ICT-blog

Santa in Summertime

2007-06-19T21:53:00.000+02:00

I haven't posted anything anymore since the 1st of April... must have been a joke. ;-)
But I have been working hard on two school projects and one European one.
The most demanding part was the programming of the 37 laptops for my colleagues, and connecting them to the wireless network. All this while attacking the problems of connections and printer problems of the "old" system.
The actual problem is the migration to a new system while maintaining the old one.
But as time goes by there are results and the system proves to be stable.
This week I am distributing the laptops to my colleagues.
Services go first! The laptops are programmed generally and are later on personalised so that the teacher gets connected to the server, and all the online services (mail, sharepoint, schoolonline, blackboard,...) in every corner of the school, so to speak!
This week I feel like Santa in summertime since I am distributing all laptops to my colleagues who seem to receive their beauty with big smiles!!!

Great IT-project

2007-04-01T10:07:00.000+02:00

It was quite a complicated job, but I've just rounded it up: the ordering of computers for the school IT-project. All hardware companies and stores that I contacted did what they could. Prices were very sharp. But the decision is made. Every teacher in our secondary school will be provided with a Dell Latitude D820 by mid 2008. A Port Replicator will connect these computers in each class with a Dell Projector 2400MP with 3000 ANSI lumen light intensity.
Classes in primary school will use Dell Optiplex 745 computers.
So this will be my job for the rest of the school year: installing computers, beamers, printers, study and test the wireless and wired networks of the school, training the colleagues in the use of the learning environment Blackboard.
Schools can't go back. ICT has become a part of our modern culture, and education, being a part of that culture, has the task of showing young people how to use this modern technology in a positive way. We have to show our kids how to find information, how to evaluate it and how to use it to get to the heart of the matter and to be creative. The pre-computer generation can help here since content is still more important than the means, just as drill is important for memory training and concentration is important for success. If teachers feel surpassed by the technological (r)evolution, I want to be there to help, because I know that their knowledge and experience can help in keeping the balance. Their input must make students realise that there is more than chat and mail and games and second, third and fourth worlds... How about developing this one? ;-)

Xaco Hotspot

2007-03-28T10:08:00.000+02:00

Today was testing day for the wireless hotspot system at school, and, by God, it worked! Only on the ground floor and only for the classes near the teacher room. During the holidays the rest of the network will be installed (three dozen of access points) and tested. Finally our partner Ferranti will do the final tuning!

Manipulating pictures for publicity

2007-03-17T16:21:00.000+01:00

Read more on this smartboard-aspect in my photobog!

Smartboard "SMART" for your eyes?

2007-03-16T07:19:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I watched "Terzake", one of the better Flemish daily TV programmes that reflects on news items. An IT-innovative school was shown in Keerbergen. They have changed all their blackboards or whiteboards with Smartboards, an interactive white board on which a projector shines the computer images. I once tried this system, but not for long... The group of teacher trainers I was part of pushed it into the classroom corner after some trials.
There are four reasons I don't like the system:

It constantly shines on you while you're standing in front of the Smartboard (the image on this pages is less ideal as on the commercial page!). Since my volume is rather XXXL, I'd better wear a white T-shirt, so students can still read the spherized letters on my non-virtual body. Moreover, I can't get an overview of my board since my shadow constantly interferes. I end up dancing in front of the board (like this distant brother of mine...)to avoid standing in front of my information.
What's more: a screen is made to look at from a distance. Computer screens tend to have higher resolutions, so on the one hand the teacher can't get a good overview and back sitters in bigger classrooms can't read the letters.
But a bigger problem is the fact that since a teacher is 90% of the time turned towards the students, this means that he/she is constantly looking into the projector's beams. Projectors shoot some 2500 - 3500 ANSI-Lumen nowadays, so I think that this can hurt the teacher's eyes, certainly if you use this system 7 hours a day since you have no alternative!!
The last remark is that with this tech board teachers tend to think they reach their ICT-goals with the students. They have indeed integrated IT in their lessons. However the aims want students to work with ICT. So they still have to go to the computer classes or the OLC's with students so that they can work actively with IT.

The smartboard - as it is now - is according to me, not very healthy for the teacher, especially if he/she has to work with it constantly. Hopefully the plasma (or newer) technology will evolve quickly so that the interactive board will be back-lit.
Until then I wouldn't want to introduce a Smartboard in our school in such a way that all teachers are obliged to use it.

