Meeting: Visititing Vienna

Wednesday, 14th November 2007:
Meeting at school to go to Vienna. We had an interesting tour through the oldest part of town, fine lunch and e very exciting exhibition in the "Albertina" (Collection Batliner, modern arts).
About 50 students from the 6th and 7th form acompained us. This was the first contact between the students working at the project in Wiener Neustadt and the teachers of the partner institutions.

Meeting: Design of Schedule

Meeting 14. – 17. November

Tuesday, 13th November
Arrival

Wednesday, 14^th November (encounter day)
9:00 Meeting at school
9:30 Excursion to Vienna together with 50 students
This excursion will be used to get an impression from Vienna and to get in contact with each other.
Evening: Official Welcome Dinner (refectory of our partner monastery “Neukloster” http://www.neukloster.at/ [GE])

Thursday, 15^th November (working day)
Morning: Working session in the communal museum of Wiener Neustadt (http://www.stadtmuseum.wrn.at/ [GE] [EN])
Lunch
Afternoon: Guided Tour through Wiener Neustadt with Norbert Koppensteiner
Free evening

Friday, 16^th November (working day)
Morning: Guided tour through school (students). At this day we have “open days”.
The tour is followed by another working session in the communal museum of Wiener Neustadt.
Lunch
Afternoon: 15:00 Meeting with Christoph Sigmund at the wellness fair in Wiener Neustadt: He will give us a lecture about “Eventtourism” and guide us through the fair and present the event hall “Arena Nova” (http://www.arenanova.com/ [GE])
Free evening.
Optional: visit of the “Bermuda triangle of Wiener Neustadt” (you must have been in the "Orange" - beeing there you will know why ...)


Saturday, 17^th November(working day)
Morning: Introduction in the use of ICT during the project, presentation of the exchange platform. This session will run in the Informatics Lab III at school (school closed on Saturday).
Lunch
Free afternoon
Evening: Official “Heuriger” to conclude the meeting (“Altes Zechhaus” in Gumpoldskirchen http://www.krug.at/ [GE] [EN]).

Sunday, 18th November
Departure day

Accomodation:

The partipants from Latvia and Spain got rooms in the Thairestaurant (http://www.thairestaurant.at/indexx.htm) all others will use the Bildungshaus St. Bernhard (http://www.st-bernhard.at/ [GE])

[GE] = Webpage in German language
[EN] = Webpage in English language

Clean up environment - report from Dikli

Clean and clean up environment around Jura Neikena Elementary school 16^th October 2007.

Our school had the first Comenius activity on 16^th of October. We all together - teachers and all pupils cleaned our school’s surrounding.
It was a nice day. Pupils after lessons went out and cleaned - raked leaves and then boys brought them away with various methods - by wheelbarrows, put leaves in the sacks or on the covers and then brought them away.
Some boys dug flowerbeds and took away old flowers. Headmistress showed how to do it the right way.

Even our headmistress took part in these activities. Pupils liked when the teachers worked, too.
It was very good feeling to work together . And pupils did it with enthusiasm. Our pupils undertook to do this cleaning and after this job everybody got tired . Our school’s surrounding was clean and it was so good to understand that we could do it.
Now our school’s surrounding will be clean till next autumn.
In spring we are going to clean our Dikli Folk Song park.
There are some pictures of our work.
Report from Vija (teacher of English)

Presentación - presentation - Vorstellung

I plan to prepare a presentation of the participating schools in Internet. I want to ask you to prepare some (typical) pictures from your school and some text information. I will collect everything at our meeting and care for publishing. I think it is a good solution to deisseminate information about the project and the involved schools. The target groups may be: students, parents (and even other teachers of the diverse schools) - and other prospects/interested parties like sponsors.
It may make sense to send text (no pictures!) with email in the prefield (preparation phase) of the meeting (Text schould be in English and your mother language).
For individual arrangements consultation is recommended ...

