Innokas Network was invited to take part to the Finnish Education Conference in Hong Kong in February 2016. There were up to 10 representatives from cities and comapanies from Finland.

The Conference was hosted by FinnCham’s Education Committee and it was the first ever in Hong Kong. There were over 120 guests including local media. We were welcomed to the Event by Stuart Patton, Chairman of Education Committee, Finnish Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong and Jari Sinkari, Finnish Consul General to Hong Kong & Macao.

There were three key note speeches, Innokas Network was one of them. The presentation was based on the Innovative school model and it covered experiences and best practices in innovation and technology education and 21^st century learning all over Finland.  As part of Espoo delegation the presentation also covered some best practices and projects in Espoo schools. There were two other key note speakers, Kristiina Erkkilä, Director of Development for the Education and Cultural Services from Espoo and Hanna Wirman, Research Assistant Professor, School of Design from Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Edutech companies, Fun Academy, Mobie Oy, xEdu, Carbon to Soil, Solu, Skillpixels & Headai presented Education Technology Perspectives from Finland.

During the travel we visited some schools and after school tutoring company in Hong Kong. It was very interesting to experience a very different school culture. Assessments are in a very big role in Hong Kong and there is a need for a reform. Especially parents are worried because of the pressure of exams. They feel that children do not have time enough to relax and play and they are all too exhausted. Some schools have already began the reform process and they are making learning more joyful.

During the travel there were many conversations on possible ways to integrate Finnish edutech tools into Hong Kong, and how to collaborate and learn from each other moving forward. One possibility in school level is twinning between schools. Jalavapuisto School in Espoo as part of Global Innokas Network was planned to begin a partnership with The Mission Covenant Church Holm Glad No. 2 Primary School.

In March two visitors from Hong Kong, Stuart Patton, Chairman of Education Committee, Finnish Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong and Nicholas Wang from EDiversity Committee visited Finland and there was a possibility to visit Jalavapuisto school. Teacher Hanna Mäkynen gave a tour around their school and discussion on partnerships was going on. We’ll stay on waiting to hear more of this school partnership.

Best wishes from Hong Kong and Global Innokas,

Innokas coordinator Minna

At last Global Innokas -meeting teachers from different parts of Finland gathered together, had great conservations but also built mental bridges together. The idea of ‘Our Neighbour School’ started to grow in teachers’ minds: we decide to connect our classes here in Finland by FaceTime and Skype. We didn’t tell our pupils what part of Finland we were going to connect them; they had an opportunity to make up some questions to find out the city where the other class was.

So during past couple of weeks pupils in Helsinki have been searching Finland. Boys and girls have made little presentations about Helsinki and we will send them to both Oulu and Hankasalmi. Today we saw a wonderful trailer made by Hankasalmi teachers and pupils!

We had difficulties with Skype: weather we saw only picture or just heard voices. We’ll try again! But FaceTime worked fantasticly. Pupils in Helsinki were really exited to talk with pupils from Hankasalmi. This work will continue!

– Raini, SYK

Metsokangas Comprehensive School, Oulu, Finland, and Jefferson Elementary School, Janesville, USA, have been collaborating for a year. During this collaborative project students have got pen pals, made a presentation video of their schools, sent Christmas Greetings videos, had a Skype chats on their spare time and also they have started to make a common video about similarities and differences between their cultures and students’ everyday life.

And all this will continue. Keep on waiting for the next step. 🙂

BR,

Minna, Petri and Jaana + 80 students from Metsokangas Comprehensive School

Global Innokas started year 2016 in a meeting with Global Innokas Teachers from all over the Finland. We are happy to have new teachers involved in Global Innokas – warmly welcome to global adventures!

In an educational event teachers shared their experiences and good practices in global partnerships. It was really enthusiastic to hear how various kinds of ways students have been involved in global partnerships. Starting points in partnerships have been in getting to know each other and each other’s cultures and ways for living. Technology was used innovatively in partnerships. There were many ways to send greeting to each other. Emails, chats, blogs, shared videos, Skype and various platforms were used to get friends with students all over the world.

