Off Off Campus: Teaching from Hungary

VIsitors from Hungary to Georgia

2009-10-08T22:47:00.002+02:00

Dr. Judith Kádar and her son Péti are visiting this weekend from Milledgeville, where she's on a short visiting professorship . She's a lecturer of American Studies in Eger, and invited us to her house for delicious food many times. She even taught me to make gombóc (I think!), dumplings stuffed with túró (curd cheese). We had a great time cooking BBQ, and went to Wild Adventures for some waterpark fun--no rides, though!

On Sunday, we took them back to "Millivilli", as they call it! The distance between Valdosta and there, is about the N-S width of Hungary!

Learning: Distance Teaching and Learning Conference

2009-08-06T17:03:00.004+02:00

It's a beautiful day in Madison, Wisconsin. Take a look!

I'm back home in South Georgia, USA.

The conference was very good, although not as well attended as years not affected by the recession. Lots of people came by my poster session, with many different interests in the topic of FAR distant online teaching.

There were people interested in delivering online instruction in various cultural contexts, including educators from the International Monetary Fund, Foreign Service Institute, and an NGO from Estonia. There were also visiting scholars from a petroleum institute in "the real Georgia", that is, the country, who are interested in online education.

Of course there were others who just wanted to know how they could go on faculty exchange to such a wonderful place as Hungary!

We all agreed that there were challenges in introducing interactivity in online education within cultures that don't practice interactivity in face to face classrooms, and that FAR distance probably didn't matter, as long as the instructor and students all stayed engaged on a regular basis.

Here's a slideshow that was the backdrop for the poster session.

Scholarship of Teaching: Distance Teaching and Learning Conference

2009-07-29T17:04:00.002+02:00

This blog is featured as an illustration within a poster session at the 25th Annual Conference on Distance Teaching and Learning, August 4-7, 2009, in Madison, Wisconsin. Visit the site to appreciate the wide range and quality of this great conference.

The poster session presents the experience of my faculty exchange through description, analysis, and visuals. While the framework of the blog was teaching, learning, culture, and fun, this presentation concentrates on reflection of the effect of the exchange on my teaching VSU students while in Hungary: Teaching at a FAR Distance. I will convey difficulties engendered by time and technology differences, sense of connection with my VSU students, parallel communications and interaction with colleagues, family, friends, and students, and observations of reactions of Hungarian students and faculty in regard to my distance teaching practices.

Summary: Blog as Example and Blogging Advice

2009-07-01T18:30:00.003+02:00

Documenting a Professional Development Activity through Blogging: Example and Advice

Off Off Campus: Teaching from Hungary is a multimedia blog consisting of over 80 entries, and constructed using Google’s Blogger. The purpose of the blog was to document my experiences during a four-month faculty exchange to the Institute of Media Informatics at Eszterházy Károly College in Eger, Hungary. As a professor of Curriculum and Instructional Technology at Valdosta State University, I was very experienced in delivering instruction from a distance. In fact, I continued to teach Valdosta State students online throughout the Hungarian exchange experience. I knew there would be some challenges in teaching at such a distance, mostly in relation to the time difference, and possible technology differences. The title of the blog anticipates the challenges of a long distance educator.

I’d never blogged before, but thought becoming a blogger would be a good immersion technology learning experience, as well as a good way to communicate my adventures to colleagues, family, and friends back home in the U.S. I conceived the blog as a work of academic scholarship as well, that is, a web publication relevant both to my academic discipline, instructional design and technology, and to the experience itself, international education. Since I saw this as a professional blog, I wanted the entries to convey meaningful information about educational and cultural experiences in Hungary, as well as about the experience of being on faculty exchange in a culture quite different from South Georgia, U.S.A. I didn’t intend to write a travelogue; I wanted a more general focus. As I worked on the blog, I found that I recalled my background in journalism and advertising, creating something that was more similar to an online magazine than anything else. Over time and varied topics, I used multiple writing styles, levels of formality, and illustration and graphic methods.

As in many technology-related tasks, doing is learning when it comes to a blog. Since the outcome of this project was intended to be educational, I did employ the first steps of the instructional design process by defining goals, purposes, and objectives for the blog, and considering the target audience(s). I came up with a very general framework as the underlying structure for the blog: teaching, learning, culture, and fun. It was my intention to categorize each blog entry under one of these headings as the main topic, and to try to balance my writings among the topics. Along the way, I jotted down discoveries, ideas, advice, and recommendations that would be helpful to anyone else who might use a blog to document a particular professional experience or interval. This article is a summary of what I learned and observed while creating Off Off Campus. Some of the following advice may seem relevant only to my particular project; other advice is more general.

Advice: Have a framework

As indicated above, I didn’t just start blogging. I started with a purpose and a framework. Without that structure, I think it would have been tempting to just report on happenings in a chronological way. With the framework, I often found myself writing on themes (e.g., transportation), and then combining a number of events and observations (e.g., a particular bus adventure, a harrowing ticket-buying experience, a comparison of US/Hungarian drivers) into one blog entry. I also think the framework really assisted me in staying focused and reflective about my teaching and learning.

Advice: Think of your audience(s)

I began the blog with a sure audience of one—me. I wanted a contemporaneous, multimedia record of my time in Hungary. “Post-production” activities such as creating photo books and DVDs have taken me considerable time following other overseas trips. I wanted to come back from this trip with my full experience in a ready-to-share format. I increased the likelihood that I would stay with the task by making it the basis for a conference presentation proposal (accepted for presentation 23rd Annual Conference on Distance Teaching and Learning, August, 2009).

The next audience I considered consisted of my Valdosta State University departmental and college colleagues, as well as other faculty interested in International Exchange opportunities. They wanted to share the adventure with me, and several had actually been to Eger a couple of years earlier for a conference, and would be revisiting places and people they knew through the blog. So, the blog had to be professional in tone, but interesting, with enough detail to communicate my activities. Most importantly, there couldn’t be too much emphasis on having fun—after all, I was working!

Family, friends, and current and former students were also invited to read the blog, in most cases, in lieu of exchanging emails. There just wasn’t time to do both. One elderly aunt and uncle became such followers that they printed each entry and send it to other relatives who lacked Internet access. A former student became my ‘perfect follower’, willing to leave comments and troubleshoot Blogger features. My current U.S. students, whom I was teaching via distance during the exchange time period, were an audience, too. I hoped they would take an interest in the novelty of having a professor who was six hours removed in time zones. Some did, and would make comments in the blog. However, we had so much direct (and usual) contact within the course management system, that they didn’t have the time or inclination to spend much more time with me by visiting the blog.

The audience of which I was very aware, and somewhat uncertain, consisted of my Institute of Media Informatics colleagues and administrators of the college in Hungary. Although I informed them of my blog from the beginning, and even used it as an illustration of how they might use blogging in their instruction, I wasn’t sure of their level of interest. It was quickly communicated, however, that many of my colleagues were my closest followers, and they would ask me questions, for example, about how I liked last night’s concert (that I’d blogged about), and add to my knowledge about events I’d observed. I was a little self-conscious sometimes about writing, knowing that people involved in what I was reporting were reading it. However, response was very positive.

Advice: Illustrate your blog

I take lots of digital photos and really find it natural to illustrate my writing with graphics. I found myself taking photographs in a different way than on most trips, more journalistically than artistically. I would anticipate writing a blog entry and then purposely take photos that would carry some of the meaning. Thus, photos of street signs, posters, and products in stores were often more useful than beautiful sunsets, flowers, and mountain scenes. Photos didn’t have to be great, just representational, and simple enough to convey meaning in the small scale display within a blog entry. In fact, I came to realize that using a ‘great’ photo in the blog was somewhat wasted, and a bit frustrating for the viewer to not be able to enlarge or see it in full resolution. I saved those few ‘great’ photos for printing when I got home.

Organization of digital photos is always a challenge, especially when on a long trip. Knowing that I was going to be inserting photos into blog entries really helped me stay organized. I took photos, and then downloaded them from my camera card onto my laptop. I used iPhoto albums, named to indicate specific topics. Some photos from the iPhoto library went into more than one album, if they would be useful for illustration of more than one entry. I kept the iPhoto library intact, and backed it up on CDs for safety.

