In February 2010 I took part in an International Course in Siena, Italy, which was organized by Educatief Centrum Noord en Oost (ECNO) – Cultural Institute in Groningen, Netherlands. The theme was Cultural heritage and ICT - Icons of Identity: Siena. The organizers of the training were Fokko Dijkstra - course director, teacher trainer, cultural heritage expert, ict expert; Maria Caterina Laiolo - teacher and teacher trainer; Mariele Sani - cultural heritage Tuscany.
The participants in the course were teachers and teacher trainers from 7 European countries – Italy, Spain, Finland, Norway, Greece, Hungary and Bulgaria.
After receiving confirmation of selection by the national agencies the course participant received a user account for the seminar magazine. In this magazine I prepared and published two articles – about my teacher’s work for introducing myself and about Bulgarian national icon – The Bulgarian Rose. I had to use a new software program. The organizer – Fokko Dijkstra helped every participant, me too! When I had some problems, I was given immediately advices by email.
One of the chain course themes is how cultural heritage can play a role in identity and loyalty.
The chain network created and promoted instruments and events to accomplish collaboration between people and institutes involved in European cultural heritage education. In the course we developed a conceptual framework of European cultural heritage. To this aim internet instruments have been developed to be used in courses, projects and schools. The general idea of this software is to have a virtual book on European cultural heritage jointly produced by teachers and pupils all over Europe.
All participants were very impressed by the national Italian icons for identity : famous Sienese summer horse-race, known as Il Palio , Piazza del Campo - the heart of the town,The Duomo – the famous cathedral of Siena, San Gimigniano – the town of beautiful towers, Abbazia di Monte Oliveto Maggiore, St. Antimo , the beautiful landscape of Tuscany.
During the course period participants collected information during field work, visits and lectures. At the last day of the course working groups/teams transferred this information/documentation into the internet tools http://chain.to/?m12=481. After the course this input was improved and expanded.
The course itself offers a didactic model for heritage education: main (European) themes, fieldwork activities, teaching methods, reflection and the use of advanced, interactive ICT tools. The chain (ict) instruments can be used to prepare and realize own partnerships and projects. To this aim after the course the participants receive coordinator rights in using the chain software for their own educational work, in their own schools as well as in (Comenius) partnership work.
I created my own project in this book: Bulgaria my precious country http://chain.to/?t2=542. I wrote two articles about Bulgaria.
I wrote my own article \in seminar book\ about Abbazia di Monte Oliveto Maggiore, too, because it extremely fascinated me.
It was a great experience for me! I hope I can take part in the next my CHAIN course and learn more about European culture!