How Wireless is Wireless?

2007-03-11T00:36:00.000+01:00

Just a picture to show you the state of my working space at school. The blue spaghetti is the incoming cable system which in the coming weeks will connect the server to 36 access points all over the school. From that moment on the whole school will be one big hotspot, and all the teacher's laptops will be connected to the network through it.
The joke of the week was: someone coming in, saying "what are all the cables for?" and me answering "For the wireless network...". ;-)

Desktop or portables?

2007-02-15T15:33:00.000+01:00

That was the question... the answer was: portables!
The digitisation-project of our school is developing. The wireless network should be active by the end of the Easter holidays, but I hope the electrician will start working on the cables... Yes, cables because there needs to be one cable between each access point and the controller. And there being some 35 access point all over the school this is quite a job.
Then there was the question of one desktop and one projector in each classroom...
Finally the verdict was: let's lend each teacher one portable. There are a number of advantages:

Personal responsibility is better for the survival of the hardware.
Teacher can prepare everything at home and be sure the software works when use it at school.
For parallel lessons this is a good solution: the teacher is sure the computer in the next class will work: it's his/her portable!
Teachers can use it for their school mail.
The school is responsible for the licences of the software they have installed. From then onward the teacher is responsible for the other software.
Security: teachers take the computers home during evenings, weekends and holidays. The risk of theft is divided.

There are also some disadvantages:

IT-responsible can't control the state of the computer at all times.
The local and server profiles might be a bit confusing for the user. I'm looking for a solution for that. Help is welcome.

Of course there is also the cost, but I will do some work scanning the market to get the best deal!

In all this means that the school will invest in some 75 portables in 2 years time...

Hotpot + Scorm 2.1 --> Blackboard

2007-01-23T14:03:00.000+01:00

One of the interesting steps in the well-known exercise software Hot Potatoes is the integration of the exercises in a learning environment (Blackboard - EloV) in our case.
What's this all about? For years teachers and educators have been using Hot Potatoes to develop interactive online exercises, but to me the feedback/evaluation was always a weak point. Students could do the exercises and read the feedback linked to correct or wrong answers. But in the end they just got a percentage, so that the feedback for the teacher was very poor. Teachers need to study the results, need to see whether the student made a typing mistake or a fundamental mistake, so that remediation is possible. That was difficult with Hot Potatoes... I preferred the exercise module of the Blackboard learning environment, since there it is possible to check the real answer of the student and adjust the marks if necessary.
Thanks to the SCORM norm it is possible to develop exercises and content in third party programs and import them into the learning environment.
Now Hot Potatoes has taken that step (in Beta). From any exercise module it is now possible to export the exercise to a zipped scorm file, which you can then import into Blackboard.
In a first, brief test this morning three out of four exercises seemed to work after importation. During the next few days, I will be testing all the possibilities.

The Best, the Better, and ... the Ugly!

2007-01-11T12:21:00.000+01:00

Wireless network. That is the aspect I have been working on for some time. We already have two access points in our school (Belkin Pre-N system) but since the board wants the network to cover nearly the whole school, a more professional approach via outsourcing was necessary.
So I contacted three firms, let's call them B, D and F, completely independent from each other, but with the same question: we want a wireless network to cover the whole school. It should be built in two to three years time and in different steps. The system should be flexible so that in the future more computers can log in, and that speed is optimal.
I first contacted firm B who claimed it was necessary to do a "site survey" to be sure how many access points should be necessary. The site survey would cost 75€. In good faith I said that this site survey could be done.
The CEO of firm D appeared to be a former student of mine. It was very nice to meet him again after all these years. We talked about the network and in no time at all, he detected a few weaknesses in the system. Things that firm B hadn't noticed at all...
Finally I had an appointment with two people from firm F, a commercial and a technical representative. I immediately felt the professionality in both sales and technical aspects. The optional offer of Cisco controllers that make V-lans possible and the physical detection of portables on the system was very tempting...
In the end I waited for the offers. B was the last one - I even had to mail them to get the offer in time before I was going to Vietnam for the English and ICT workshop.

During my stay in Vietnam, the school board took the brave decision to invest in the best!