In some cases, such as substantial out-of-town trips, I knew I would upload the album to Picasa, and then insert a link to the Picasa album within the blog entry. For those albums I tried to be very careful to edit the photos for quality, remove any photos that I didn’t want to be public, put the photos in a “storytelling” order, and, sometimes, add caption names to the photos so the titles would be displayed in a Picasa slideshow. There are choices as to how to offer viewers access to Picasa albums, and I utilized them all at different places in the blog. A simple URL link sends the blog reader to the Picasa album where he can look at the photos one by one, or see them in a slideshow. If you create a Picasa slideshow, with titles, you can either insert a link to that slideshow, or you can embed the slideshow, which actually plays the slideshow within your blog entry.
On other topics, I knew I would simply want to choose a few photos to insert directly into the blog. Those albums were private, only available on my own laptop, and so didn’t get quite the scrutiny for editing as did the public albums.

Inclusion of photos of people in the blog was a bit tricky. I tried to ask permission of anyone I would include, and made sure that photos of children were absent or not identifiable. When I did include people in a blog, whether in photo or content, I would tell them or email them a friendly notification and ask them to please tell me if they wanted me to edit or remove. I didn’t ever get a request to alter a blog entry—everyone seemed flattered and happy to be ‘published’. I hope that was because I was always cognizant of my audience(s), and tried to see my writing and photos through their eyes as well as my own.

I can share some specific photo ideas that were useful to me in the international context. Take the same photo from the same place over time—that was a great way to document change over time (e.g., the long awaited arrival of Spring). Take photos of posters for events—great to take home and use a dictionary to translate, and then use as illustration of the description of the event (and reminder of date/place/correct spelling) in a blog entry. Make PowerPoint slides into jpg graphics and use as illustrations in the blog, whether as an original custom graphic, or to represent an actual presentation or class. I also used SlideShare.com to store my PowerPoint presentations and sometimes included links to those presentations within the blog entry.

It’s possible to upload movies into blog entries, and I did so occasionally. I took the movies on my digital camera, uploaded into iPhoto, and then inserted directly into the blog entry. I had mixed reports from viewers as to whether the movies worked very well, but even to have a tiny 10 second glimpse/sound of a gypsy violinist added atmosphere. Keep the movies very short and small, and realize that the sound is probably more important and clear, than the picture. In one case I did want to include a longer movie (walking the 192 steps to my office). I didn’t want to embed that in an entry, so I put it up on YouTube and created a link to it within the blog.

Advice: Prepare, then write

There were lots of preparation tasks that had to be done ahead of actual writing. I would take a look at a list of ideas for blog entries I’d jotted down in a notebook. Ideas would include content, but also sometimes, form. As time went on, I started to think of ‘fun’ ways to present the material outside of straight narrative. I presented interviews, jokes, short stories, and a simulated advertisement for the stellar qualities of a famous Hungarian cave as a wedding venue. Sometimes I combined ideas to create larger themed entries.

As mentioned above, preparation included organization of the photographs I might use in the entry, placing the photos in files and nearly always replacing the numerical file name with a text name to help me spot the photo when I needed it in iPhoto. If the entry had to do with an event or place, I’d assemble printed materials such as tourist materials, maps, dictionaries, and other reference materials, so I could do a good job of spelling and getting names and facts correct. Speaking of spelling, the Hungarian language is full of diacritical marks, and they are essential to writing. Early on I had to learn how to make the marks using my Apple laptop, and, differently, my PC at the office (thank goodness they gave me an English language keyboard!).

Once I had everything together, I would usually write directly into the blog. I’d write a paragraph, and then load photos in, placing some aligned left and some right. I nearly always used the ‘small’ setting for the photos, but occasionally made a photo a large highlight within the entry. I’d continue writing, and move photos around to make for a pleasing layout. I used WYSIWYG settings, occasionally making font changes or putting in display colors. There wasn’t a great deal of control in Blogger, and so the perfectionist in me had to relax. When I was finished, I’d do a preview and try to fix any really bad formatting or other mistakes. Unless I thought the entry was incomplete, or I needed to check some facts or get a permission, I went ahead and published right then. It was always easy to edit even after publication. Sometimes I would go back in and make an addition or observation through the comment feature, and occasionally even left myself notes in the comment area to remind me of a change I wanted to make.

I often did two or three blog entries in a day—when I’d get ‘on a roll’. It really does take a lot of time to craft blog entries, including formatting and arrangement of photos. The entries varied greatly in length and complexity, and were probably almost always longer than recommended by professional bloggers. But I was documenting an experience, not trying to sell products in pop-up ads, so I wasn’t concerned. I ended up with a blog of more than 80 entries. I wrote over 150,000 words, illustrated by 600+ photos, either embedded directly or linked from Picasa albums. My blog, if printed, would translate into well over 300 printed pages, without the photos. I’m exploring various ways to transform the blog into an e-book to preserve my lasting sense of accomplishment.

Summary and Evaluation

The blog was a success from my point of view, meeting the purpose of communicating to multiple audiences, and documenting a unique and wonderful experience. Blogging was quite a different way of communicating than through email, in some ways better (more in-depth, organized, and lasting), and some ways worse (less personal and one-way). I immersed myself in telling ‘my stories’, and so missed eliciting the news of others, especially those back home.

The blog did not have a wide impact, at least not at the point of the end of the exchange. I certainly could have publicized it more, adding other audiences to the mix. I did make the blog public, and allowed search engines to find it, but the topic, especially as indicated by the title, was probably of limited interest. I had hoped to have more reader comments in the blog, but an early period of technical difficulty in Blogger discouraged some from making comments, and then they didn’t return to try again. In particular, I’d hoped that my Hungarian colleagues would comment, and I even asked them to do so. Likewise, I’d hoped that some of my colleagues would be willing to do guest blogs on my site. However, they were, for the most part, hesitant to write in English in a public place—I know the feeling having made many Hungarian writing errors in my few attempts!

The blog was not only for the record and communication; it also contributed to my e-teaching practice. I was able to use the blog as a teaching tool in my faculty development seminar while in Hungary, and as the basis of a blogging workshop for Hungarian education students. I definitely have ideas as to how to incorporate blogging into online classes I teach here in the U.S., although I may want to keep the function within the course management system for simplicity.

Blogging was fun and a lot of work. I now appreciate the efforts of professional bloggers, and may even want to join them one day. The experience was like a ‘blast from the past’ in combining the skills and thought processes I once used in journalism and advertising. I encourage educators who are participating in a faculty development or school improvement process to ‘blog the experience’ as individuals, or, even better, in groups. You’ll find it worthwhile for documentation and reflection, and you’ll be surprised at how satisfying creation of a blog really is.

Teaching, learning, culture, and fun…the framework covered it all. I created the record of the experience as I lived it. Occasionally, but not often, I had to remind myself that I needed to close up the computer and live, not just blog about life! Of course, even after weeks passed since my return, I continued to work on the blog, including this paper as (the last?) entry. I’ve investigated methods of transforming the blog into an e-book, and even a printed book. So, I can’t quite let go!

Reflection: Fun

2009-06-26T16:30:00.003+02:00

FUN

Most of the blog postings labeled as FUN were in relation to going on side trips, entertaining visitors, or looking at an element of culture in a weird way (like a shark in downtown Budapest). I couldn’t label all postings as fun, of course, since this was a professional, academic experience, documented in a professional, academic blog. But pssst…it was all FUN! And if we remember that teaching, learning, and culture can all provide us with FUN, we’re in good shape!

Reflection: Culture

2009-06-26T16:29:00.002+02:00

CULTURE

“Culture is the ideas, customs, arts, skills, etc., of a given people” (New World Dictionary). I’ve read about Hungarian culture, talked to Hungarians about Hungarian culture, and observed elements of Hungarian culture. So what do I know? I know it’s different, and I like it a lot. Any comments I make are not on Hungarian culture, but on what it’s like for an American to live within Hungarian culture for a relatively short period of time. So here are three outstanding differences between my life in Eger and my life in Valdosta…

The automobile. Living without a car, and without the need for a car, for four months was wonderful. It changes everything, from shopping venues and frequency, to trip-planning, to automatic physical fitness.

Café society. Having lots and lots of small restaurants and cafes from which to choose. Talking for hours on end, without the necessity to clear the table and move on to make way for another customer. Great coffee, wine, and beer, to say nothing of the excellent food.

Hospitality. Over-the-top kindness and generosity from every person I met. Academic professionals, most of whom have to patch together multiple jobs and teach lots of students, make it a priority to entertain and assist visitors.

So, how was Hungary? Read this blog. Read history. Watch politics. Explore the language and literature. Go there. Talk to Hungarians. Find out. You’ll like what you find.

