SOLAM in Bulgaria

A group of 20 Israeli teachers met at 20 of December, 2000 at 03:40 AM at the Ben-Gurion, Airport. Destination Oriahovitza, a little village in Bulgaria.

The participants in the courtyard of the Schools Online Academy"

standing from left to right:
Raef, Saman, Miri, Zidan, Iris, Noohad, Heifa, Aliza, Ali & Miki

second row: Nehama, Orit, Tzipi, Ali, Eti, Nirit & Percy

lying on the flour: Hekmat & Sagy
between Sofia and Korishtiza Karina, a Bulgarian tourist guide waited for us by the bus in Sofia. It a was a snowy day. We visited Koprishtiza, a picturesque small town. In the late evening we arrived quite tired at Oriahovitza.
During the long trip, Karina, the Bulgarian guide, asked: where is Oriahovitza, did you make some accommodations arrangements there? The driver didn't know the place and when we arrived at Stara Zagora the main town in the area, they asked a local driver to join and help us find the place.
In the morning, it was almost to cold to make it to the dinning room. Outside it was -6 degree Celsius. At 8:45 the group started the first lesson in the Schools Online Academy Internet learning center. The Internet Learning Center is one of the 15 installed by "Schools Online" in Bulgaria.
 the dinning room the classroom

We came the all way from Israel to Oriahovitza, Bulgaria, in order to have a Seminar of Jewish and Arab teachers in a special setting where the sounds from the Israeli violent streets will not easily penetrate.

Seminar topics:
- Building a personal web page using HTML, Word2000
- Netiquette and Education
- Iearn projects, and forums
- Using "Forums" in our projects
- Webquests and other models for school projects
- Evaluation, how to evaluate collaborative projects.
 		Instructors:
- Mrs. Nechama Holtz,
Head of the computer center
in Tel-Aviv district, Ministry of
Education, Israel
- Mrs. Aliza Ziper, computer &
special projects coordinator,
Blich High School, Ramat-Gan, Israel
- Mrs. Lina Daher,computer science teacher,
Orthodox High School, Ramla, Israel
 		Guest lecturers:
- Mr. Lyubomir Genov, Head of
Dept. in CCS & ICT, Bulgaria
- Mr. Ivan Kolev, I*EARN
& SchoolsOnline coordinator, Bulgaria
- Mrs. Violeta Tsonova, Ph.D, EFL
teacher, German High School, Sofia, Bulgaria
- Mrs. Pepa Nacheva, Computer Science Teacher
High School of Natural Sciences, Varna, Bulgaria

In the first morning, Mr. Lyubomir Genov lectured on the technological training in Bulgarian Schools.
In the evening a folklore group, composed from students of Stara Zagora gave an wonderful performance. The performance took place in the guestroom, which was our "Coffe-Bar-Theatre" during our 3 days in Bakanski's guesthouse.

During the 3 days we were served special Bulgarian dishes. The food was delicious.
the kitchen

Minko (prof. Balkanski) phoned to ask about us, and I was pleased to tell him: so far - so good, and that his crew, directed by "Captain" Rusu Rusev is working very hard in order to provide us with a comfortable environment.
in the dinning room
Special thanks to our guest Lecturers which came from Sofia and Varna, 250 kilometers away, in order to give us an idea about the Bulgarian Education, SchoolsOnline & I*Earn activities.
In the second day Mr. Ivan Kolev presented a survey of the activity of SchoolsOnline and IEarn Bulgaria.
Ali Alman giving his school's flag to Ivan

 http://sites.schools-bg.net/nav-eng.htm
 		Violeta, at the end of lecture

In the same day Violeta Tsoneva gave an interesting lecture on her many IEARN projects.
We were astonished with the international spread of the projects and about their pedagogical aspects.
http://sites.schools-bg.net/Sofi-GermanLHS/html/english.html

Pepa Nacheva from Varna presented her different projects.
which were done by the intensive collaboration of her school's students. The wide use of the Internet in her school was a pleasant surprise.
Those projects promote the students' Internet know-how and broaden the students' knowledge by the choice of smart project themes.

Pepa unzipping her presentation
 http://sites.schools-bg.net/Varn-Popov/project.htm
Other pictures from Oriahovitza:
the group walking good home wine the luggage waiting for the bus

Some final notes:
''Undoubtedly, there is no alternative to peace talks. We all know that "fighting for peace" is no solution. Our responsibility as teachers is to reinforce the feeling that the only way to end the violence and the hatred is via discussions and getting to know one another better. We urge our colleagues and our students to take part in bridging between the two people, in peaceful way.'' Haifa, Iris and Samaan

''There is no better way to minorize violence and animosity than having people sit down and talk. We are a group of teachers, Arabs and Jews, who are involved in the SOLAM project. We are now having a seminar in Bulgaria, in which we are planning activities for our students. Our goals are to achieve mutual understanding, to put an end to prejudices and to build a bridge of peace between the two peoples. We would like to hear both from the people who participated in the seminar, and from anyone who'd like to express his opinion.'' Percy Shmuel

 Many thanks to Nehama Holtz, our main trainor who succeeded to teach teachers, in a very kind and succesfull way.
reported by: Miki Frankovits frmiki@netvision.net.il