Back in school, I mailed firms D and B that we had decided to take the offer of firm F.
D was a good sport. He sent me a nice mail, hoping we had made a good choice and that we might meet and do business again. I'm sure we will!
B, however, was utterly frustrated and accused me blindly of transferring the results of their site survey to firm F!!! He also claimed more costs for the site survey!!
I have never seen such unprofessional reaction in my life! Apart from the fact that I received the results of the site survey days after I had received the offers of firms D and F, these other firms did not need a site survey of 75€ to get to more or less the same results!!! All they needed was their professional experience...

This was really a case of the Best, the Better, and the Ugly! ;-)

Marianne Wartoft's freeware

2007-01-09T12:30:00.000+01:00

I have tried out some freeware for English, developed by Marianne Wartoft. I think the software for phonetics, Sephonics, can be a good help for all students and teachers of English, but particularly for those who are learning English in some remote parts of the world where they have a very limited contact with native speakers. I have experienced in Vietnam that some teachers of English, though full of energy and good-will, had difficulties expressing themselves. I suppose that the Vietnamese language lacks a number of sounds that are used in the English language. If they're not regularly in contact with native speakers, the production of these sounds becomes problematic. Maybe this program can help a little...
Intonation is very important in the Vietnamese language: one evening we were invited in Saigon by Mr Tach for dinner, and the subject of Vietnamese language popped up. They were pronouncing three words, identical to me, but quite different to them because of the intonation, an aspect that I failed to perceive... very interesting!!
Marianne Wartoft has also Selingua to exercise vocabulary and verbs, but the exercises and games are presented mostly in another language (Swedish, German, French, Spanish, but - unfortunately - not Dutch (nor Vietnamese...).
For our Geography colleagues Seterra seems to have been a success for years....
Great to see that some people share their works without the need of financial profit! Thanks to Marianne for that!

Vietnam project: more last day impressions and group pictures

2007-01-02T09:22:00.000+01:00

Here me together with Trung (Cheung), the IT-man of the project. Thanks to his technical support ànd the frequent translations ànd his bright schemes on the blackboard (the real one...) the workshop went very smoothly!!

I found my thrilllllll.... on Blueberry Hiiiiillllll

Little physical effort! Don't mind the earthquakes!

They don't seem to mind...

Great oriental feedback!!! I love this target group!!!

Hello Dolly.... + some Christmas songs together!

Then there were group pictures...

Close encounters of the oriental kind... ;-)

Here is THE team!! Jan, Jef and me...

Vietnam

2006-12-27T00:58:00.000+01:00

Yesterday evening I had a Skype conversation with Marc Gorremans, my Enis-mate, thanks to whom I was able to come to Vietnam. You can read all on the project on his page . I'd like to thank him a lot for the great opportunity!!!
I also want to thank Johan Verschueren, my school head ànd the board for giving me permission to be here!!
Going to Phuquoc now, an island in the South of Vietnam, near the border with Cambodia. If there's a connection, I'll continue my blog and start the Photoblog with picture of Mui Ne and Phuquoc!

Best wishes

2006-12-25T17:03:00.000+01:00

I wish all visitors of my blog the very best fot the new year!!!
http://www.hoefkens.be/wishes/2007/wens07.htm

Vietnam Project: last day impressions

2006-12-22T11:56:00.000+01:00

On the last day, I introduced a number of time saving Web 2.0 techniques including the use of RSS on a site like www.netvibes.com . Later, the teachers worked on their new lesson plans and presented them. And then... there were flowers and gifts and laughs and singing and kisses and hugs and goodbyes....

Here some impressions through the eyes of Jan, who took the pictures.

Thank you, team members, for this great opportunity!!

More group pictures later.... ;-)

Vietnam project: Day 3 + 4

2006-12-21T23:55:00.000+01:00

On days 3 and 4 the workshop started to run smoothly with WordClassifier, a tool to analyse any English text on a comparison with a word frequency list. Teachers can easily detect the difficulty level of the text while running the text through this program.

Then they can use the words of a certain difficulty level to create exercises. I used Crossword Compiler to show how you can make interactive crosswords, using an online dictionary to fill in the clues. The local teachers were particularly interested in the use of the word and clue database of CC, so we spent some time experimenting with that.

In the afternoon we explored a simulation game, SimCity4. Although the school program is very strict, there are quite a lot of themes that relate to traffic, urbanisation, economy, social organisation,... and the language content of a game like SimCity4 is full of these themes... So the idea was: work in groups of three, One plays the game (tutorial), while the second notes the interesting words and the third constructs a webquest lesson plan. This however was too complicated since the playing of the game seemed more complicated than I thought... So together they explored the program, of continued to work on Crossword Compiler.