Reflection: Learning

2009-06-26T16:28:00.002+02:00

LEARNING

Where do I start on this reflection? I WONDER….

Wondering is the start of all learning, and I certainly spent lots of time wondering what the heck was going on around me in Hungary. I wonder what that store clerk is asking me? I wonder what that sign says? I wonder what’s in that package on the grocery shelf (is it butter or nice spreadable pork fat)? I wonder what this poster is advertising, where the event will be, and when?

With my background as a librarian, a traveler, and my father’s daughter, I did prepare for my trip to Hungary. I bought guidebooks, phrasebooks, and dictionaries. I read about Hungarian writers and poets. I listened to Hungarian language CDs as I walked the neighborhood, secure in the belief that if people heard me speaking Hungarian to myself, they wouldn’t be able to criticize my pronunciation. I bookmarked helpful sites, including that of EKF. I asked questions about our likely living situation, work expectations, and climate. I determined what clothes we would need, resulting in: 1) too many, 2) too warm, and 3) too formal.

I decided that a blog would be a good way to demonstrate and document learning, and came up with a framework and a tool to use (Blogger). I prepared as best I could, and went into the experience with the attitude that I would carefully observe, risk mistakes, deal with resulting anxiety, push through shyness, and take advantage of every opportunity offered. That pretty much describes what happened.

Observing was pretty much a given. On the surface, Eger was not a very strange environment. A very pretty small city, with streets, stores, cars, banks, theaters, college buildings, churches, bicycles, and people that seemed familiar. First observation—yes, navigation is easy, but understanding where you are is not. Obviously the difficulty of the language was foremost—it doesn’t help if you’ve studied French or Spanish or German—the words on the sign are not readable, and they are definitely not pronounceable. So there was a lot of good reason to watch and learn—at the store, at the bank, and especially at the train station! Observing also led to speculation—again, to WONDER what was going on, come up with a hypothesis, and then check it out later with colleagues at the office. More than once, that resulted in great hilarity when I missed my guess!

But risking mistakes, and dealing with the resulting anxiety, was also an important component in my learning. Those of us who have been successful in our jobs and social interactions take everyday competence for granted. Living in another culture strips that competence away in a hurry. Take for example the butter example from above—yes, I bought the nice block of pork fat, widely used in Hungarian cooking. I learned from my mistake—but didn’t end up spreading my mistake on toast in the morning! It’s constant work to make sense of an unfamiliar world, and the experience provided me an interesting, personal, and concrete example of developmental learning processes. I have more empathy for learners, whether they are strangers in (our) strange land, or students beginning graduate work in an unfamiliar discipline. Anxiety, mistakes, and fatigue are givens, as are discovery, comprehension, and satisfaction.

Making the most of all opportunities was most important in learning from this experience. Most people don’t think of me as a shy person; I’ve learned to push through that in everyday life when I have to do so. I had to sometimes do the same in Hungary, and ‘play the part’ of a confident visiting professor. I was helped by an excellent piece of advice offered to me by a VSU professor who had been on faculty exchange to other countries, “Accept every invitation.” Doing so brought me into many different situations, and put me into lots of great ‘learning environments’. I would add another piece of advice, “Go to everything, no invitations necessary.” It became a habit to look for posters (events are often not advertised until just before they happen), take digital photographs of the poster, and then go home to interpret what, where, when, and how much, using the dictionary. Sometimes this method worked, sometimes not, and sometimes led to interesting confusions (is this a Hungarian dance where you dance or is it a Hungarian dance where you watch dancing?).

It is interesting to think about changes in learning over the four months. As I understood more, and was more comfortable and competent in the daily or common tasks, I think my pace of learning slowed. I noticed that I wasn’t studying language as much, nor taking as many ‘sense-making’ photographs. I found that some tasks (like buying train tickets in Eger) had become quite easy, a marked difference. I never did get around to learning metric quantities, settling for the foolish-looking (but effective) practice of asking for two handfuls of beans at the market. I eventually managed to answer my phone (usually, but always reluctantly), make calls (usually), and replenish minutes at the T-Mobile store. I figured out (duh!) why my colleagues wanted to call me rather than email (their oral English proficiency, written English lack of practice, and general cell phone addiction), and why I wanted them to email me (my oral comprehension anxiety, email addiction, and general cell phone aversion).

I did continue to query my colleagues and asked advice and interpretation on everything from food to politics. I shared what I learned through the blog, including some reflection. I continued to have some frustrations, particularly around miscommunications, but embraced those “rabbit hole experiences”. I must admit I did sometimes look forward to the expectation that when I was “back home” I would be competent again, and not have to try so hard everyday to figure things out. That has happened (although I have had a time catching up at the office), but I find I miss the inevitable sense of WONDER that living in another culture brought to each day.

Reflection: Teaching

2009-06-26T16:27:00.004+02:00

TEACHING

I was a visiting professor at Eszterházy Károly, and, as such, had duties that included a relatively small amount of formal teaching, mostly in the form of a weekly E-Teaching for E-Learning seminar. I also did a few formal teaching sessions for college age students on special technology related topics. Since I’ve been primarily an online teacher for the past few years, the opportunity (and challenge) of ‘getting in front of a class’ was welcome. I used all my instructional design skills in trying to ascertain what the needs of the audience were, in designing for individual differences, particularly in level of technology and (English) language comprehension skills. Anyone who had been in a class with me would, I think, have recognized my style—friendly, dynamic speech, well-planned and paced, with ample technology-based visual reinforcement, hands-on activities, and expectations for learner participation. Sounds good, huh?

Well, my faculty colleagues were very complimentary, even gave me a special kind of Hungarian ‘round of applause’ after the first seminar by knocking their knuckles on the tables. But I wasn’t too sure of the success, and struggled with that perception throughout my time there. But I did take notes, and keep track of observations about teaching and learning, and checked my observations with my colleagues.

Hungarian ‘students’ (even when they are teachers) are generally polite and deferential to the professor. With my status as a guest, ‘my students’ were especially polite. Language was, of course, one big problem. I tried to learn enough Hungarian for social exchanges, and for the seminar, tried to open each session with some attempts, even if just to break the ice as my colleagues alternated between discrete laugher, helpful correction, or bewilderment as to what I was trying to say. Everyone in the group spoke some English, and likely understood a bit more than they spoke. Two were very fluent, and they were most likely to speak up to explicate or to humor me by answering questions or posing examples.

Speaking of Q&A, it was exceptionally hard to maintain ‘wait time’ when asking questions—that’s never easy, but in the situation of not knowing whether you are understood, and not knowing if the audience has the confidence in their English speech to address the issue, it’s really hard.

One ‘constant’ in classrooms around the world is surely PowerPoint. My colleagues used that tool extensively in their lessons, and so did I. However, I found out eventually that my practice of limiting the words on slides, letting my oral lecture and visual symbolism carry the majority of the meaning, seemed odd to them. I found out that some of my highly educated audience thought I was using pictures instead of words because of the English language issue and could, I’m sure, have been a bit offended. When that perception came out, it provided a really good point of discussion, one of the discussions that involved nearly everyone in the seminar.

Each week I distributed my PowerPoint presentations with extensive notes pages that basically ‘said’ what I was going to say during the live presentation. This seemed to be appreciated by a couple of people especially, who said that reading the notes (sometimes with a dictionary) ahead of time made it easier to understand me in person. I was given high marks for how well I spoke English—good thing since I’ve been speaking it all my life! They found it interesting when I told them that I had grown up very near the ‘broadcast English’ center of the US, and that I’d studied broadcasting. I guess it helps to speak ‘CNN’.

One very familiar problem in the classroom WAS the classroom. Like in colleges in the US, this technology-oriented department (Institute for Media Informatics) may have gone overboard in ‘computerizing’ their classrooms. Each classroom I taught in had computers for each student, complete with CPUs that blocked knee space and monitors that blocked sight lines between teacher and students and among students. Group work, one of the tenets of my teaching, is almost impossible in such spaces. Again, that made for a good point of discussion in the seminar.

The content of the seminar, as well as other presentations that I did, was ‘what they wanted’ as explained by my assigned department mentor and friend. They wanted me to share my fairly extensive experience as an online teacher to gain insights as to how they could shape their online activities, courses, and programs to be more interactive—a very important, but foreign, instructional strategy for them.

I could (and did) show them what I do in my online classes; in fact, I was teaching a class in the US during this time and sometimes illustrated my seminar talks with real-time examples. But could I make what I do a relevant model for the instructional situation they found themselves in? That ended up being the unanswered question, but the basis of a constant learning experience for me.

