Writing the final report sections I was checking again every result we produced and published online at our site. That drives me to insert some cartoons into the communciation book to make that book a bot more lively

I hope you like it too?

Also, I created the smartphone course, last week already. The content is completely different, so please check your translations.

That summary may help you in doing videos for the courses.

We think, we can make you a more sophisticated proposel regarding the visibility of our courses in all languages.

On each home page on the right is a block with shows randomized courses in all languages. If you like that, we could delete the phrases we created in Wales under the menu link "Courses", I think. Let me know please, what you think about.

The Romanian version of our 4 How to courses is now available on the website. Hopefully we will have them in EN by tomorrow. It was quite a long and very educative journey for all of us. Each of our learners had a lot of thinks to learn - taking photos, videos, uploading the course on the website, translate the course in EN and use the computer in order to writ all their materials.

See you soon!

Tina

Today, we have got an e-mail from someone who was reading our upholstery course. He wants to upholster an old chair and was asking where to buy the materials. I sent that request to Eric & Catherine, they were very exited about that someone is really interested in what they produced. When we made the course, we explained them that they are going to be famous because it's in the www, but the didn't really believe that someone else might follow their instructions

Hi everybody,

On Saturday we had a very good meeting with our learners. We talked about the "how to" courses and search on the web information about - guess what? - Llangollen. So we have found out that on Saturday in Llongollen were 5 degrees and it rained

We also have some general remarks about the group dynamic of our learners:

Learning behavior

Most of our learners declared at the biginning of the learning program that they learn better if they are together with other persons. After four months of weekly meetings, the learners became more engaged into learning activities and more attached to each other.

They have formed specific expectations about this experience - at the biginning of the lesson: they arrive early on purpose in order to spend some more time together and talk about their recent activitites, usually they do not enter in the training room; - during the lesson: they start the program and at a certain point they need to tack a short break and at this point they enjoy very much a cup of coffee or tea and some small snakes. This is also the moment when the group is complete (biginners and intermediate); - at the end of the lesson: they spend just a little more time to share impressions and ideas.

The weekly meetings have become an important point in their personal agenda and they prepare for each meeting. On Saturday for exemple Mariana was at a training course all day. Even so, she attended the meeting. She took advantage of the fact that lunch was between 13.00-14.00 and came to the English lesson. For Neli Saturday was also an important day. She received an award from the Faculty of Physics for her contribution to science. After the ceremony she came directly to the organisation and shared with with us her joy. The only regret that she had was that she had forgotten her learning book at home. Lili is also one of the members of the group that makes a lot of sacrifices in order to attend the meetins. Each Saturday she's working with her team of handball players and after the practice she comes from Buzias, eats something very quickly and joins the rest of the group. Eli is in the same situation. She comes from Mosnita each Saturday and she is the person that never missed a meeting.

This seems to be a result of informal learning. Each member of the group is responsible for the learning process. They know that if they miss one meeting they are the ones that ask for the materials. They even meet with other members of the group in order to recover the class. They know that the program established at the biginning can be negotiated in a way in which the learning objectives are still accomplished.

Learner's motivation

So far the English courses were their main motivation to follow the learning program. At the biginning of the learning program the learners have declared that they want to learn English in order to communicate with others.

At old age people feel the need to be independent and to be able to manage by themselves in different life situations. For the Romanian elders this means involving in different activities. one of the members of the group for example refuses to change her living conditions because this means that she has to move in a house faraway from the city. For her this means that she will not be able to visit her friends or participate in other activities becouse she will constantly ne asking her daughter to bring her in the city.

Since we have started to plan the Learning week we have notice that each of our learners had became more motivated to surf the Internet. It seams that they have started to see the use of Internet once they found a personal reason.

ICT difficulties

In order to realize the "how to" courses our learners started to describe and structured the course. They have a lot of ideas. Some of them are not yet accustomed to searching information on Internet. The main difficulty is when they introduce a certain word, the computer gives them a million results and they don't know which one is the good one. We will work on how to use Internet in our own advantage.

Keep in touch and wish you all a great week.

Regards,

Tina

Dear Shella and Shan,

Tomorrow I will meet the wonderful ladies of the Romanian group and they are very curious to find out more about Llangollen. During the last two weeks we have spoken a lot about the learning week so each of them started to ask questions about the destination .

I remember that in Stara Lubovna, Vivian presented us some interesting information about Llangollen; could you send us the power point presentation that he had made?

Wish you all a nice weekend!

Pob hwyl!

Tina

Dear all,

Wehave had our weekly meeting with the Romanain learners and have started to work on the ICT courses. We've started with the presentation of the website and each of them created a new account (they are waiting for the administrator approval) .

In order to have a clear idea over the How to courses that they will create, we have looked together at the How to sew a skirt course. They have read the course introduction, expecially the presentation of Hans-Georg. They enjoyed very much to read about the course and watched all the videos. The course was very appealing for them and they have seen that they have nothing to worry about; they should present what they like and know best.

Additionally, they were curious about the ICT courses, but the reactions were different. Most of our learners consider that in order to use the computer, or better yet to communicate on the web you must know specific specialized terms. In order to create a confortable context, they have worked in pairs. Now we will have the ICT courses every two weeks. Let you know how it's gooing!

Tina

Howcast is a start up wich collect how-to courses from everyone for everyone.
We are trendy - but nobody knows. Let's produce the courses and disseminate!

Yesterday, 20th July 2009 we met with Cesare and Lucia to record a video about how to do honey. It was really interesting, I didn't know that Cesare had so high knowledge about it. He was explaining all the procedure and we had a great fun apart from the fear of the bees menacing all around but....we were protected.

We are waiting for the ICT modules ready to learn how to upload the video on line and share this video with all other project participants. Sara