Power cut?

At a certain moment the message came in that a power cut would strike the area the next morning... Jan rushed to find a solution... : renting a power generator for the workshop room...
However at the last moment, the company seemed to want to profit from the situation and wanted more money... Rip-off and back against the wall...

Next day the generator was installed in the early morning, before the start of the workshop.

Guess what? There was no power cut... And in the beginning our power was deliberately cut to link the electricity system to the generator.... And then we had to carry on, using the generator and consuming the fuel...

And then... an unexpected gift! Nice calenders for the team members!!

The fourth day was filled with the making of Zarb exercises. Zarb is a plugin program for Word that offers a few dozen makro exercises. The result is not interactive, and must be printed out, but you have quite a number of different sorts of exercises. I gave the a few tips like: use a separate target test sheet on which you copy the exercises.

Use another page to built an exercise.
Once finished, copy it to the test sheet, and the answers to the teachers key sheet.
Always try to combine more elements, like text, listening and/or viewing with the exercises so that they become more interesting.

And then... an old program which in no time had a great success: Zork... I used it in the 1980's and '90's as a sort of rescue program, a life buoy to save you when the Internet has gone down...

All of the attendants were eagerly trying to get into the house, the living room, to try and find the secret passage to the underworld of Zork. The old DOS-program has very funny ways of reacting to the English imperatives that need to be written... Smiles hit the room...

In the evening the core team were invited by Mr Tach to a nice floating restaurant where we had great delicacies like "drunken prawns"!!

On our way back we witnessed one of the effects of global warming: some of the streets in Saigon were flooded...

Vietnam project: Day 2 Warming up...

2006-12-19T11:50:00.000+01:00

Yes, even in these tropical temperatures warming up is essential! ;-)
But first things first! Breakfast at the Majestic on the panoramic 5th floor is a great way to start the day, even at 6 in the morning!
The Grand Buffet is so impressive that I even think of getting up even earlier!!!

Here the panoramic view! Yes, it looks like a picture from before the war (world war 2, I mean... I had told myself... don't mention the war!!!), but it was taken this morning. You see the ferry boats cross the Saigon river...

Here I am being introduced by Mr. Thach, head of the institute. He expresses his gratefulness to the organisers of the workshop...

Intro by Jef on "Active Teaching and Learning" + Presentation of 5 lesson plans by the local teachers. The idea was to have them prepare a lesson plan involving some use of ICT before the start of the workshop. Then during the last day of the workshop, they can take the same lesson plans (themes) and implement the new techniques.

The teachers were introduced to the learning environment Blackboard, hosted by the EloV project in Flanders. I'd like to dedicate these pictures to Karel Van Rompaey and Mia Quartier, the real parents of the EloV project of which they have been bereaved! Many years of good work were not rewarded and wrongly taken away from you. Once more I express my gratitude of having been able to work with you, guys! I hope that the coming year will bring you prosperity and joy.
Here the local teachers are experiencing the use of the discussion board to build a tree story. They also used it as a brainstorm instrument on the theme: the future.

The next part was on the cyberpoetry site Poëzome. I presented this older site, although it is in Dutch because it was made by students, for students, because it is an interesting way of showing that language, poetry in particular and IT can go together, more even, that IT can create new forms of language-experience, poetry-experience, and finally because it is a good introduction to the possiblities of webquests... I browsed through poëzome, translating, explaining,...

And the workshoppers looked...

...and listened...

In the evening, I prepared for the next day...

... ate my evening chocolate, waiting for me on the sheets, and read the bedtime story: a tale on Trang Quynh, a half real, half mythical character of Vietnamese popular literature, loved particularly by the working class people.

Vietnam project: Day 1: School visit.

2006-12-18T23:55:00.000+01:00

During the first day we visited a school in HCMC. Here are some photo impressions of the event. We were received by the management of the school.

The idea was to attend an English lesson. Students were already waiting...

It's a revision lesson, since exams are approaching. Students work in groups and the teacher uses a combination of powerpoint, Hot Potatoes exercises and the whiteboard.