Understanding another instructional context is difficult, and the challenges and constraints were numerous. I gradually found out through observation and questioning, trial and error, that they have barriers such as class size (too large), class length (variable), instructor training (little opportunity), design time (limited—in fact, the concept of instructional design was pretty foreign to them), and perhaps, a somewhat limited course management system (Moodle). No lack of familiarity with these problems in the US context. But there were also uniquely cultural barriers—for example, expectations that the majority of course grades come from end of course tests, and lack of perceived value of group activities by either professors or students. Grades result from individuals taking responsibility for memorizing the content of the course and may, or may not, be the result of actually attending class. So, sometimes the question to me was, “How do you make the students participate?” Yikes! Don’t let my students hear about this!

So, was my teaching a success? I think I set a good example, and gave opportunities for the faculty to participate in some online simulated activities that were new to them. But the majority of the value of my ‘teaching’, I think, came in the post-seminar sessions we dubbed ‘brainstorming’. Yes, they were often held at restaurants or cafes, always accompanied by wine, and sometimes, food. The topics ranged widely from online teaching and learning to explanations of all that is Hungarian, and all that is American. I think my greatest accomplishment as a visiting professor was in providing the stimulus for these busy, busy professionals to occasionally take time out, sit down with me and each other, and talk about the art and science of teaching and learning. Car trips, lunches, hallway and office conversations extended the brainstorming throughout the weeks. Anytime I could be helpful in specific ways such as peer observation, English language editing, or presenting at a conference (the only English language presentation!) with my peers, I did it. Again, nothing different than in the US—we learn from each other if we take the time to be together in social environments. That reminds me of my involvement in an important legacy to Valdosta State University…HUB.

Two comments stick with me when I think of my teaching in Hungary. One colleague complimented me by saying that he thought I had elevated the technical skill of online teaching to a work of art. An audience member at a professional conference started his questions about my presentation by saying, “It’s obvious that you are a very good teacher.” Both may be exaggerated praise, but let me tell you, when you teaching in a foreign country you take your confidence-building where you can get it!

Reflection: So How Was Hungary?

2009-06-26T16:26:00.001+02:00

That’s what friends, colleagues, and family members have asked since we returned (almost a month ago now!). “It was great, a wonderful experience…having a hard time getting settled back in here. The people were great, the food was great, the wine was great…” All true, but insufficient to describe the four-month experience of living and working in Eger.

So, as a possible end to this blog ☹, I have decided to reflect upon the experience using the teaching, learning, culture, and fun framework I used when constructing it. I have a feeling that I’ll be adding or editing this entry for a while, at least I hope so. I’m hopeful that getting my thoughts in print will help me to remember the many lessons learned.

Culture: Farewell to Eger

2009-06-22T23:05:00.004+02:00

Culture: Objects as Reminders

2009-06-22T22:32:00.006+02:00

Of all the farewell events, the hardest involved leaving my departmental "family." A wonderful dinner at a colleague's house overlooking the Bükk Mountains was the formal goodbye event-- visits to the office, lunches, and exchanges of appreciation and gifts went on all the last week.

Most of what I gained in Eger can't be held--but I did come back to Valdosta with some wonderful tangible reminders of the people and places in Hungary. The engraved Parádsasvár crystal piece was not that easy to pack, and I worried about it breaking all the way home--but it arrived safely and is in a place on honor in our living room. The Hollókö ceramic pitcher, Transylvanian palinka cups (thanks, Lehel), and the Zsolnay porcelain tea set (thanks, Zoltan) survived as well. The bronze rose (thanks, Gabi), and Hungarian music (thanks, Laszlo and Bert) are a part of our lives now. Sorry to say, the Tokaji wine (thanks, Csaba) is not still with us, but it sure tasted good with the goose liver pate. And, of course, our Eszterházy Károly gifts will be worn and used as fond reminders.

Fun: Swimming Pools and Pools and Pools

2009-06-22T22:15:00.006+02:00

When our friends Dennis and Luana came to Eger, they had a plan--they would concentrate on spa and wine culture while revisiting the campus and town they'd enjoyed as the first VSU - EKF faculty exchange in 1995. We certainly weren't going to get in the way of that excellent plan.

They stayed a few days at the Hotel Flora, adjacent to the Eger Thermal Baths. I'd been there a few times during the cold months, enjoying the relaxing and therapeutic qualities of the hot steamy mineral baths. But I hadn't been to the baths complex since 'summer' had begun, although I observed the large numbers of children and adults swimming in the multiple pools as I walked by each day. Little did I realize what a huge and interesting complex it was!

The Strand is a large grassy park with all kinds of pools and fountains, ranging from hot thermal baths to an Olympic size pool with lanes to pools with slides, mushroom showers, and river currents. There's something for everyone. For one small admission fee, you go in and can soak in a mineral pool, eat at a cafe or restaurant, swim for exercise, meet friends, go to the wellness center, look at flowers and lily ponds, and spend the day with the family, making everybody happy. Here's a slide show that gives you a taste of this great park, right in the middle of Eger.

Eger Thermal Baths in Summer

Teaching: AV Past and Present

2009-06-22T22:06:00.004+02:00

It was always fun to see the "AV Memorial" on the way up to the department offices--glass cases full of cameras, projectors, sound equipment, and who knows what from the dawn of AV (audiovisual). At this point there were only a few more steps to go to the office, a chance to take a breather. The last 'wide spot' in the tower, however, so it was wise to tune your ears both up and down to hear whether hundreds of school children on field trips were approaching!

Culture: Contrasting Wine Cellars

2009-06-22T18:56:00.009+02:00

When I think of a wine cellar in the U.S., I think of a space under or in the house/business of a wine connoisseur, that is temperature controlled, where bottles of wine are stored. Now that I've been to Hungary, I have several other kinds of cellars to add to my experience.

As described in an earlier blog, the Rector and Vice Rector of Eszterházy Károly have cellars in the area of Eger known as the Valley of Beautiful Women. This area is commercial, with lots of foot (car, bus, and little train) traffic as people go there for wine tastings, tours, or just to buy their weekly supplies of good, inexpensive (or fine!) wine. Their cellars (actually three) look like doorways into the side of the hill. Since Hauser and Kis-Tóth make and sell Magister wines, their cellars serve the functions of 1) wine shop, 2) entertainment area, and 3) working wine-making and storage areas.

The limestone caves are carved out of the hillsides (and under the Basilica) all around the Eger area, and provide perfect conditions for both wine-making and storage. But they are also great places for entertaining (provided you wear a sweater!). Hungarians use these cellars for dinners, parties, weddings, and other special occasions--like the great party we got to attend!

Dr. Lehel Vadon, head of the Department of American Studies, hosted a party at his cellar, in another part of the "wine valley". The cellars are carved into the earth, but the front almost looks like a veranda, with stone facing on the hillside.

Lehel's cellar is meant for entertaining, rather than wine-making, and it is a beautiful place. It's a u-shaped cave that has a kitchen, a rough storage area, a lovely tasting room with the table carved from the limestone floor, and a long formal dining area with a vaulted ceiling, electric candelabrum, and recessed and lighted niches to display Dr. Vadon's wonderful ceramics collection.

If you'd like to read a blog posting about another person's visit to Eger's wine cellars, click here. Her opening description of the bus trip to Eger is a little over the top (we didn't find the buses THAT bad at all!), but her story of the hospitality at her wine cellar destination definitely seemed accurate to me.

Culture: Habilitation Achievements

2009-06-22T18:34:00.004+02:00

An academic accomplishment at a higher level than the research doctorate, or Ph.D., is not generally a part of the U.S. system. One such designation pursued by a few highly accomplished scholars in Hungary (and some other European countries) is called habilitation.

Dr. habil. Komenczi Bertalan has held the designation for some years, and explained the process to us. Two colleagues in the Institute for Media Informatics, Vice Rector Dr. Lajos Kis Tóth (toasting, left) and Dr. Sandor Forgó (far right, above) each prepared for and successfully achieved this status during the Spring term. Congratulations to both!

Jack and I had the privilege of attending the habilitation lecture by Dr. Kis-Tóth in Budapest. At least thirty people from the Institute either got up early and went by caravan from Eger, or met us there at the University of Budapest Pedagogical Institute. You could really see what an important occasion it was, and it was impressive how many colleagues came out for the event. We listened to an introduction outlining Dr. Kis-Tóth's accomplishments, then heard his lecture (in Hungarian), and a summary (in English). The panel of experts asked all of the audience to step out, and then in a few minutes, back in, for the announcement of the new habil. status of the Vice Rector. Champagne, wine, and pogacsas came next, of course!

