Europe Online Portfolio

The EOP-project was ended June 2009, after its perparatory foundation March 2005 in Finland.

There were many students and teachers involved, many other educational related partnerswere supporting this project. The main aim to let all participating students was not totally reached, but all students and teachers are now aquainted with a Digital Portfolio. Also a lot of students went to other countries to meet their peers f2f.
Also teachers have learned about their peer colleagues and visited each other schools.

Hereby I thank all the participating partners e.g. students, parents, teachers, coordinators and all other supporting people. Their names will be published here on a later moment.

Rob Barkey
Projecty coordinator EOP
February 2010

This year will be our last (funded) year of the project. Finally the Dutch will meet their peers in Glasgow from June 22nd. The Dutch students will combine their yearly "Theme Week" with serious business on Govan High School. Sonja Kerr, Frank Mullen and Kevin Sweeney have set up an interesting program, which will be held on Wednesday June 24th and Thursday June 25th. Dutch will travel together with their peers to interesting shores and places after having visited the lessons on school. From their side the Dutch students will tell about their school. All students are looking forward to that week.

Regards
Rob Barkey
June 14th 2009

Latest news: (December 16th 2008) Archived news (scroll down please)

At this moment all accounts of participating pupils have been activated and pupils are busy to work on their portfolios.
Groups have been formed, visits have to be planned.
The list of pupils will be published on this website (frontpage) so everybody can check his peers (horizontal line as always) We need 23 pupils from Scotland to fullfill this list.

The EOP-application wil be prepared by Sander Gerritsen (from our provider Gerrows). Old accounts will be parked, and removed from the system. For all technical support you can approach him through: sander @ gerrows.nl

We are also busy to design or remake some papers to support our pupils to communicate. Please do not forget to instruct your pupils to write in English and to study the pupils manual, to be downloaded form the site or to be found in the application self

More news to follow soon,
Regards,
Rob Barkey
Amsterdam
December 16th 2008

Dear Partners,

Evaluation visit to Unna
First of all I would like to thank Sonja and her colleagues for the tremendous reception we have had in Unna.
It was an well organized event. Especially the special lessons, to get to know each other were so unique, that we probably will use them in our school. As my brother in law said: “in this way they have to communicate”. The whole day was very nice and I haven't heard any student complain, although they started Thursday morning early at 06:15 hrs at the OSB.

The full report will be placed on the Eop-site. Many pictures have been taken and there is also a video movie, which will be provided later, because we (Sander and I) have to make a trailer of it. Yesterday we had a glimpse of the video, many more details were visible, but the most interesting part was, that our students were very active in the peer groups, even in those groups where we had some doubts.

Many compliments for you Sonja and thanks to the other teachers, where we could join their lessons.
We returned back in Amsterdam on time: around 20:00hrs. The most remarkable impression our students had was, that they noticed that our peers had so much in common: they had never expected that. Yesterday we had a intensive evaluation.
For the exchange of those remarks, I will create an evaluation form also for the use of the teachers, to see how we value those good practices.

This week activities
Our students already send Christmas greetings to their peers. Hopefully the peers from Spain and Scotland already received theman can react in time. Please do inform me if you need some help. I will continue modifying the message letters around themes.
For technical support, you can contact Sander Gerritsen as well: sander@gerrows.nl .

New in EOP

As requested by some of you, Sander worked on the EOP-application to integrate video. Yesterday I have seen the first clips and they look all right (it was the video, taken in Unna last Thursday). More (technical) details will follow later.
It is our goal to make a special option to upload a video clip, for example for an introduction, but also for clips about a theme or an opinion. If you have any ideas do not hesitate to post them through the EOP-mail.

Website
The website has been changed a bit, so please take a look and give some feedback about it. The peer groups can be found on the front page on the left part. Pupils can login through the login link.

Next year plans

We expect that the partners will travel to visit their peers. Spain has announced to visit Germany. Holland has confirmed that they will use their yearly vacation to go to Glasgow, also to visit their peers in Govan. This journey is now booked. Holland will stay in Glasgow from June 22 nd till June 25 th . All is already booked for the 17 pupils of the OSB including the hostel. Some other people will travel as well: about 5 teachers form OSB, and among them probably the new director of the school.

Hereby we invite our peers to visit Holland.

