About computer classes and topics

In Pelgulinna Gymnasium computer class there is happening a lot of interesting stuff.

Computer graphics and mediatechnoloy lessons we learn how to draw pictures in vector and raster graphics; we animate and do videos, we make also music and use mobile phones. In webmedia lessons we develop web as a project.

Lesson in animating with colors and shapes

Lesson with mobile phones, discover Euro coins (Euro 10th anniversary)

                                     Outdoor learning with app "Kes käis - who was there?"

Fathers day Drupal web programming lesson

Mobile technology lessons we develop programs (apps) for Microsoft Mobile and Android based phones.

 QR project

Robotics classes we program robots and also participate in various national contests.


Programs used at school:
OP systems: Windows 7 or Linux Estobuntu, Android, Windows phone

Informatics:
MS Office
Libre and Open Office
Win RAR, 7ip
Videolan
Tux Typing
Tux Math
Scarch
Kodu Game Lab
Skype
MSN Live
HotPotatoes
Sebra
Keyboard Pro
Lego mindstorm
Safari, IE, Mozilla, Chrome

Computer art:
TuxPaint
Inkscape
Gimp
ArtRage
ArtWeaver
Picasa
Irfan Wiew
Scribus
Terragen
MovieMaker
MonkeyJam
Photosynth
Pixia
PhotoPhiltre
PhotoFilmStrip
MS Silverlight
Paint.Net
Audacity
Google SketchUP
PhotoStory3

and a lot of e-tools:)

In Estonina language:

Internet safety project (ENG) http://fame.pelgulinna.tln.edu.ee/
Mobile learning lessonplans and apps  http://www.pelgulinna.tln.edu.ee/mobla
Computer graphics programs and tasks http://www.pgarvgraaf.blogspot.com/
Future classroom http://tulevikuklass.blogspot.com/
Smart Book project http://tarkraamat.blogspot.com

Facts about Estonia

Facts about Estonia:


Fun to watch: Kati and me (EstDocs 2012 Short Film Competition - Third Place Award)


Facts:

•Estonia is the smallest of all the Baltic States, being only slightly bigger than Switzerland or Denmark, population 1,3 million
•Tallinn is our medieval capital and by far the biggest city, with a population of around 400,000
•Estonia is almost 50% forest.
•has over 1,500 islands
•has the highest number of meteorite craters per land area in the world
•are 550 schools (most of them have les sthan 300 students)

•have free WiFi almost everywhere;
•lot’s of e-services like E-income tax declaration!
•We are Skype homeland;

•In 2011 Tallinn will be the European Capital of Culture
•In 2011 we also have EURO

Medeval and new city of Tallinn

Sports, folk dance and song festivals 

4 seasons weather +35 to -35 C degrees

Flag: blue sky or sea, black earth or bread and white freedom

Situation map (Europe)

National anthem:


President: Toomas-Hendrik Ilves (opening Keynote form ICGOV2011 - in english language)



Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonia

VisitEstonia http://www.visitestonia.com/en/
Estionan official gateway: http://estonia.eu/

 

Estonian education

 

Information of education http://www.hm.ee/?1

 

 Estonian education tree

ICT and education possibilities thru my eyes: click here

 

Estonian cusine

Recepies: http://www.healthy-life.narod.ru/wor_ek66.htm

Pictures:

Potato, blood sausage, sauercraut, bacon, cranberry jam

Herring, potato, sour cream and onion

Sprat, egg, dill, tomato and cucumber

Chiken, tang mash, pickled cucumber

Pork shank, potato porridge, cranberry, tang mash

Black bread (rye)

Rubarb cake



Kama, whipped cream and cottage shees with strawberries

"Snowballs" with kissel

 

 

Links:
Learning the Traditional Foods of Estonia http://www.thepauperedchef.com/2006/07/learning_the_tr.html
Wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonian_cuisine

Estonian folk and pop music

Folk music







National song festival






Pop music








 

Estonian national clothes

Every Estonian county has their own clothes.

Some examples

 