Sandor Forgó's habilitation lecture was scheduled for the day before we left Hungary, also in Budapest. We weren't able to attend, but found out that he, too, did well and was successful. It was very interesting to be a part of these important academic events.

Learning: Through the Eyes of Visitors

2009-06-20T21:07:00.005+02:00

It's hard to decide how to classify this blog--through our various visitors while we were in Hungary, I learned, I taught, I experienced and conveyed culture, and I definitely had fun. Let me just use this blog to thank Susan, Catherine, Dennis, Luana, Robert and Elsie for coming to Hungary. It makes such a big difference to have others here in the U.S. (and in Scotland) who can share with us..."remember when we were in Eger...?"

Learning: Lifelong Learning through Libraries

2009-06-20T20:37:00.006+02:00

While it was a great opportunity for me to get to present at the NETWORKSHOP 2009 conference in Szeged in April, I must admit I was relieved when told there wasn't enough time for me to do a presentation (on blogging!) at the ENTITLE: Lifelong Learning Conference in early May in Eger. I wouldn't have been the only English-language presenter at this conference, and they did have the equipment for simultaneous translation. But what do I know of lifelong learning services in European libraries? Actually, as it turns out, quite a lot. At least the topics discussed seemed familiar.

I have a doctoral student at Valdosta State University who is working on quality of life and lifelong learning, and found that some of the same research she had cited was also relevant in the European context. Libraries seemed to be poised to be centers for lifelong learning activities, both in place and virtual.

The format of the conference was familiar-- keynote session, concurrent sessions, and displays and vendors. As often the case at Eszterházy Károly, the venue for the meeting was beautiful--the original chapel with an impressive ceiling covered with murals in the Lyceum.

The conference audience seemed familiar--mostly female, professionally dressed, mostly from Hungary, but from other countries as well. The speakers were, unfortunately, also predictable--mostly male administrators. Some things about library conferences are definitely cross-cultural.

And, as usual in Eger, the refreshments and hospitality were GREAT! Interesting and informative conference. I'll have to tell my doctoral student all about it!

Culture: Szépasszonyvölgy Picnic

2009-06-19T17:12:00.017+02:00

Earlier in this blog I went on a lot about the arrival of Spring--the arrival of May was momentous, too, because it was finally (supposed to be) warm enough for a picnic at the Rector and Vice Rector's wine cellar. We were invited to come to the Valley of Beautiful Women (or reasonably pretty women, as one of my colleagues translates it) around 2PM for the start of cooking process that was almost as good to observe as the result was to eat.

Outdoor cooking culture, and wine making and tasting cultures were also on full view during this wonderful day sponsored by our host and chef, Rector Hauser. English speaking predominated with visitors Dennis Bogyo and Luana Goodwin from Georgia, Paul Swann and Lisa Manheim from Pennsylvania, and folks from International Programs, the administrative offices, and the Institute for Media Informatics.

But oral explanations in any language would not have substituted for watching the many steps of cooking (including a stirring technique that required very strong arms!). The fire was welcome, too, because the warm picnic weather didn't exactly materialize. We warmed up by palinka and wine, feasted on Hungarian bacon and pork chops (no American equivalent!) and bread, and got out of the wind in the (also cool) adjacent cellars. The Hauser guided tour of the wine cellars, through showroom, entertainment area, and barrel and bottle storage showed us just why Magister wine tastes so good. Dr. Hauser also showed us the spiritual side of wine-making by inviting us to be generous to all loved ones who were no longer alive--any extra sips should be tossed on the cellar walls to go back to the earth.

Share this day in May with us by watching the embedded slideshow at the end of this blog entry, or, for a larger view with captions, click here. And, for a culinary lesson in gulyás, watch Dr. Hauser in the "stirring video" below!

Guylás and Wine Picnic

Fun: Too Busy to Blog

2009-05-20T14:42:00.002+02:00

The past two weeks have been very busy here, with visitors, farewell events, report-writing, visitors, farewell events, article editing, and more farewell events. This entry will be a placeholder, illustrated with only a funny photo I took in Vienna. This photo should remind me to smile for the wonderful time I've had here, and to labor to keep a 'stiff upper lip' when saying Viszonlátásra to the city and people I've grown to care so much about.

Fun: Ascent to my Office

2009-05-09T11:50:00.007+02:00

It's been fun to lead visitors to "my" temporary office (thank you, Lajos), up in the tower of the Lyceum. I'm sure the 192 steps have contributed to my fitness this semester, making it possible to eat all the good food and drink all the good wine.

Arrival at the gate signaled the last part of the journey up into the tower, and if the gate was locked (from either side, each night) a call to security was necessary.

The floor plan to the right shows the tower--my office is on the bottom area shown, so the number of steps to the top is really high!

So, here is the tour for those of you who were not able to make it to see me in Hungary this Spring! Youtube Virtual Tour!

Fun: Aggteleki Nemzeti Park

2009-05-09T09:43:00.005+02:00

Planning a wedding? A party? A concert? Any special occasion that requires a large and naturally beautiful setting, with seating for hundreds, marvelous acoustics, and special mood lighting will find a home in the Baradla Cave. Stalagmites and stalactites in rich colors of red, orange, pink, and brown are reflected in pools of still water. The quiet is only interrupted by occasional drops falling from the dripstones, and a distant sound of running water far below. Be sure to dress appropriately for the cave is cool all year round, and waterproof partywear would be recommended. Plan your special day in a special place today!

Our visit to Aggtelek National Park, including an hour guided walk through Baradla Cave was great. They really do have weddings and concerts there, and our tour included a sample of the acoustics of the part of the cave they call the Concert Hall, when "Chariots of Fire" rolled in (could have been worse--they could have played the theme from "Rocky"). The park is very large, and includes the largest dripstone cave system in Europe. We only saw a small part of the cave, and a small part of the aboveground park, which extends into Slovakia. There's much more to see, so be sure to invite us to your special occasion!

Learning: Now you see it, but maybe you don't

2009-05-08T09:37:00.007+02:00

Our experiences in Hungary have included equal amounts of serendipity and regret. We've bumped into auto rallies, and missed folk dances. We've thought we deciphered festival schedules and venues, and been wrong, and we've found ourselves in the middle of activities we didn't even know were scheduled. We've done the best we could by gathering as many resources as possible, asking for local help, and just being open to whatever happens. Sometimes I've taken photos of posters for later translation through the dictionary, web translation, or, best of course, translation by friends.

At the beginning of our "Auto Outing" we stopped in Gyöngyöspata on the recommendation of a friend. He hoped, but didn't consider it likely, that the Gothic church would be open so we could see the inside. Another church, says the jaded European traveler (not me). Well, we were definitely lucky that the church was open for cleaning. We walked to see the unique altar shaped like a tree with branches holding a representation of the family tree of Jesus. The photo doesn't do it justice. More information about the church can be found by clicking the link above.

A later part of our "Auto Outing" included Szécsény, a town not far from Hollókö. We wandered that way because we'd heard there was a 600 and somethingth town anniversary celebration. It was a Saturday, and we found a parking space not far from the Center (we thought). There was something in the air....utter silence. Not exactly the festival atmosphere we thought we might find. So we looked around...

If only we'd read the guidebook ahead of time...

Szécsény is worth visiting for the beautifully preserved and renovated Forgách Palace (saw that but didn't go in) in the area of the former castle (didn't know that) that forms the historical town centre (thought so). The building, constructed in rural Baroque style (learned something), houses a museum (saw the sign) and its park is a nature reserve area (thought there was green space back there). You do not necessarily have to go to Pisa to see a leaning tower (at a distance, didn't notice the angle). The Fire Tower, the symbol of the town (whoops), is spectacularly leaning due to a sliding clay-bed. And do not forget (we forgot) the remnants of the former castle or the Franciscan church (I think we saw) while in town.

For all that we missed in Szécsény that day, we did find a festival eventually in the park behind the museum. Drawn by the sound of the loudspeaker, and having no idea what was being announced, we made our way down the hill to find that we'd missed (of course) the archery competitions by people dressed in mail and peaked hats, but could watch the horse jumping contests.

We also saw the sure winner of a competition not held that day: Hungary's best set of dog ears! And the matching sweater is very nice, too!