As you can see, students are very enthusiastic. It's evident that this lesson has been well planned, prepared and repeated. There are hardly any mistakes to be seen (or heard), but to me the idea is clear that these students have a lot of energy and are glad to be in school!
The technical frame helps this motivation even further. Some people think that IT prevents people from being social, but once more I see another proof of the contrary...

I expressed these impressions in a short speech that they expected after the lesson.
I start to love Vietnam already... People smile at you all the time, and the buddhist root seems to bring me luck...
Here a picture of Jef and I in front of the school.

In the evening, after yet another lovely dinner with Jan and Jef, I'm off to the Majectic hotel for the final preparations of the next day. (Like this serious picture? My arm was getting tired of holding the camera at a maximum distance, waiting for the timer-click)

T - 3 and counting

2006-12-13T22:46:00.000+01:00

In three days, I will be flying to Saigon...
The preparation is in overdrive. I have prepared a Blackboard course on EloV. I have received 30 free accounts for 30 days... I'll try to find a solution to make the content available for the workshop attendants for a longer period... I'll probably give them a CD which I will prepare in HCMC.
I will go into detail when I'm over there. I'll probably have to change quite a lot on the spot... Important is to take as much material as I can, so I can improvise if necessary...
Tomorrow, late in the evening, I'll be checking my photo equipment. Charge the batteries, clean the lenses, check the memory... In the second half of my trip I will be concentrating on that... photography in Mui Ne and Phu Quoc. Although that's in 10 days, it seems like an eternity...
By the way: do you know what the weather is like over there?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/5day.shtml?world=0157
Just check this out!!
During daytime, my energy goes to school business! Busy, quite busy with wireless audit! But I'm also upgrading the two computer classes with about 10 programs and upgrades. Geography pushes its ambition to 4 programs! Google Earth, OrbitGis, and two programs on "water in our environment". Hope the other subjects will follow...
Tomorrow I'll be programming another 14 computers, upgrade one from Win2000 to Win XP pro, secure a data projector and have a meeting on network-matters...
Had some very sympathetic reactions on my coming Saigon-trip today. My old friend EM embraced me and wished me good luck, three other colleagues tapped me on the shoulder. Some even wanted to know what I was going to do there! Of course there are the sceptic ones... I don't comment on them. Suppose they still have a long way to go. If they want some help: I'll be there. You know what a push from me can do... ;-)
Anyway: life is short and if you can add to the evolution of man - just a little bit - on your own level... just go for it! ;-)

T-10

2006-12-06T22:53:00.000+01:00

T minus 10! In about ten days I leave for Vietnam. Preparation is taking 100% of my free time now... All practical things have been arranged. I have the tickets, passport and visa. Hotels have been booked. Transport arranged. All I need to do is prepare the final content of the workshops. It won't be easy. I had a short conversation with Hans Defour on Monday. He was there and encountered mainly linguistic problems. Since I will be having an audience of ESL teachers, I probably won't have the problem, except if they weren't fed any Beatles songs during their studies. Then they might have a slight problem understanding my Liverpool-ish accent... ;-)

Tonight I downloaded the mindmapping freeware program FreeMind (I loved the name!) and made the scheme (which is hardly readable, but I'll present it in another way further on...).
I'll try to work as much off line as possible since many schools over there don't have the facilities of broadband internet connections for complete computer classes. So I intend to work on Simulation games ic SimCity, which has a rich treasure of vocabulary on different themes like economy, traffic, landscapes, social networks, functions, housing, urban infrastructure,... Combining the gaming experience of SimCity with mindmaps or webquests, wordlists and interactive crosswords might do the trick! Further on some tools will be presented like Zarb and reviewing in Word (just ordered the English version of Zarb www.zarb.de). About 5 years ago the former VVKSO-team for ICT in the English lesson, led by my dear friend Karel Van Rompaey studied a large amount of CDROMs for English Language Learning, and of all these programs, MacMillan's Reward series was the best. I'll be testing three levels with the HCMC colleagues!
To give creativity a boost, I will present the Poëzome site, which I will adjust a little, adding a few translations of the interactive poems.
Finally I'll introduce them to the Underworld of Zork, an pre-windows program from ancient times... 1981. Even the most basic dos-computer can handle that, and in those days this adventure game was a real success. Students even started a Zork-club to play the game at noon, and they drew hundreds of maps of the mazes in the underworld... Even the humour is great: if you get frustrated after hours of fruitless treasure hunting and in your final despair you type sh** or f**k, the program answers with a cool phrase: "Such language in a high-class establishment like this!"... Students love it, and so do teachers (to put it in a confirming addition to a positive remark!)
Anyway, I'll give you the html-version of the mindmap:

Workshop HCMC

Techniques
- Mindmapping
- Groupwork / pairwork
- Webquest
- Discussing
- Gaming
- Simulating

Content

Presentation

Cyber-poetry (creativity)
International communication program (example)

Hands-on

Tools

WordClassifier
CrosswordCompiler

Wordweb

Review-function (Word)
Zarb (Exercise-generator in Word)

Adventure game

Zork (The underworld of ...