Moreover, becoming term is planned and ideas are shared; welcome Global Innokas Networking 2016! We are waiting for news for becoming ways in partnering. Go teachers and students, you are making a good job!

With Global Innokas Greetings,

Minna, Tiina and Kati

Class 5B in the Metsokangas Comprehensive School sent Christmas greetings to their pen pals to Janesville, USA, by making a Christmas play called Secret of elves. Students filmed this play by themselves. They used their own iPhones and edited movies with iMovie. After all, the movie was subtitled into English.

Classes 5CD made also Christmas greetings by using digital camera and shooting their play from four different directions during the Christmas Festival. All parents of seven classes came to see their play and after that night the movie was edited by Final Cut Pro X. Students also composed music by using GarageBand and at last the movie was subtitled into English.

There are some pictures of students practising and preparing for these plays.

We wish you all Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2016!

– Jaana, Petri, Minna and 80 eager students –

National Board of Education organized global collaboration seminar 25.-26.11.2015 in Tampere, Finland. Global Innokas participants Petri and Jaana from Metsokangas Comprehensive School, Oulu, took part in this seminar.

During the first day we heard an interesting presentation about teacher and student exchange programs. Via exchange programs teachers and students could have shorter and longer exchange periods in Scandinavia and Europe.

Speakers also told us why it’s important for schools to have international connections and offer their students international co-operation and friendship during the school years. The main idea was: the more contacts you have during your studying in the primary and secondary schools, the more courage you will have to use your language skills. This motivates you to study languages. Also the different cultures become more familiar and you get friends from different countries.

In one of the workshops we also got to know about a co-operative project between school from Finland and Africa. They had f. ex. made a photo book of children’s every day lives in Finland and Africa. Actually, the idea was almost the same than we are going to do with our students’ penpals from Janesville, USA. The world is so small and ideas so similar between teachers.

One of the main topics during both days were refugees and how we can take them into consideration in the school. We also talked a lot of multi-cultural and school environment and how we could give students and teachers from diffirent cultures a possibility to share their knowledge about their own culture with other students and teachers. Many of speakers emphasised the value of meeting refugees. If they come to schools as visitors, it would be great way to learn from their countries and would also dispel preconceptions.

On the other day we got a new point of view after participating the workshop under the topic ”Education of peace”. This presentation waked us up to notice that how important is to support every student to reach their own target – they don’t have to have similar target’s or way’s to reach their targets, because they are individuals and teachers role is to find the best way with the student, not on behalf of the student.

Last but not least we got a task to write down our ideas of global education in groups of four. In our group we thought that global education should be

• an encouraging possibility to meet people all over the world
• broad-minded, curious and equal collaboration between people from different countries
• a way to make people understand what kind of changes Finnish School and Labour Market will face in a near future
• a way to understand what kind of benefits multicultural environment will give all people in Finland and abroad
• a way to notice that the word ”we Finnish people” mean all people in Finland, not only people who look Finnish or speak the same language, but also people who live and work here and feel the Finnish beat in their hearts

Jaana and Petri from Metsokangas Comprehensive School, Oulu, Finland

I had the privilege of meeting Jonathan So this Summer in China. We both took part in the Global Educational Summit amongst other teachers from China, Canada, Australia and Canada. Jonathan works as a 6th grade teacher in Ontario Canada and I am a fourth grade teacher in Espoo Finland. We decided to bring our kids together. The theme for this years GEC is “Our school -our neighbors school” and it gives us tons of possibilities working with the kids. From past experience we decided that working together is easier after they had met first. And that’s how it started…

Because of the time difference we decided that I would have night school with my children and Jonathan would have his kids in school normally. My kids got super excited about spending the night in school and had a long wait from August to November 19th. We also had to have the fire department come in and check the premises so that they were safe for sleeping over.

My kids first had a normal day at school and then returned to school at 17.00. The level of excitement was touchable 🙂 At 18.00 we used Skype to contact Jonathan’s class. We had some technical problems in my class -of course- and ended up with 18 children around an iPad trying to see and hear. In the beginning the kids had to try to figure out where the other class was located at. Asking questions like: “Do you speak French?”, “Do you play ice hockey?”, “Is it Germany?” they quite quickly figured out where the other class was at.  Then everyone introduced themselves by telling their name and an interest of theirs. A lot of giggling and laughing and excitement and 1 hour later we were done.

