Trip to Brno!

Friday's trip to Brno, to present the Schoolovision trophy, went very well. It's a lovely city, in the south-east of the Czech Republic, and after a 2hr 45min train journey from Prague, I arrived and quickly got myself to the school, with the help of one or two of the locals!

There, I met the class, along with their teachers, the Headteacher, the Mayor of Brno and the Deputy Education Minister for the Czech Republic, all of whom spoke to me and the class of their pride in what had been achieved. The Mayor of Brno also presented a cheque to the school, for new ICT equipment, which they have been asking for, for a while, but which was now provided as a thank you for their great achievement!


The centre of Brno.





With Jakub Durr, Deputy Minister for Education, and Roman Tlustos, Headteacher of ZS Husova school, Brno.



Roman Tlustos, Dana Ciglova (eTwinning partner), me, Katerina Kusova (the class' music teacher) and Marcela Necasova, class teacher.


With the winning class!



With the winning class, and the Mayor of Brno (with the bald head!)



En route between Prague and Brno.


Market in the centre of Brno.



Brno city.

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In the Czech Republic!

Taken from Charles Bridge, Prague.

Not quite a case of "Bought the t-shirt", more like the sweat-shirt!

I have spent a very enjoyable day here in Prague- it's the second time here for me in the last four months- and both times I have been here on eTwinning business- though today has been a sightseeing day!

Tomorrow, I leave Prague early in the morning to travel by train down to the south east of the Czech Republic, to the second city of Brno, population 400,000. There, I will visit ZV Husova, the winning school in the recent Schoolovision project I ran, and I'll be taking their trophy, to present it to the teacher and the pupils there. I'm really looking forward to that! Meanwhile, this evening, I'm relaxing in my hotel, which is close to the train station.

In the Old Town.


At the entrance to a market, where I found a Rubix Cube for Sandy.


Near Wenceslas Square


Further down near the middle of Wenceslas Square.


From the top of Wenceslas Square, looking north towards the river.

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Sunday- time to pack up and go home!

Only one short meeting to go, at 12.30pm today, when all the British folk meet to discuss the weekend and sum up.
Lat night we had a great dinner, which was 5 courses and went ton from 8pm until midnight! We were entertained by some Czech illusionists and circus performers, which added to the spectacle nicely.

It has been a great Conference, where I've met up with many folk from last year, and made many, many new contacts for eTwinning. It's a very big, happy family- I wish it could be this way at work in Scotland!!

Czech performers at dinner!



With Owain, Cecile, Pascal and John, who were all at Bucharest last year. It was nice to catch up with old pals again.



View of the crowd at dinner.

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eTwinning Conference workshops

At the second workshop this afternoon.

Today is a very busy day! There were some introductions at 9am, followed by the results of a big survey that was carried out a few weeks ago, which I took part in, then it was on to the first of today's workshops. I went along to the Creativity workshop which was really interesting, as it gave me some good ideas for the future.
I'm off now to "Using eTwinning tools in a pedagogic way" which is then followed by a workshop for all the eTwinning Ambassadors. That one will finish at 6pm, and there will then be the chance to look around the various displays that each country has brought. I'll take some pictures and hopefully get them on at some point.
It's actually very difficult to find a Wi-Fi signal for free in the hotel. There is an option to buy internet time, but that's very expensive at about £12 for 24 hours, so I have managed to get a password from a guy from Poland, which gives me free access for a while today. If that runs out, I'll have to try to find another way of getting free access!

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In Prague at the eTwinning Conference

I'm staying here at the Clarion Congress hotel in Prague for the annual eTwinning Conference, which starts officially later this morning. There'll be nearly 500 teachers from all over Europe.

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