function).
More on the image sizes can be found here.

Great to get to know them!

The visit of our international colleagues was a great experience to me. The group arrived a bit late because of traffic problems (we are used to that in the Antwerp area...), so the school tour was cut short. Before that, I was able to chat with people from the organisation VVOB and with Jan 't Sas, journalist at the education magazine "Klasse", who later on wrote an on line article of the event (Dutch). On the group's arrival I was very pleased to see Simone Goetschalckx again. We used to be study-mates at university in the 1970's. Now she is responsible for the VVOB projects in Vietnam and Cambodia. Also great was meeting Jan Geusens with who I have started to prepare the workshops I will give in HCMC (Saigon) later this year in December.
Headmaster Johan and I welcomed the visitors in our "polyhall". Johan explained the structure of our school organisation and the importance of ICT within that.

Then the group was split to attend three lessons in rotation.

The third form students were attending an informatics lesson by Ilse Heughebaert in our new computerclass R02. Many videos and pictures were taken by the Kenian, Cambodian and Vietnamese colleagues!

Our M04 classroom contains a projection system and 4 more computers used for group work or remedial exercises. Dré De Laet was teaching aesthetics to 6th form students there. Each visitor group was received with a warm welcome in English. The students were very enthousiastic of the visit as well!Finally the 1st form was having a history lesson (ICT-based) by Ann Onraedt, who amazed the visitors by the way she integrated IT in her lesson. They were also a bit puzzled because the students didn't speak English, but she explained that English starts from 2nd form onwards in our school system.

Later on there was coffee, but also Belgian beers, which were very welcome to most of the visitors! Jan 't Sas had some interviews, and I presented the school's situation and future plans for ICT.
The presentation can be downloaded.

Finally the core VVOB-team, including my good friend Marc Gorremans and his wife, finished this lovely day at the restaurant Park West where we had a great dinner and where I got to know the first person to love scorzonerae... (Jan!)

International visit!

On Friday November 17th we received a group of people involved in the development of IT in education. They were invited by VVOB (Vlaamse Vereniging voor Ontwikkelingssamenwerking en Technische Bijstand) who develop education and environment projects. The group consisted of people from Belgium, Vietnam, Cambodia and Kenya.
Here is the program I worked out:

Welcome to Xaco (Xaveriuscollege – Borgerhout)
Schedule:
13.30-14.15: welcome-speech by the headmaster, Johan Verschueren, and school visit.
14.30-15.05: attending 3 lessons in smaller groups. Switching classrooms after 15 minutes.

• R02: Ilse Heughebaert : Informatics
• M07: Ann Onraedt : History
• M04: Dré De Laet : Aesthetics

15.05-15.30: Drinks at the Polyhall
15.30-16.00: Presentation of the ICT-project at Xaco (Polyhall)
16.00-16.30: questions, ideas, opinions,…
16.30: end

And the winner is...

During the last couple of days I have been busy installing big multimedia equipment in the multi-usage projection hall of our school (advise and delivery by Prodiason). Great stuff we put up there: a 5 meter wide silver screen, weighing some 150kg was hung on the ceiling by Erik and me, assisted by Steve. Height of ceiling: 4m. Want to know how this magic was done... Just type you request...
Elpro large electrol of 5m x 3,65m with key switch for preventing undesired use... only: the wire-scheme was drawn in black and white... great if you have Black, Blue, Brown and Green/yellow as wires... Also the key-switch was suffering from a tight box... so it was hell trying to stuff all the wired in there with my thick fingers... one moment I felt like a robot-gynaecologist... but what an experience when that screen came down... slowly, as desired!
And then the projector: a Sanyo PLV-80: great machine since the zoom and lens shift make the projection flexible whatever source you use. The projector was hung on the ceiling at some 12m from the screen.
The effect is great: this evening the members of the board came to look at their investment and the nodding was great when I showed them the opening scenes of the classic "Easy Rider": Dennis and Peter motor-surfing this bright brand-new screen! Board meetings don't always need to be dull... ;-)
Tomorrow's the first movie show for the students... wonder what their reaction will be...
Today the hall was used for a conference, organised by the Silver Museum of Antwerp. They loved the equipment... I also lent them our Gyro-mouse by Gyration for the presentation of their PowerPoints. In the beginning it's a bit tricky getting used to, pointing and twisting in thin air, but once you get the feeling for it and use the wrist to move the cursor, you are once more amazed by the miracle called IT-techniques...
I shot a few pictures of today's event... I will show them later!