Culture: Hollókö

2009-05-08T08:37:00.009+02:00

Hollókö (Raven Rock) is a preserved Paloc village, and one of the UNESCO world heritage sites.

On the way there we saw a pottery studio, and started the process of collecting treasures from Hungary to take home. I bought a palinka bottle and cups, decorated with the fruits that palinka is usually made from (plum, apricot, cherry, and pear). The big disappointment will be that we won't be able to buy the palinka to fill the bottle once we're back in Georgia! I think there's a big import opportunity for an entrepreneur to introduce this wonderful brandy to our part of the world.

The first surprise in Hollókö was the size and the prominence of the vár (castle). The reconstruction is very well done, and the views are wonderful. Down below is the preserved village, preserved at least since the early 20th Century. There have been many fires and other disasters that have destroyed the town, but it has been rebuilt in an authentic manner. People live in the village, so it doesn't have the 'Disney' or museum aspect at all.

There are some people dressed in traditional Palocs clothing, and, of course, are asked to pose for many pictures. There was a wine festival going on on the day we were there, and many, but not too many, visitors.

The real highlight of the visit for me was found in a small shop that had BEAUTIFUL pottery. The quality was high, and the designs and colors excellent. It was hard to decide which pieces should be 'relocated' to Georgia, but I found several. Thank you, Hollókö (and I even learned to say the name somewhat properly!)

For more photos of Hollókö, see the Picasa slide show linked from the Fun: Auto Outing blog posted earlier.

Learning: Colleague Honored

2009-05-07T13:59:00.006+02:00

We were disappointed that we could not witness the acceptance of our colleague's book into the highest academic and scholarly recognition in Hungary at the Petöfi Literary Museum in Budapest this week.

Here's the announcement of the ceremony on the website in Hungarian and here it is as translated by Google. Scroll down to the May 8, 2009 program that includes the book, Elektronikus tanulási környezetek (Electronic Learning Environments) written by Dr. Bertalan Komenczi.

While not at the ceremony in person, we are with him in our thoughts, congratulations, and appreciation for the many in-depth and interesting conversations we've had over the past few months. I hope we can continue to work together in our electronic learning environment that spans the distance from Georgia to Hungary.

Fun: Auto Outing

2009-05-04T23:16:00.003+02:00

We had a great weekend driving around northeastern Hungary with friends. Unfortunately, I can't write about it right now--I've got to review final projects and get grades in. However, here are some pictures to bridge the gap...

Auto Outing

Culture: Joke

2009-05-02T20:36:00.005+02:00

A man walks up to a woman in a restaurant in Eger, Hungary. The woman is dressed in a rather formal looking black jacket since it's a cool and windy evening. She and her husband have just finished a wonderful meal and are preparing to leave the restaurant.

The man, in advance of his wife and two children, speaks pleasantly to the woman, obviously asking a question. The woman, not understanding (and obviously not LISTENING), says in Hungarian, "Nem ertem" (I don't understand). The man shifts from GERMAN to English, asking in English, "Do you speak English?" The American woman, happy to be able to help, says "Yes, I speak English." The man asks, "Do you have a table for four available?"

The American woman (me) breaks up, and tells the German family that the restaurant is wonderful and that the HUNGARIAN waiter (who probably speaks English and German as well) will be with them shortly. So much for Amerikai communication! Bert tells me I need to have some German so I can at least say 'I don't understand' in an appropriate language!

And, yes, this fish is from that restaurant!

Fun: Best Bükk Yet!

2009-04-30T20:51:00.012+02:00

Bukk Day Trip: Spring Arrived

Thanks to our friend László, a knowledgeable and enthusiastic hiker of the Bükk, we've had the opportunity to walk through the woods again, this time as a part of a party of four adults and four children. The previous outing was in late March, when we were still waiting for Spring, and finding small signs in early flowers under brown leaves.

Now, in late April, the woods are a completely different sight. We went by bus to a fairly high point, then began a 20 kilometer hike up to the top of the rocky ridges, and through newly green forests. The views were wonderful; the weather perfect.

Sometimes the trail was a bit steep, but if the four boys could make it (one only 7), we surely could. We ended our walk in Bélapatfalva, where the train from Szilvásvárad just happened to be arriving shortly. We took the train back to Eger--a really wonderful Sunday outing. Enjoy the contrast in the seasons here, and take in the Bukk Day Trip: Spring Arrived Picasa slide show for a look at one part of one of Hungary's most beautiful national parks.

Culture: Szerenád Graduating Students

2009-04-30T20:00:00.009+02:00

There is evidence everywhere in Eger of the approaching graduation of secondary students from the schools here. Last night we were sitting on the small balcony overlooking the guesthouse garden and heard a chorus of voices singing, accompanied by guitar. We couldn't see the group, but at one time they seemed to be in a location to the right, then later to a location on the left. We walked into the Centrum for dinner, and saw groups of teenagers, but still had no explanation.

On our way home, we witnessed a performance that brought to mind some earlier reading I had done (Istvan Bart's Hungary & the Hungarians: A Concise Dictionary of Facts and Beliefs, Customs, Usage & Myths) about customs in relation to secondary school graduation. It was a beautiful performance, a szerenád, during which students in the last weeks of their studies go to the homes of their teachers (both men and women), and sing to them. The teacher stands in the window with lighted candles, and then may invite the students in for cakes. I asked my 'sources' at the office about the practice, and they confirmed that we were seeing an old but continuing custom. The songs they sing are traditional, for that purpose, and a large number of students participate, giving the szerenád even for teachers with whom they didn't necessarily have the best relationships.

I looked on the Internet for a video example of this performance and didn't find one. Perhaps I'll go out again and record the practice 'for the record'. I hope this beautiful custom continues.

Another interesting manifestation of the upcoming graduation is the appearance, in nearly every store window, of graduation pictures. However, these aren't the standard formal group shots, even if they include formal individual pictures. Each class, in each secondary school, designs (and constructs? I'm not sure), a themed poster. They include photos of the students and their teachers.

In my cultural reading (Bart's book) this is described as an érettségi tabló. In this age of Photoshop and clip art, the themes have gone wild, with everything from mock "wanted posters" to spider webs to alien visitors. I'll include a few photos of these posters.

Passersby definitely stop and look at the posters, finding people they know and discussing what they see with each other. According to my office 'sources', once the framed posters leave the windows they go to the hallways of the schools, at least until the walls are filled. At that time the older ones find new homes in the basement or in the offices and homes of the earlier students.

Today we saw lots of young people and their parents and siblings dressed up (many of the girls with middy blouses), with many garlands and flowers, including. I'm not sure whether this was the graduation itself or another custom outlined in Bart's book, the ballagás. Our observations certainly fit the description--I'll check my 'sources' next week!

According to Bart's wordy description this 'graduation parade' is held on the last day of the last week of classes. "Graduating seniors (boys in dark suits, girls in sailor-blouses) slowly march around the school from room to room, each decorated with flowers; they sing as they march in line, each student's right hand resting on the shoulder of the student in front, then they bid farewell to their school at a sentimental ceremony, with the juniors bidding farewell to them in turn, which touches the hears of even the most indifferent teenager; the ballagás is attended by parents and other relatives, as well as former students and new girlfriends and boyfriends, all of whom bring flowers, especially lilacs, which open at this time of year. The tradition of ballagás has become so popular, that ceremonies are now held even in kindergartens (Bart, 2002, p. 21)."

Culture: Three Libraries in Gyöngyös

2009-04-27T17:54:00.004+02:00

We took a bus trip to Gyöngyös (west of Eger, about an hour) and my colleague Bert showed us around his home town, concentrating on a wonderful trio of libraries. First, we went to the gymnasium (secondary school) where Bert was once a student, then a teacher, and, finally, headmaster for five years. During that time he accomplished a dream of creating a beautiful and functional library.

We then visited the ecclesiastical library of the Franciscans. Although there are few monks left in the order at this location, the library that has been preserved is remarkable. After World War II, monks walled in the most precious volumes to preserve them, including a Gutenberg Bible found only in the late 1990s. There is a museum, and the large collection of books, in many languages and dating from as early as the 1300s, are displayed in the original bookcases. We had a wonderful tour from a man who is a volunteer, and displays a deep and rich knowledge of the collection.

Following lunch, we continued the library theme, visiting the town library, the Vachott Sándor Városi Könyvtár. This beautiful building in the center of the city holds not only a good collection and modern computing facilities, but also the artwork of Hermann Lipót, a famous Hungarian artist. The assistant director took us on a wonderful tour, and, as we've come to expect, offered us gracious hospitality.

