Janos Blasszauer

Hi dear friends! It was nice to read your kind words. It's absolutely sure that in the future whenever I feel a need to boost my self-esteem I'll just get back to this page. Sorry for not having reflected on the Bratislava meeting and on your comments earlier. It was really great to meet you guys in Slovakia. Thank you once again for inviting me. I've enjoyed very much your company and have found the meeting very productive. As you might know, I've sent Terry my SWOT analysis of the E-HELP project. Congratulations on pulling off a great project! I'm glad that I could take part in it and even contribute to it. As for the new tools that you could find useful in your teaching, well let me put here some links to sites where you can harvest great many links. You get a short description there about the applications. Let me first recommend this link: The Best Web 2.0 Applications For Education — 2008 and then this one: Top tools for e-learning Well, that's all for the time being. I'll definitely get back to this page since it is a real ego booster.

Hereby I'd like to confirm my participation at the meeting in Bratislava. I'll get there by car. It will be an about five-hour drive from my town. I'll arrive around 4PM. I'm looking forward to meeting you all. Best wishes, Janos _______________________ Janos Blasszauer Nagykanizsa, Hungary web: http://www.eltandict.com

This is just a quick note to let you know that I will be able to fit this into my schedule.

I agree. E-HELP also set aside 3,250 euros for a Forum. We can get this free via this Forum. At our meeting in Worthing, Janos suggested that he could deal with the Domain/Webspace issue. Therefore we will have to wait for him to tell us what this might cost us. Sorry for this delayed message. Well, here comes the cost I have calculated. 250 MB webspace: EUR 189 500 MB webspace: EUR 290 750 MB webspace: EUR 377 1000 MB webspace: EUR 435 These webspaces would go with a free domain name registration and they contain MySQL database, and I could install almost any kind of Content Management System like for instance MOODLE. (see e.g. http://www.eltandict.com/mosaic/ )

I am almost absolutely sure that we could organize a meeting here in Nagykanizsa, which is in the south-western part of Hungary close to the Croatian and Slovenian border.

Sorry for saying so but this is something that I have no idea, either.

I agree with the summary of the project.

I also agree with these gadgets. Very good recommendations indeed.

I cannot comment on this one, either for lack of experience. Nevertheless, I am absolutely positive that our institution would be glad to host a meeting.

Sorry for chiming in late in this thread. Nevertheless, I cannot but agree with Carlos's proposal but I must let you know that I have very little experience in such projects. :-(

I like the title "Teaching Citizenship in a Globalized Europe Using ICT" and I also like the E-Citizen term. :-)

Dear All, Here goes attached the required info. Best wishes, JanosBatthyany_Lajos_Grammar_School__Hungary_.doc

Sorry for this delayed message but I was out of town. Hereby I just want to confirm that I am still committed to the project. I must also apologise for having kept a low profile lately. Cheers, Janos

I do not intend to reflect on the original debate question, namely whether we live in democracy or not. Hungary's electoral system can be seen here: http://www.ipu.org/parline-e/reports/2141_B.htm I would just like to join those posters who emphasised the importance of education in democratic societies. I firmly believe that only educated people, educated masses can guarantee/safeguard the proper operation of democracy they are the ones who can correct the flaws. It is well-known fact that just having the right to vote is meaningless if a citizen is disabled by illiteracy or semiliteracy. History has taught us that illiterate and semiliterate people are condemned to being exposed to all kinds of manipulations. If people do not understand the issues properly they just can easily fall prey to manipulative oversimplifications and they cannot make good use of such democratic power as voting. These people fail to master their citizenship rights due to illiteracy. Following this line of reasoning I must say that in my view democracy is inseparable from literacy. To be truly literate, I think citizens must be able to grasp the meaning of any piece of writing addressed to the general reader, and to be critical to the writings. I also believe that a literate person is also one that has the mindset of being open to the events happening around him. This person is curious towards new things and is in the habit of reading newspapers and keeping up with the news. (see below Note 1) Thomas Jefferson made the following famous remark: "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them." This last sentence is a crucial one for a really democratic society is founded on a society with high literacy, common basic moral values and on active citizenship. I do believe that the EU will achieve Martin Luther King's dream of a society which is founded not on race or class but on personal virtue. And referring to MLK I cannot help mentioning one of his great piece of writing on education. Martin Luther King: The Purpose of Education Note 1 The reasoning of the Bush-led government for going into war against Iraq was WMD. Government officials spread the news in the media that Saddam Hussein is a crazy despot who is ready to use chemical and biological weapons against the world -as he actually did in 1988 against his own people- and who is harbouring terrorists. This kind of justification was challenged by those educated people like for instance Noam Chomsky who pointed out that interestingly enough after Saddam Hussein launched a large-scale chemical weapons attack against Iraq's Kurdish population killing thousands the American government did not cut support to the Saddam regime but even increased it.

