Arion in Turku, Finland: ICT and teaching: 15-19 Jan. 07

We did two things today. First of all we visited the teacher training school and in the afternoon the company called Sanako.

At the school we’ve seen some really interesting things which we like to report about. The co-opertion between the school and univesity of Turku is one of the benefits of the school system. All of the students becoming a teacher do get a university degree. Since in the neighbourghood 40 percent of the inhabitants are immigrants and they have to go to the nearest school, this becomes a problem also to the student learning to become teacher. The school board recognises the problem and will discuss it with the local city government.  It’s a pitty we have not seen any student from teacher education because at the moment they have holiday.

IB-classes means international bachelor class. The pupils are getting all of the courses in English language. They pass afterwords internationale exams and do succeed very well. This gives the school also an international dimension.

All of the levels of education (from 6 years old up to higher education) are in the same place. This also means they are working together very much. The organisation is really good e.g. the different headmasters of the school are very close to each other (they are neighbours).

We’ve seen some good working examples of distance learning. 3 pupils stayed at their home school on an island far away. One teacher teaches by videoconference. This is not because we were at the school but this is done everyday.

Secondly we’ve vistited Sanako, a company who is providing devices and software solutions mostly for language education. They are active all over the world and working together with great other companies like Microsoft and Blackboard ELO. They had a business presentation in which we heard they are working together with the local school. In the same line we were asked to comment their way of working and teaching languages since we have the experience. This gave us some time to discuss educational matters concerning the use of electronic devices. This improved the already fantastic atmostphere between the members of this Arion visit.

Tonight we have some time off …

report by: Marco, Ela, Pascal

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