“Skype was fun although it was a bit long. But we could talk to other people almost at the other side of the world.”

“The Skype was very nice. We had a mystery class we were talking to but we found out were they live. It was my best day ever with my class.”

Jonathan’s kids went to French class and we went to computer class. I had created an Edmodo group for us before hand. Jonathan had sent us a video of their school. A video the kids had filmed earlier that day. My class watched it and commented and after posted lots of question about school life in Canada. Now we are eagerly waiting for responses.

After Edmodo we took a head start on Hour of Code. code.org  has launched two new coding hour -exercise. One with Minecraft and the other with Star Wars. My class worked intently with which ever one they chose to do.

The night was long and one needs food. Pizza at school was a treat that we seldom have.

And beds than? We slept in the gym. Boys on one half and girls on the other. We made our beds ready and found the gym mattresses handy 🙂

“The pizza was excellent! Unfortunately ate mine very fast. it is very nice to get pizza at night school.”

“You could sleep very well in the gym.”

“I didn’t sleep well but I still loved the night school!”

“Sleeping was booring.”

At 22.00 we were ready for what turned up to be the most exciting thing about night school: A game of police and robbers. The 2 police had flashlights and the robbers each had a reflector of some sort. The school was totally dark and you had permission to run down the dark corridors. Even though we extend the time twice it ended up too soon. I had 19 very sweaty kids on my hands.

“My favorite thing was police and robbers game.”

“I loved the police and robbers game!”

Everyone quieted down quickly and even the teacher slept quite well. In the morning we had a breakfast prepared by our kitchen and got ready to go home as the others were just arriving to school.

“The night school was super duper!”

“The whole night school was super exciting and fun!”

Collaboration with Jonathan and his class has now officially started. Stay tuned to what we do next.

National Board of Education organized global collaboration seminar 3.-4.9. in Pori, Finland. Global Innokas team started bright and early on Thursday morning with Global Innokas network gathering. We shared experiences since last meeting in March and planned the events for the upcoming year.

In the seminar we heard many presentations on the different views of global education. The Finnish Board of Education emphasized the importance of networking globally both nationally and internationally. Sharing and working together offers better opportunities for new innovations. There is power in a network! The new learning environments together with ICT create easier opportunities for crossing boundaries in global collaboration.

We had during the seminar great possibility to share greetings from Global Educational Community (GEC) schools:

We also heard a lot about the new Finnish curriculum starting in August 2016 and how the local and global citizenship are presented in it. In small groups we shared ideas on how to implement it in practice. Everyone chose at least one of these to try in their own work and shared it on the Wall of promises. For example Anu promised to use students as guides for international visitors this school year. Juhana promised to skype abroad with his students. Jaana and Minna also promised to use Mystery Skype, Seppo (SmartFeet) and Ted talks with their students. Can’t wait to try these out!

Tiina, Minna, Kati, Anna-Kristiina, Juhana, Hannu, Minna, Jaana ja Anu

On Saturday we had a sightseeing tour. Some of us went to the Great Wall. It was a very impressive experience considering both the amazing view and especially if you think the history of the Great wall. Half of the group went to the Tian’anmen’s square with two teachers from Janesville. It was a breath taking place to visit because of its’ history, huge size, monumental buildings and unreal security system. Even though the temperature (+37°C) and the humidity were high we all had a marvellous time!

Raini at Tian’anmen’s Square

Our local guide, young English teacher Steven, Anu, Minna and Tiina

In the evening we all GEC educators gathered together to have dinner at famous Quanjude Roast Duck Restaurant. We all ate Beijing’s roasted duck with great appetite. The duck was absolutely delicious! It amazed us how carefully every part of the duck was prepared so well. This was a perfect way to end our conference week – eating with GEC family and sharing different sorts of dishes symbolizes our global cooperation.

Famous Beijing’s roasted duck