First trial

On Wednesday November 14th our projection facility was used for the first time by the Zilvermuseum Sterckshof who organised a conference at our school. Here a panoramic picture of the projection facilities.

Current project: ICT in the first form of secondary school

Since the Flemish ministry of Education has asked to integrate ICT in education in an active way (meaning that the students work on the computers in non-informatics lessons) we have tried to integrate ICT in the all subjects. However, the results depend a lot on the skills and motivation of the teachers, resulting in a very heterogeneous situation. To see to it that all students that start in our first form, have an equal ICT-skill, we set up an ICT-project in October '06.
All students got a 9-hour course in two weeks on the following subjects:

• Hardware - the school network
• The operating system (Windows XP)
• Text processing (Word 2003)
• Internet (browsing, searching and mailing)
• Ergonomics

A group of brave volunteers invested their free time to get all the students on the same level. All aspects of the program were covered, but the use of hotmail seemed to haunt the network... the site blocked and their were a number of time-outs. Probably the server processor wasn't fast enough to tackle the problem. If anyone can give tips, feel free to comment.
We also tried to integrate the subjects as much in the ICT-course as possible so as to motivate the rest of the attending teaching corps as much as possible.

The idea for this initiative came from a visit in September 2005 to St.-Barbaracollege in Gent, where they had been dealing with this problem before. This school is, as ours, one of the seven Jesuit schools in Flanders. Thanks to my colleagues there for the inspiration!

Current ICT-situation at school (hardware and services)

Hardware situation. Currently we have installed a fifth-generation computer class at our school (R02). We have two computer classes - one of 30+1 and one of 25+1 computers. The big class (OLC - Open Learning Center) was installed with Pentium 4 desktops and CTR-monitors. The newest (R02) contains Dell Dimension Pentium D desktops with NEOVO 17" flatscreens.
Both classes and about twenty computers in many other locations are connected to a Windows 2003 server. Another server is used for the administration network. In all we have 100 computers, 15 printers and 12 data-projectors in 2 networks.
The services we use on Internet are:

• web hosting of the schoolsite (http://www.xaveriuscollege.be/)
  
• MS sharepoint for filesharing and office-extension (http://werkweb.xaveriuscollege.be/)
  
• mail service (http://webmail.xaveriuscollege.be/)
  
• Online evaluationsystem (http://www.schoolonline.be/)
  
• Broekx administration system (http://www.broekx.be/)
  
• EloV Blackboard Learning Platform (http://elov.vvkso.be/) (formerly http://www.elov.be/)
  

Software licenses were acquired via group-licensing of Sumika and MS KISS licensing for Microsoft products via ZEB-computers.
For Dutch remedial and drill exercises we use the Nedercom software from Henk Bakker.
There are more programs that we use, and which I will mention later on.

Welcome to my Brand New Blog

Great to see you here on my brand new Blog!

Why starting a blog?

As ICT-manager (we say coordinator) of a Jesuit school near Antwerp, Belgium, I am very often locked up in my server-cave, and I think this is really a great link to the "real" world! ;-)

To give you an idea of my state of mind I grant you this picture of mine, taken in Turkey last year on a day that I had nothing else to do but point the Canon lens to my face and shoot some digital nonsense. I wrote most of the trip through Turkey on another weblog but in Dutch. (Please contact me if you don't speak that tongue and require some private lessons...)

Yes indeed, you get the picture: this is a no-nonsense blog that will give you lots of info on my every day professional life, seen from my hairy point of view. I hope you will have some fun, learn a bit on IT and the incredibly exciting world of education. Don't hesitate to comment on my blog. I'm always glad to get some suggestions or questions in my mailbox...