A late afternoon refreshment (this region is well known for white wines) in the sunshine, then back on the bus to Eger. The sunlight on the Mátra (hills), rape fields (brilliant yellow) and vineyards (new green shoots) was a perfect finish to the day.

Take a trip to Gyöngyös with this musical slide show.

Teaching: Future E-Teachers on Top

2009-04-27T14:01:00.012+02:00

An earlier blog entry described my visit to Lenke's class, a group of soon to be teachers. With the end of the school year even closer, these students will have an opportunity to influence Hungarian education in a very important way in their new roles.

A few weeks ago, they invited me to join them for a field trip to the tower of the Liceum (our building) where there is an observatory, the 'magic room', and the astronomical museum. The camera obscura is housed in a small dark room at the very top of the tower (see picture of the Liceum tower at right taken from Eger Castle).

It is an interesting optical device (mirrors, glass rods, and lenses) from the 1700s that projects images of the cityscape outside the building onto a flat table top within the tower. This is 360 degrees of reality, not virtual reality, and it is amazing to see cars move, people walk, pigeons fly, and clouds drift across the table as the operator moves the glass rods.

Liceum TV planned to interview the students, Lenke, and me while we were on our field trip. It was surprising that many of the students, although they had been at Eszterházy Károly for some years, had not seen the wonders at the top of the tower. We went to the astronomical museum, had a brief lecture and saw the meridian line on the floor and astronomical instruments from many places and times. We then went to the camera obscura, and watched as the blank table came alive with the images of the Eger Vár, Basilica, Minorite Templom, and Dobo Tér. Even Building B looked interesting through the camera obscura! I had seen the device three other times, and I was still very interested.

We waited on the Terrace for the television camera crew to be ready for us. It took quite awhile, and students took some photos, both straightforward and silly. The weather was beautiful, and the clear view of the city made the wait seem not so long. Finally, the interviewer was ready, asked how visual images might be used in our teaching.

I spoke of the blog, of course, and now here's the resulting post. I didn't ever see the program on Liceum TV--I'll have to ask Lenke and the students when I see them for the final time in class tomorrow. I'm going to show them this blog, and ask them to add to it with some comments in Hungarian.

Culture: Hearing and Seeing Hungarian

2009-04-27T11:35:00.004+02:00

I invite my English-speaking friends (angol) to experience a little Hungarian (magyar) in text and speech. Go to the translation site called webforditas.hu, and, for instance, type or cut and paste the translated Hungarian name of this blog (Kampusz mellett: tanítói Magyarországról). Don't worry about typing the diacritical marks--they are not easy on an English keyboard. With the click of the mouse, 'Gabor' will speak to you and you can hear how this text sounds. But then try putting the Magyar title in and have the translator 're-translate'. The meaning changes...

You can even have the entire blog translated into Hungarian by entering the URL. I do not, however, take responsibility for the translation, nor any weirdnesses that may be introduced as such. Automatic translations are definitely not perfect, but I think this site is better than, for instance, a standard 'translate this page' link in a search engine. From this experience I think you will agree--human translators are not in danger of disappearing, at least I hope not!

Teaching: How to do a Professional Blog, Part 1

2009-04-27T11:06:00.006+02:00

I intend to write an article in which I share what I've learned about constructing a professional blog during this experience. I may try to develop this paper through a series of blog entries, since that's the mode of writing in which I seem now to be most comfortable. Through this article, I want to encourage faculty and students who are taking part in development activities, whether international or not, to use a blog as a way to communicate to multiple audiences, to reflect upon the experiences as they are living the experiences, and to create lasting multimedia documentation.

I've been keeping a (paper!) list of ideas and tips that will go into this article. One of the tips, that takes some explanation, is that a blog author should find and cultivate an 'emily'. An 'emily' is an enthusiastic and interested observer of the blog who knows you and understands your background and current work. An 'emily' looks at the blog frequently, maybe even becoming an official and public follower. As a part of her viewing, she comments and responds when 'trouble-shooting' is necessary, such as when it didn't seem that the comments function was working earlier in the month. An 'emily' also contributes to the content of the blog, by developing a heightened awareness of topics that would be of interest, and passing the relevant resources along to the blog author.

Here's a recent example of a New York Times link about Budapest and the current financial crisis that my 'emily' sent along to me. Thanks, Emily, for being my 'emily'!

Learning: Peer Review 2

2009-04-23T10:42:00.008+02:00

This blog entry was done a day after observing in a totally different kind of class than the Peer Review 1 entry. The following excerpt from the instructor email sets the stage for this upper division class utilizing teamwork and presentations as instructional strategies. I have made a few comments from my observations following the course description.

From the Teacher:

Marketing - 22. April, at 8:00-9:30 (Room 406)

The name of subject: Methods of Marketing Communication and Public Relations
Term of subject: One semester (15 week) Number of lessons: 2 lesson/week
Type of subject: practice
Main goals: 1) the students use correct expressions of marketing language, and, 2) they understand advantages and disadvantages of various strategies in a marketing project

Strong point: interesting instructional method. Weak point: low motivation to learn about marketing; a grade is more important

My method of education: I lecture on one of marketing method and then they do a small project in groups. This method is different than in most classes in which students don't work on lessons in groups. Every group presents what they did after working together for 20-50 minutes. They can finish the course in two different ways. They may write a written test without help alone or they may work together in groups. They can choose. If they work in a group then they get from the teacher an average percent, for example 75%. As a group, they can decide how to distribute the grade. They can designate so many percent for every member of the group; the average of the group has to be what the teacher designated. During the group work, they can use all of the previous PowerPoint lectures (available on the instructor's website), and consult with the professor, and refer to any other resources they have in the classroom. The marks: 0-59%->(1),60-69%->(2), 70-79%->(3),80-89%->(4), 90-100%->(5) 1 is too low; the semester has to repeated, the other marks allow the student to advance.

My observations:

I was a bit late; I had mixed up the rooms. The door locks so I had the experience of the only one other person late to the class in having to face the professor as he let me in (obviously, he was nice, but at least I know how to say I'm sorry for being late in Hungarian!).

One important cultural point for this blog posting is about the use of the term 'professor'. In Hungary that designation is reserved for those academics who have achieved a very high level of scholarship, and have been voted on by the entire academic community to be worthy of that designation. I use the more general term professor, as is common in the US, to indicate a teacher at the college level, whether an assistant, associate, or full professor (status granted by the employing institution or system). But I also don't mind elevating, or promoting my colleague to the professor level, in this posting. It may be unofficial, but it is sincere.

The classroom is a great contrast to the one I saw yesterday. This room also has many computers lined up on long tables in rows. But the room itself was obviously once used as a TV studio, and the remaining acoustic ceiling, hanging lights, and heavy dark curtains completely covering the windows were still in place. The instructor had given an opening description of what the students were to do today. It's near the end of the semester and the small projects done each week on various aspects of marketing communications were coming together. The instructor assigned the students into three groups, with each group having 3-4 people. He gave them a grid that included the various aspects of necessary communication for a company (e.g., sales, public relations, marketing). The groups then worked on an overall plan for one of two companies--a large fictional furniture company, or a small (existing) chocolate confectionary here in Eger. That was the first I'd heard of Stühmer Chocolates--I'll have to go look them up! (I did and greatly enjoyed my first Stühmer dark chocolate truffle!)

As the students worked together, they consulted earlier PowerPoint lectures available on the Web. Occasionally, students would ask the instructor for assistance or advice. He was very fluent in his lecture and replies, and the students were attentive. The room was not very conducive to group communications, since the students were sitting in rows behind computers, and there was no room to gather elsewhere. This is a common problem with 'networked' classrooms--only the computer function had been taken into consideration in the design process, forgetting the need for people to interact face to face. We have many classrooms like this at Valdosta State University, and I've seen many here in Hungary as well. This is a particularly interesting dilemma, since laptops are now so ubiquitous. Soon these high density computer labs will be quite obsolete, I believe.

During the group work, the professor discussed his methods with me. Because the topic of this course is business-related, he tries to build skills that have been designated as lacking in the Hungarian workforce--namely, computer skills, communications, and teamwork skills. Another workforce skill that is often mentioned is the ability to communicate in a language other than Hungarian, but that is beyond the scope of this class (however, he did introduce me in both English and Hungarian).