Simulation
SimCity 4

Services

Internet searching
CDROM / DVD
ELO (Electronic Learning Environment)
Online software
Weblog

Activities
- Exploring the net for classroom material
- Cooperating with colleagues
- Preparing lesson plans, based on the webquest model
- Exploring an ELO and publishing material on it
- Try out and evaluate games to use in class
- Use WordClassifier as a text or wordlist analyser
- Use Zarb to create exercises in Word
- Explore and evaluate a closed CD-ROM program for remediation

Investing in old technology...

2006-12-06T12:00:00.000+01:00

A phone call from my mother invoked an uncomfortable feeling in me: she told me she and my dad had bought two VCR-recorders... I told her: "You want me to come and install them?" "No, the others aren't broken, yet!"
She is afraid that in a short while there won't be any VCRs in the shops any more, and that, if theirs breaks down, they won't be able to watch all the tapes they have...
I can understand the logic, yet it makes me feel uncomfortable, since the latest HD-DVD-recorders are very user-friendly, and you can digitise the whole lot of tapes... But that's a lot of work too... which you don't have if you have a social choir life as my mum has... ;-)
In short, for myself and for school I prefer investing in new equipment. No unnecessary luxury, but hardware that can resist the future for at least 5 years and that is right for the way it will be used. No second-hand computers for our school: if you work with old stuff you need three or for times the necessary manpower to keep it all going... And in the end it is more expensive, and very often out...
Fortunately people aren't supposed to be treated like computers, so I hope to be around as a computer-wizzz for a while... ;-) Anyway, they won't find a bin that is big enough to dump me...

ICT-day in Brussels

2006-12-04T11:15:00.000+01:00

Today I'm attending two sessions at the ICT-day in Brussels. It's great to see so many people again whom I'd been seeing for years during workshops, Enis and other ICT-projects.
Car drive was not so good today... 15 km traffic jam.
First session is on WEB 2.0: the information-pushing technology (as I am using on my weblog here...). Interesting service sites presented were:
http://www.netvibes.com/ : for collecting the information you like on your browser starting page.
http://docs.google.com/ : for making, publishing, sharing text documents and spreadsheets
http://www.garagetv.be/ : the Telenet version of YouTube to broadcast your personal videos.
http://del.icio.us/ : Practical site where you can save and share your favourites.
http://esnips.com/ : all kinds of stuff you can upload and share...
Then more info on RSS, Atom, XML,... and online exercises...
Although I had some knowledge of these relatively new techniques, the session was interesting... In the IT-world you can always learn MORE!!!
Thanks to Frank Vandewyer.
In the afternoon I attended a presentation by Bart De Smet on the new Office 2007 version. In his own style (glass of water in hand - God preserve him from drowning...) he presented the matter very fluently and full of humour. He kept repeating "interesting features" until he became aware of his oratorial mistake, replacing it with "remarkable aspects", after which he started uttering "interesting features" again...
I'm not going into the details, but the day was not a waste of time, and I met Robert Conings (Provinciale Technische School, Maasmechelen) again, my colleague from the former ENIS-project who gave me a tip on a German ISP http://www.servage.net/ who offers all services, including 250GB on webspace...
I mailed them to ask if they also host Sharepoint services, which we use at school as a "Workweb" (WerkWeb). I'm awaiting an answer...
By the way: at noon, I helped Henk Bakker, presenting his software "Nedercom" which we have been using for three years at Xaveriuscollege. Also an interesting - sorry - awsome experience to see how education people react on commercial products... ;-)

Great reactions on posting

2006-11-29T00:00:00.000+01:00

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!

2006-11-27T23:22:00.000+01:00

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?

2006-11-21T18:07:00.000+01:00

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!

2006-11-19T18:36:00.000+01:00

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!)