Thank you for your kind attention
Wishing you already a happy Christmas and a very healthy and lovely 2009
Rob Barkey

Project leader
Europe Online Portfolio Project

P.s. Do not forget the next year event in Estonia? Please visit the website of ESPA: http://www.espnet.eu/esp23/

Latest news: (November 23rd 2008) Archived news (scroll down please)

Dear visitor,

The participating countries are:

Germany (Coordinator: Sonja Koolhaas)
Holland (Coordinator: Rob Barkey)
Spain (Coordinator: Begoña Patricio)
Serbia (Coordinator: Caslav Mancic)
Scotland (Coordinator: Sonja Kerr)

More news to follow soon,
Regards,
Rob Barkey

NEWS ARCHIVES:

The latest news (March 19th 2008)

Dear EOP-partners,

First of all we welcome two new EOP-teachers, who joined the EOP-prject group during the ESP-conference in Coruna:
Ms. Susanna Dakash from Finland and Ms. Sonja Kohlhaas from Germany.

Then we would like to congratulate Mrs. Begona Patricio with her birthday today! We have to congratulate her also with her new job: being National ESP-coordinator in Spain. This combination will surely reinforce our efforts within the EOP-group.

Students are now about to communicate about their portfolios. Germany and Spain have holidays, so they will view their m,essages after Easter. Dutch Easter holidays will start coming monday and end wednesday.
I have send you all progress formats, to gather the progress of porfolio work.

Technical matters:

It seemed that the protfolios of Finland are open to be viewed, but somehow Spanish and German portfolios were not visible. Sander (the system manager from Gerrows) is already solving that problem.
Sander is making an automatic progress tool, that indicates automatically how far (in a graphic %-form) our students are. This is however a pilot project; you will be informed in time.

Important:

Do not forget to plan your journey to Helsinki in september in time.

Some extra:

Pictures from ESP-Coruna (Rob) ...........Waves in Coruna Tuesday 11th....Pics from ESP in Coruna (Bego and Moncho)

(March, 5th 2008 Amsterdam)

At this moment our pupils of the participating countries fulfilled the task of filling their portfolios.
The next step is planned for exchanging ideas and feedback about the portfolios in the peergroups.
Our pupils will communicate through the chat;
The groups can be found on the homepage as a pdf-file.
Another item: Scotland would like to join us again in November, but this time as non-travelling participants
More news will follow.

As you might know we presented the EOP-project in 2005 in Arteixo, supported by the Amancio Ortega Foundation.
It was a kick off event, even before the official appproval for this project has been given. During this event the idea was born to study the possiblity to hold the next ESP conference in Coruna. Three years later is became a fact.
So once more it proofs, that the ESP conferences are fruitfull.
Many of you might remember the involvement of the media in 2005 (7 newspapers, 2 local television companies)
Hereby you can read a number of newspapers gathered in this pdf-file.

Furthermore A lot of EOP-teachers join this ESP-conference in A Coruna at this very moment:
Tiina Lamppula & colleague, Begona Patricio (organization), Eva Pantel & colleague, Henk van Emmerik and undersigned

You might find the link to the ESP-site here The programme can be viewed quickly here
During this meeting the EOP-teachers will discuss the present steps of the project.

A very interesting speaker was Mr. Frederico Mayor Zaragoza a real peacemaker with inspirative ideas and emphazing the aim of our project: vital cohesive knowledge exchange, building mutual respect. You might access his website here

More to follow later this week

Regards
Rob Barkey
A Coruna
March 6th, 2008

(January 14th, 2008 Amsterdam)

The OSB in Amsterdam had the pleasure to welcome their peer class from the Gesamtschule Konigsborn from Unna.
Their teachers Mrs. Eva Pantel (English) and their teacher ICT (mr. Thomas ..) were their accompanying them.
We had a short introduction and then a meeting with class 3DD, the newbees this year and class 4DC, who will leave the school this year. Two of them have visited Unna already.
Later we had a short visit to some places in the school: Arts, a lesson at Mr. Jaap and a visit to the Dojo, gym and fitness room. After a lunch our managing director had a short word of welcome.

It was an interesting meeting. Pupils of both sides were rather shy, and we were glad that some of them took their chance to put questions, they have composed before. I think ICT-pupils "talk" better through keyboards :-)
Thanks for your visit and come again.