Ich plane eine Vorstellung der teilnehmenden Schulen im Internet. Ich möchte euch um einige (typische) Bilder von eurer Schule und eine Textbeschreibung bitten. Ich werde alles einsammeln und für die Veröffentlichung sorgen. Ich denke, es handelt sich um eine brauchbare Lösung, um Information über das Projekt und die beteiligten Schulen zu verbreiten. Bei der Zielgruppe handelt es sich um: Studenten, Eltern (und auch Lehrer der einzelnen Schulen) - und andere Interessenten(Sponsoren?).
Es macht durchaus Sinn, den Text (keine Bilder!) im Vorfeld des Meetings mit Email zu schicken (Text sollte auf Englisch und in der Muttersprache sein).
Für besondere Gestaltung bitte ich um Rücksprache!

Good news from Italy - gute Nachrichten aus Italien

I got the information from Claudio, that both italian schools are granted by their National Agency. They have to wait for their contract - but it will come end of October.

Ich habe die Nachricht erhalten, dass beide italienische Schulen von ihren Nationalagenturen gefördert werden. Sie müssen lediglich auf ihren Vertrag warten - der wird Ende Oktober kommen.

Additional Information

The Austrian National Agency informed me, that the Fernando Lopes-Graça school (in Parede - Lisbon/PT) and 6 Gymnasium Katerini (in Katerini/GR) are definitly declined as partners for our project.
I regret that new situation. You may take part at the project (as silent partners) and you are heartily welcomed, but you will not get financial support by your NA and you have to travel to meetings at your own expense (That means on the other side that you must not organize a meeting and will not have to accept visitors).
As the Italian schools are accepted (but not granted) they are "sitting between two chairs". You should not spare money for the project till you get a contract from your NA (otherwise you have to pay these things by your own expense).

Die Österreichische Nationalagentur hat mich informiert, dass die Fernando Lopes-Graça Schule (in Parede/Portugal) und das Gymnasium 6 (in Katerini/Griechenland) definitiv nicht für unser Projekt angenommen wurden.
Ich bedaure das zutiefst. Ihr könnt natürlich am Projekt teilnehmen (als stille Partner) und seid herzlich willkommen, aber ihr werdet von eurerNA nicht unterstützt und müsst zu Treffen auf eigene Kosten reisen (Das bedeutet auf der anderen Seite, dass ihr kein Meeting organisieren und keine Gäste empfangen müsst).
Nachdem die italienischen Schulen zwar angenommen wurden, aber noch keine Förderzusagen erhalten haben, sind sie in einer Situation "zwischen zwei Stühlen". Ihr solltet kein Geld in das Projekt investieren bis ihr nicht einen Vertrag von eurer NA habt (anderenfalls müsst ihr selbst für die Kosten aufkommen).

Current situation 4th September 2007 - Aktuelle Situation

I got the information, that our project is applied at the Austrian national Agency as follows:

• Wiener Neustadt: coordinating school
• Dikli/Latvia: project accepted
• Adeje/Spain: project accepted
• Sevilla/Spain: project accepted
• Rome/Italy: project accepted / waiting list
• Verona/Italy: project accepted / waiting list
• Katerini/Greece: project accepted / waiting list
• Lisbon/Portugal: decision missing

Waiting list means that lack of money prevent the NA's to grant the promised funds.
Neither we nor the NA's know exactly how to handle the current situation.

Ich habe die Information erhalten, dass unser Projekt von der Österreichischen Nationalagentur wie folgt genehmigt wurde:

• Wiener Neustadt: Koordinierende Schule
• Dikli/Lettland: Projekt angenommen
• Adeje/Spanien: Projekt angenommen
• Sevilla/Spanien: Projekt angenommen
• Rom/Italien: Projekt angenommen/ Warteliste
• Verona/Italien: Projekt angenommen/ Warteliste
• Katerini/Griechenland: Projekt angenommen/ Warteliste
• Lissabon/Portugal: Entscheidung ausstehend

Warteliste bedeutet, dass Geldmangel die Nationalagentur abhält die vorgesehenen Mittel zuzusichern. Weder wir noch die Nationalagenturen wissen, wie mit dieser Situation umzugehen ist.