I do not intend to reflect on the original debate question here in this posting, namely whether we live in democracy or not. Hungary's electoral system can be seen here: http://www.ipu.org/parline-e/reports/2141_B.htm I would just like to join those posters who emphasised the importance of education in democratic societies. I firmly believe that only educated people, educated masses can guarantee/safeguard the proper operation of democracy. They are the ones who can correct the flaws. It is well-known fact that just having the right to vote is meaningless if a citizen is disabled by illiteracy or semiliteracy. History has taught us that illiterate and semiliterate people are condemned to being exposed to all kinds of manipulations. If people do not understand the issues properly they just can easily fall prey to manipulative oversimplifications and they cannot make good use of such democratic power as voting. These people fail to master their citizenship rights due to illiteracy. Following this line of reasoning I must say that in my view democracy is inseparable from literacy. To be truly literate, I think citizens must be able to grasp the meaning of any piece of writing addressed to the general reader, and to be critical to the writings. I also believe that a literate person is also one that has the mindset of being open to the events happening around him. This person is curious towards new things and is in the habit of reading newspapers and keeping up with the news. (see below Note 1) Thomas Jefferson made the following famous remark: "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them." This last sentence is a crucial one for a really democratic society is founded on a society with high literacy, common basic moral values and on active citizenship. I do believe that the EU will achieve Martin Luther King's dream of a society which is founded not on race or class but on personal virtue. And while referring to Martin Luther King I must mention his great text about the importance of good education: Martin Luther King: The Purpose of Education. Note 1 Let me give an example. The reasoning of the Bush-led government for going into war against Iraq was WMD. Government officials spread the news in the media that Saddam Hussein is a crazy despot who is ready to use chemical and biological weapons -as he actually did in 1988 against his own people- and who is harbouring terrorists. This kind of justification was challenged by those educated people like for instance Noam Chomsky who pointed out that interestingly enough after Saddam Hussein launched a large-scale chemical weapons attack against Iraq's Kurdish population killing thousands, the American government did not cut support to the Saddam regime but even increased it.

Is that posting correct. You told me in your last email that you will be arriving on the Friday. As a result I booked it for Friday-Sunday. Do I need to change it? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Dear John, Yes, my posting is correct. I am arriving with my wife in Worthing on Thursday evening. I hope you have received my reply message in your personal inbox. I've also sent a message to your "ntlworld" account. Hope you got those two missives. We actually wanted to leave on Friday early morning so as to be able to go to school on the very first school day on 1 September. We planned to go up to Budapest in the afternoon and sleep there in order to catch an early Friday morning flight to Gatwick. It turned out there was no flight available to Gatwick (neither to Heatrow) in the morning nor the early afternoon so we had to decide on a Thursday flight so that I can work with you guys on Friday. Thank you very much for your understanding and for modifying the hotel booking. See you soon. Cheers, Janos

Arrival at Gatwick at 18:30 on Thursday (01/09/05) I will take the 19:50 train. I'll hopefully arrive in Worthing at 20:36. Departure from Gatwick on Sunday 4 September 2005 at 12:55. I'll take the 9.31 train from Worthing. Looking forward to seeing you all! :-)

I have sent my application form and I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

I also intend to get my students carry out some video interviews. I fancy the idea!

Here are my data: Participant: Janos Blasszauer Institution: Batthyany Lajos Gimnazium Country: Hungary Town: Nagykanizsa some info about the school at the school's website: http://www.blg.hu/Isk_bemutatasa_angol.htm

So far it seems any time in September will be OK with me. I'm looking forward to meeting you all!

I am János Blasszauer (39), a father of two, living in the provincial town of Nagykanizsa. I have been teaching English for fifteen years now. Currently, I am working at Batthyány Gimnázium (academic grammar school). Since October 2001 I have been the pedagogical advisor for the Zala county Pedagogical Institute. Among many other tasks as e.g. the organisation of the county English language contest in different categories I give hands-on presentations for secondary school teachers and give advice to heads of schools with regard to ICT. I have been on the advisory board of Spring Day in Europe project for three years now. I have graduated from Berzsenyi Teacher Training College. This alma mater was the place where I got acquainted with CALL. I have received my MEd degree in English at Pécs University.

I think the phrase is RTFM. Anyway, I think this software has enormous potential for use in the classroom and for CPD, because maps can be shared online and edited by different users or communities of users. As an experiment I've created a folder on a public Cmap server and made an attempt to map good history teaching. If you're interested and want to contribute to the mind map, please download the software and under "shared Cmaps in places" visit the IHMC Public Cmaps (2) server. You will find (in alphabetical order) a folder called "History Teaching and Learning". In this folder there's a map called "History Teaching Activities". Please feel free to add anything you want to this map. I'd welcome contributions from non-history teachers, as everything overlaps to a great extent in education. many thanks Ed. p.s. if anyone can help me to stop my head being so squashed in my educationforum avatar I would be really grateful! <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I'll definitely add my contribution to your map soon. Meanwhile seeing that you show great interest towards Mindmapping tools let me call your attention to another great free mindmapping tool called FREEMIND. You can get info (and download) on this tool here: http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page Have a good exploration!