Thursday it was the turn of the Dutch teachers and Finnish teachers to visit Unna.
After having picked up the Finns at Dusseldorf, we gathered in Unna and had a meeting that day.
We planned the coming period and made agreements also together with Spain, who was present through wires.

Thank you all for your cooperation!!!

The pictures can be viewed through "pictures" in the left margin.

Regards
Rob Barkey
Project Leader EOP

(October 24th 2007)

The National Agencies of Finland, Germany, Holland and Spain have approved the renewal request
for our EOP project for the next two years. Congratulations.
Due to the presence of 2 other projects, the request for Scotland was denied.
Nevertheless, Kevin indicated, that Govan High will follow the project as good as possible.
Transnational visits are maybe less possible, but maybe we can find a way, for example to visit them
again.

Information about the next general meeting in Germany follows as soon as possible.

Regards
Rob Barkey

(August 16th 2007)Dear partners,

The Dutch National Agency has informed us through their website that the EOP renewal request has been approved (at least for the Netherlands and 2 other countries)
I have sent the concept Joint Activity report to you all to study it and to add or modify more details.
(You might like to download the concept here)

Participating countries have different time limits ro resend the Evaluation report and the Joint Activity report.
Please contact your National Agency for that matter.
Holland has to send the complete report before September 30th 2007.

The next meeting will be held in Unna, Germany probably end November 2007.
Eva Pantel, the national German EOP-coordinator will inform us later.

Enjoy the last days of the holidays, and for those who are already working: have a nice time!

Regards
Rob Barkey
Project leader EOP
Amsterdam
August 16th 2007

(May, 21st, 2007)

Dear Partners,

The last parts of school year 2006 - 2007 is in sight.
We have requested to put all portfolios on "open", also system manager Sander has done it behind the screen.
The application is not working 100%, but hopefully it will be improved the next period.

Untill now pupils have send their comment through the message option inside EOP.
The new list has been uploaded. The excel file shows our participating countries in colors to nake it more easy.
Serbia can not particpate fully at this moment. Finland will be the first who will take holidays. Spain and Holland will be working in EOP till their holidays, which will start end of June.
Germany and Scotland will send their dates soon.
So, at this moment, May 21st, we will work all together till the end of this mont.

From my part I wish you all relaxing holidays !!
We all wait now for the National Agencies to decide if we can continue.

On behalf of the EOP-team
Rob Barkey

(April 13th, 2007)

Dear partners,

All requests have been sent to the National Agencies. We will wait if we might receive their approvals.
I wish everybody good luck!

In the meanwhile some of us will meet in Unna, Germany soon. Eva Pantel will receive guests from Spain and Holland and maybe from Finland as well on her school The Gesammtschule Konigsborn.
The guests will arrive at April 24th and 25th, (and leave 27th and 28th) to let the pupils meet each other and to let them join the school life at "GEK".
They will exchange all info and we are of course curious how they will value such a meeting.
The rules of the such school projects allow participants to travel with only 5 students (language projects sustain 15 pupils), but it is worth it.

It will surely be an interesting meeting and we thank Eva in advance for her cooperation!

The EOP-team.

Dear partners,

Finally also Serbia joined our (30) groups, and as planned all participants, students and teachers had the opportunity to start the project with a Christmas & New Years message as planned in Glasgow.
Congratulations everyone of you!!!
The reactions are mainly positive: enthusiastic students and teachers!, which you coulkd read also in the EOP-mail.

We ow Ian McCracken a lot of thanks for translating the Pupils Task Book. We also thank all other people working behind the "curtain" to keep the show up and running. The Teachers Manual should be ready at the end of February.

After holidays we will continue responding the messages, but we will also start some intresting introduction lessons.
All participating teachers are asked to give their feedback on the developped themes. It is completely free tu use the designed lessons, there is no must. The main objective is to exchange knowledge about each others Portfolios and each others culture. We challenge you to develop your own ideas and to share them with us.

Besides a possible meeting of teachers and pupils in Unna, Germany, we also could meet each other again in Piestany, Slovakia, where the 21st ESPA Conference will be held. Please take a glimpse here to learn more about that event that will take place form March 7th till March 11th 2007.

You can ask your National Agency about the conditions to get funds for this conference.

On behalf ot the Portfolio Team, I wish you a merry Christmas and a inspiring and healthy 2007!