Pelgulinna Gymnasium in brief

Topic/Name	Pelgulinna Gymnasium
Country	Estonia
City	Tallinn
Country pop	1,3 million
City population	400 000
Local/Public	Public school
Age or the school	100 year old (in different houses)
Renovation	2008/2009
Teachers	56
Students	860
Grades	1-12 grades
Lessons per class	1 grades 20 hour/week 9th graders 32; gymnasium 35
Ekstra lessons include in secondary level	Art 1-4 lessons per week, Manual training (2), sports (2), ICT (0-2 – depends of the class);
Languages in secondary	Russian, German
In gymnasium level ekstra lessons:	Different ICT(robotics, mobiletechnology, web programming etc), media, different art lessons, accounting, national defence, different history-culture, psychology, folk dance..
Extra curricular activities	All is included in all od student Schedule (some things are just optional) Dancing, acting, robotics, mobile technology, music, singing etc
Languagess in Gymn level	Spanish, finnish (some classes), russian, german, swedish
Computers	126 (inclusing 45 laptops)
Computers used by students	68 (31 of them are laptops)
wifi	Covers all the school, is possible to monitor
BYOD	It is allowd to bring your own device
System used in computers	Windows 7, Linux (estobutu)
Other gadgets	5 smartboard, 4 documant camera, 32 projectors, 12 mobile phones, 15 cameras, 2 scanners, 3 TV stants for shadow learning or information
Services for students/teachers	2 Individuaal e-mail (edu@live and Google); learning systems (Viko, Moodle, Google and Live; shared folders @school
School management systems	Eschool – Grandes, homework, home/school relations; KIS, EHIS – school management
Teachers work	All teachers divide into a „groups“ of internest eg. Math, primary. There are Workgroups also for class teachers, curricula development, policy development, food, health etc.
Mandatory training	160 hours per 5 year is mandatory to stay in the same excellency level
Feedback	We use Microsoft Pilsr.com research tools for grading innovation and we do once a year Ahole school feedback (parents, teachers, students), and 1-9 grade class teachers have the obligation to have development interview with student/parent
School ICT management	Everything technical outsoursed (domain, emails, LAN), at school just for fun only one webserver for training webprogrammers
School web	www.pelgulinna.tln.edu.ee but all usints (eg. Math, art, primary etc) have thir own blogs to promote schoolife
Extra projects running this year	Smart Europe@ home http://smarteurope.weebly.com/ Internet Safety http://fame.pelgulinna.tln.edu.ee/eng  Mobile learning (est) http://ulugeh4.havike.eenet.ee/wordpress/ Extra curricular activities (Comenius) Safe and active schoolday (est) http://fame.pelgulinna.tln.edu.ee/aktiivne/ A lot of E-twinning projects Learning math thru computers (Est, Finland, Sweden)
Awards/Programs	Microsoft Pathfinder school 2011 Esafety youth to youth program 2010 (European Schoolnet) Local awards (folk dancing festival – most groups from one school, North-Tallinn award, Birgy Lorenz Teacher of the year 2011, Tallinn best educational leader Tõnu Piibur(director of the school) 2012
Funding for ICT	Local Authority, projects (Tiger Leap Foundation or ohter for ICT)
Ideology of using ICT	Training for teachers lasts 15-45 minutes, different tutorials (shorter than better). Teachers are very recomended to participate in projects, lead projects, use ICT in lessons; teaching groups have laptop labs what they can lend for their classes; students can soose between win/linux to boot up the system themselves. Stuff is stored in clouds (teaching), ohter private stuff in educational national databases. We empahsise not using paper or printing out stuff (paper free school). There is always the latest software available. Every class from 7th Grande has student ICT helping staff (ekstra curricular work). Everybody is respponsible on their own gadgets.
Ideology	Every class, every teacher should have some project (class, local, International) Innovation is allowd and welcom. Doing things differently and changing the curricula when needed is allowed.

About Pelgulinna Gymnasium

Pelgulinna Gymnasium is school what is situated in capital of Estonia. We have ~860 students and ~60 teachers.

We teach: art, music, computers, handycraft and other compusory lessons as math, science, sports, languages. We have classes form 1.-12. grade, usually the class size varys 18-32 students. In highschool level we offer 3 track to follow: art, prgamatics (math, economy, computers, national defence) and humanities (languages and acting, cultural history and other).

Examples of traditional events:

• teachers day
• christmas sale and concert
• open school week
• fachion show
• National day celebrationsw
• Citizen day
• visiting theaters, cinema, concerts, museums and sports events
• art and natinal defence camp
• weeks: art, math and science
• WiFi day
• Singing contest and free mic
• internet security day
• robotics contests

Webs (in estonian language)
Schoolweb http://www.pelgulinna.tln.edu.ee/peaveeb/
Events http://pgyritus.blogspot.com/
Arts http://pelgulinnakunst.blogspot.com/
Sports http://pgsport.blogspot.com/
ICT http://pelguit.blogspot.com/
Primary http://pg-algklassid.blogspot.com/

Students TV (PG-TV) https://www.youtube.com/user/PGTelevisioon
2011-2012 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL698069E14C5BE3CC&feature=plcp

History overview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17iRCZ2rWCU&feature=share&list=SP698069E14C5BE3CC
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jc0xeflIL1U&feature=share&list=SP698069E14C5BE3CC

Projects:
Safe and safe schoolday http://fame.pelgulinna.tln.edu.ee/aktiivne/
Smart homes @europe  (ENG) http://smarteurope.weebly.com/

Pelgulinna Gymnasium history
Pictures form school:

 Electronic Estonian language dictation contest

 Schools 100 year celebration - Getter Jaani concert

 Pictures form past

 School cafeteria won 1st prize in Tallinn

WiFi day and lecture

Work and manual training teacher presents tripod for mobile phone

 Auditorium for 80 people

 

 Primary classes

 Ordinary classroom

 Cloakroom with extra gaming corner

 People in the corridor having a break

 Art corridor 1

 Primary corridor with games on the floor

Ordinary break

 Class for handycraft

 Art class

 Music class

Hall

Sculpture and art print class

Sportshall

Sports teacher explains indoor skiing

Stadium

Schedule

Swimmingpool

About me

Birgy Lorenz is informatics and computer graphics teacher from Pelgulinna Gymnasium Tallinn, Estonia. She is also doctoral student in Tallinn University. Her favorite topic is internet safety and innovation in learning-teching.

Awards
2010 Teacher of the year in Europe
2011 Teacher of the year in Estonia

Founder of Estonian Teachers of Informatics and Computer Science NGO.

Articles about me in english:
DailyEdventures: http://dailyedventures.com/index.php/2012/07/03/birgy-lorenz/
Techsisters: http://tmblr.co/Z0SnmuXSD8xb

Videos:
Birgy Lorenz, eLearning Award Winner 2010 - Teaching online safety and citizenship

Pelgulina school WiFi example - Interview with Birgy Lorenz

Social:
Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/birgy

LinkedIN
http://ee.linkedin.com/pub/birgy-lorenz/28/342/b0a

Research:
Mendeley
http://www.mendeley.com/profiles/birgy-lorenz1/

Academia.edu
http://tallinn.academia.edu/BirgyLorenz

Google citation http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=d68EXCwAAAAJ&hl=en

ETIS:
https://www.etis.ee/portaal/isikuCV.aspx?TextBoxName=birgy&PersonVID=46009&FromUrl0=isikud.aspx&lang=en

Researches:
http://www.birgy.ee/research/