This is a view I share and one which almost suggests that the real promise of the ICT learning revolution could be to "deschool" society. Elsewhere John Simkin has spoken of the authoritarian elements of the "hidden curriculum" in schools. Is it possible that ICT could deliver education without schools?? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Thank you for your kind words, Andy. I have tried to do my best to come up to expectations. I am awfully sorry for not having been active on this list lately but I am snowed under with work. The large-scale European Schoolnet project, called Spring Day in Europe (more than 6000 schools have registered to it) is taking place this week and as the Hungarian advisor on the international advisory board I have a lot to do. But soon we will have Easter break and then I will write an article about some free online tools that could be exploited by educators. I have been on a constant lookout for such goodies for a while. And let me reflect 'briefly' on your thought-provoking question: I really think that a teacher's job is to raise curiosity towards the subject area/discipline he/she teaches. As Clay P. Bedford put it: "You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives." I firmly believe that by using eclectic teaching methods and having a wide repertoire of tricks and techniques we can avoid our lessons to get in the rut. To my mind, technology can help break the monotony of teacher-centered instruction and allow the students to take charge for their learning. I firmly believe that with the help of ICT we can create such a supportive, inspiring, exciting atmosphere in the classroom -and even out of the clasroom- in which learning can take place. And I think that's the main point. I think by making use of ICT we can help our students to become more successful learners, even life-long learners. In a recent posting on the WAOE list (World Association for Online Education) Gianni Marconato have touched upon some issues we have also raised. I have highlighted the text which I've found highly relevant to our ongoing discussion. Here goes the text:" Within our group of 'learning with technologies' practitioners, we have been debating the use of the term 'e-learning' to designate the educational use of technologies. As members of many international mailing lists in the field, we realised that the term 'e-learning' is now much less frequently used that it once was. We have also noticed that within the titles of journals (printed and online), conferences, books and portals the term is disappearing and terms such as 'learning', 'teaching' and 'technology' are being employed instead. What are your thoughts on this phenomenon? If you agree with our perception of this, what is the cause of this change in terminology? Our view is as follows. - The failure of the 'e-learning approach' to enhance the learning experience (to use technologies for delivering contents/learning materials; to substitute analogical teaching/learning tools with digital ones) has created the change in terminology; - Within the 'community of practice' of the people who use technologies to improve the learning outcomes at the individual and the educational systems levels, there is a growing awareness of the necessity of adopting a more pedagogically-based approach than the technologically-based one adopted in the early e-learning era; - To demonstrate a tangible added-value in the use of technologies to justify the added-cost, it is necessary to adopt an operational model which uses technologies not only in the online/distance learning settings, but also in face-to-face learning settings; - The use of technologies to enhance learning does not have to be based on the use of costly courseware, but rather on simpler and cheaper digital documents (for organising and delivering contents) and on communications and collaboration tools not necessarily arranged under the form of a complex LMS." In the article I'll soon write I'll try to make it a point to argue for this very last remark Gianni Marconato made. And of course I will give brief descriptions of all the free educationals tools that I have found out there. Finally two quotes: ”Technology will not replace teachers, but teachers who use technology will probably replace those who do not” --Ray Clifford “Technology itself is not the curriculum. Technology is a key that opens opportunities for students to learn in the classroom. It is a way in which we can bridge what in the past have been large gorges that have separated students from opportunity.” --John Dossey, Illinois State University

Thanks for your kind note. Here goes some info on the software I used in Toulouse. Mindmanager X5 Pro http://www.mindjet.com/eu/ It's a visual tool for planning and collaboration. You can have a free trial for 21 days. I'd alos like to call your attention to the Cmap tool which is a free software. I can highly recommend it. :-) Cmap tools http://cmap.ihmc.us/ The CmapTools program empowers users to construct, navigate, share and criticize knowledge models represented as concept maps. It allows users to, among many other features, construct their Cmaps in their personal computer, share them on servers (CmapServers) anywhere on the Internet, link their Cmaps to other Cmaps on servers, automatically create web pages of their concept maps on servers, edit their maps synchronously (at the same time) with other users on the Internet, and search the web for information relevant to a concept map. The CmapTools client is free for use by anybody, whether its use is commercial or non-commercial. In particular, schools and universities are encouraged to download it and install it in as many computers as desired, and students and teachers may make copies of it and install it at home. NB.: I have put some materials online making use of this tool: http://www.eltandict.com/oral/erettsegi.html