Rob Barkey
EOP-team

European Online Portfolio Team
Kicked Off at Govan High Glasgow
September 8th 2006
(Picture Kevin Sweeney)

Dear all,

The official kick off at Govan High School in September has been an enormeous succes. All six countries an their teachers were present. Deputy Headmaster Mr. Sweeney had made a very interesting program, complete with visits to classes, presentations by Govan Hights students, even the cullinair crew arranged a real Scottish diner guided by Mrs Margaret, while the headmaster gave us an aubade with Bag pipes in the real Tartan outfit. We were breathning Scottish history, eating the most beautiful food, never seen or tasted.
The German students guided by Mrs Pantel were welcomed by their peer Scottish students and were taken into the classes. After a while it seemed that they had been on Govan since years.
The teachers developped the planning step by step and will start this week working with their students in the European Online Portfolio.
After presenting the project in Finland, Slovenia and Spain, this project will start with 500 pupils and their 30 teachers. The next conference will be in Germany, where in september the 3rd conference will be held.

To get aan impression of the conference you might visit the pics here

On behalve of the team, Besides our host Sir Kevin, I like to thank all persons from Govan High and from the cooperating institutes, for their enthusiasm, effort and kindness. I would like to end with a remarkable one liner, one of the German students: Ayten spoke: "Glasgow, friendly from the heart"

Rob Barkey
Project coordinator EOP
Amsterdam

Sept 14th, 2006

We received good news from our Dutch National Agency: the EOP-project has been approved - at least with 3 partners; Therefore the EOP project has an ol "GO" and will officially start in September.
Serbia and Montegro will participate, although they could not be funded by the European Commission. If you like to view the end result of the requests take a glimpse here.
We will surely meet in Glasgow in September (September 6th till 10th) to design and celebrate the kick off of our project. Our host Kevin Sweeney of Govan High has already contacted the Swallow-hotel where we all will stay.
You will soon receive a schedule for the meeting, which will be prepared by Kevin and Rob.

Regards
Rob
July 31st 2006

February 17th 2006

Dear Partners,

Some of us just came back from the 20th ESP Conference, held in Amsterdam. It was a fruitful happening partly held on the University of Amsterdam and partly held on the Open Schoolgemeenschap Bijlmer in Amsterdam South East.
The programme can be found at www.esp.uva.nl.

Present members evaluated the situation till now and valued the results. We came to some possiblities about how we should start, what line to follow. More to come soon.

Pictures to be found here!

and here too!

Till now Finland, Germany, Scotland and Spain requested accounts to test the application. Usernames and passwords have been sent. So please try all and give feedback about the use of the EOP.
The Teachers Manual is not completed, but will follow soon.

Please put you holidays in the calender of EOP-yahoogroups and send them also to the coordinator Rob Barkey, so we will know, when pupils and teachers are present. It is also wise to send all timetables of pupils and teachers as well, so we will know when we are more or less available.

Do not forget to request your preparatory visit for the Comenius Contact Seminar in Amsterdam (European Schools Project Association Conference) coming March.
You might like to visit the site where you can find all needed information: just click here

Rob Barkey
Amsterdam
February 17th 2006

All Joint Application Forms have been sent in time, due to hard work and discipline of all of you.
The Finnish National Agency approved the plan recently, so number one is in. Congratulations.We have now to wait on the approval of the other countries. Serbia & Montenegro will participate. They are not yet in the EC but, Caslav Mancic hopefully will find a solution together with the local authorities.Please send all members a copy of your official stamped and signed JAF! Many thanks

Begoña sent some articles from a.o. the local newspapers you can view here if you have Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Amancio Ortega Foundation, Ideal Gallego 1, 2, Opninion Coruña, Que Coruña, Voz Coruña, Voz Galicia.
Take a look. Videos fron TV Galicia will follow

Hereby I like to thank all participants and sponsors of the EOP-meeting in Arteixo for their contribution.
It has been above all expectations! Special thanks to The FAO who supported us very well, to their President Mr. Gómez Pallete and his coworkers, the people of IES Pastoriza, the people of the Civic Centre and the mayor of Arteixo.
Last but not least: Mrs. Patricio, who showed her organize talent and supported us very well.

Regards
Rob Barkey
Project leader EOP

P.s.1: the pictures from Arteixo, Coruna and Santiago have been uploaded (see "pictures"), a cd will be made as all other pictures are received (digitally)
P.s.2: Please notify: ESP conference March 9 till 12 in Amsterdam (pending)