It was interesting to speak to him about the differences in the ways Hungarian students communicate in contrast to US students. While somewhat of a generalization, I had to agree that US education stresses much more student-student communication and gives opportunities for teamwork. Hungarian education is still very teacher-centered, and students often only speak in class in reply to direct questions from the teacher. He believes that this early training (or lack of opportunity for different strategies) contributes to the difficulties of effective communications in Hungarian workplaces and society. The problem can be credited to the long period of top-down rule during the socialist era, and the slow progress toward changes since then.

At the end of the class period, each group was required to stand up and deliver a summary of the strategies they had devised. The instructor called on individuals to contribute, so everyone had to know all parts of the strategy. I stayed for two groups, and could see some unease in the students. The professor said they were much more comfortable now than at the beginning of the course, so obviously his strategy is having benefits toward improving communication skills.

It's interesting that the recognition of the importance of group work and team-based projects is clear, but the obstacles to achievement of these strategies is based in the common problem of instructors--lack of time to design, prepare, and plan. In Hungary, this problem is even more acute. Professors, especially those junior faculty who do not hold the Ph.D. teach many courses, and many sections of courses in the week. They also hold tutorials with correspondence students, and weekend students, and some also teach at the secondary level. Many are enrolled in doctoral programs in other parts of the country, and must travel on a regular basis over the course of several years to complete the degrees. Post-secondary education is changing in Hungary, but under many stresses including financial ones, especially at this time.

Learning: Peer Review 1

2009-04-21T10:35:00.017+02:00

This blog entry is an interesting one. I'm blogging while sitting in a classroom during a lesson and practice test in Bóta László's Word class. The room is large with many computer workstations, and windows all around with a beautiful view of Eger--almost as panoramic as the view from the Terrace upstairs. It would be a bit difficult to pay attention to the computer screens and the presentation screen with the distraction of the view, at least for me. The quotation seen to the right is posted prominently at the front of the room.

This is not my first observation in my colleagues' classes, but is the first when I'm specifically invited to observe, compare and contrast the teaching methods used in two classes taught by the same faculty member. In the US, some institutions incorporate peer review, or guided observations of teaching, into faculty evaluations, whether formative (for improvement purposes), or summative (to provide input for decisions of promotion, retention, or pay). The peer review I am doing here is more to add to my understanding of the resources and challenges of higher education teaching at Eszterházy Károly.

I'm typing (inefficiently) on a Hungarian keyboard, and making many mistakes with the Y and Z and quotation marks in different locations. I don't even know how to make an accented lower case vowel, so I can't even spell Laszlo's (the instructor) name correctly! (I corrected above and below when I got back to my own office keyboard and cheat sheet).

László is currently walking around looking at the work of the students, and correcting and grading (scale 1-5) on the spot. He says that is the best way for the students to know what they have done wrong and right, and saves on paper, and avoids viruses that might be introduced through saving the files. I'm quite sure I wouldn't do very well on this practice--my inept skills in making the correct accent marks, different capitalization rules, and different formatting (i.e., justified text, centered headings) would likely render a 1 rating, meaning I'd have to repeat the test!

László has shown me how the students access the practice exercises and tests from his webpages. He gave me a paper copz (hereás what happens when Yahner doesnát look at the kezboard') of the exercise, this time about Hungarian Nobel Prize winners. The grading criteria is very clear, with each item (e.g., title page, table) marked with a percentage of the total grade.

When László finished grading he showed me the marks. It was as he said it probably would be--students did not do well, with most of them getting 1 marks, which indicate a failing grade. There is not a lot of room for error--total accuracy on an element is necessary to get credit for that element of the document. But in looking at the marks from the first practice test, which are mostly good (3-5 level marks), it does look like László is right when he says the students don't practice new skills, and so do not ever get any better than they are when they start. I'm sure this is a frustrating position for the instructor, but certainly not an unusual situation as most instructors could agree.

When I was invited to this class I asked about the general goals and objectives. László did much more to help me understand the context. He sent an email that outlined the course, including a good description of the teaching method. He identified advantages and disadvantages of the teaching strategy used. With his permission, I'll quote from his email below. I plan to attend another of his classes later this week and will add a second Peer Review entry to the blog then.

Laszlo's Email

Word - 21 April, at 10:00-11:30 (Room 605)
---------------------------------------------
The name of subject: Digital Textprocessing
Term of subject: one semester (15 week)
Number of lessons: 2 lesson/week
Type of subject: practice

Main goal: students can use the word processor on a professional level for the essay (examination paper) and for the dissertation.

Other goals: the student can use the word-processor at work in the future.

Advantages: 1. The students use the computer every day 2. They learned about word-processing in the high school 3. The subject is useful for them 4. Every student can work with a computer (1 computer/student)

Disadvantages: 1. The class size is high in the group 2. Most students learned little in high school (they played or left the lessons) [We haven't any teacher-control at the IT lessons in Hungary] 3. The students don't want to understand why the topic is useful for them 4. They don't want to work week by week, only the end of term before the exam. 5. They don't want ask help from me.

My method of education:

Unfortunately, it's a simply elementary, sometimes secondary school method. We do the practise together, then they can try again alone, and they can ask. After the practise we make a little summary of theory. Many don't practise, so I give an exam every second week. These are "little" practise exams (quizzes). They have 4 quizzes. If the student earns a five or four mark on each quiz then he/she earns an adequate mark in this subject, and, at Week 10 has finished the subject. If not, the student has to take a summary exam in the 14th week, and can correct it in the 15th week. Usually students write very bad quizzes, but they believe it's enough to finish the subject. It's a very basic method at the college level, but about the 75% of students can word-process well following the class.

Culture: Growing Up American

2009-04-20T12:18:00.012+02:00

Jack and I were asked to do a presentation at The American Corner, a facility sponsored by the U.S. State Department, and housed in the college library here. We decided to describe the contrasts in where and how we grew up (respectively urban New Orleans and rural Iowa), and to discuss the differences in those places from the time of our childhoods until now.

One thing we have connecting our home towns is the Mississippi-Missouri river systems. This was an interesting geographic feature that helped to frame some of the history and commerce that have connected these two areas.

A group of American Studies students listened as we compared and contrasted the regional differences in our families, educational experiences, religion, and occupations. We also described local culture including music, food, and population demographics of the regions. Commerce, occupational, and trade issues, provided images of the big changes that have taken place over our lifetimes so far. Hurricane Katrina, and descriptions of the cyclical floods in the Midwest, also connected the importance of weather events and climate change possibilities to both regions.

The Hungarians were more familiar, naturally, with New Orleans, than with small town Iowa. However, they, like many others, know only the stereotypes of New Orleans. We were able to tell them that New Orleans indeed has great food, great jazz, and is a tourist mecca for 'good times'. But it is also an important American city that has had many difficulties, especially in the past few years. We showed some photos from pre- and post-Katrina New Orleans and discussed demographic differences that have resulted from that disaster.

My photos, taken on the farm, and in Modale, Iowa, were less well known. However, they provided the group with proof that, as I continue to say every time I'm riding a train in the countryside--Hungary looks like IOWA! And as Spring has come, I find so many of the same trees, flowers, and plants. The fields are beginning to be planted, but--one big difference--very little corn here.

We discussed a similarity in the shrinking of small towns, in the USA and in Hungary. As jobs have left, much of the commerce has left the villages. Tesco (here) and Walmart (there) draw all the shopping, and those without cars (many, here) may be stranded. However, there is one institution that seems to stay alive after most others have left--the local pub. So I'll end this with a photo of the local pub in Modale, Iowa, taken in Summer, 2008.

Teaching: Digital Citizenship

2009-04-18T15:35:00.007+02:00

My presentation at the NETWORKSHOP 2009 conference in Szeged was a chance to discuss the topic of Digital Citizenship in an international context. The Hungarian title of the presentation translates as Digital Citizenship in Higher Education: Intercultural Dimensions. That was my grand plan when I wrote the original abstract; however, at this point my presentation was more basic, simply explaining the framework of digital citizenship, and exploring whether this concept is an appropriate teaching solution in schools across cultures.

This topic is based on the work of Mike Ribble and Gerald Bailey, elaborated upon in the 2007 book Digital Citizenship in Schools, published by ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education. My VSU ITED 8100 students use this book as a supplementary textbook, and have just finished their big Online Learning Activity projects, all on the topic of Digital Citizenship. In these projects teams of students created and presented professional development activities for educational professionals on some aspect of digital citizenship.

I explained my interest in the topic to the audience--I teach experienced teachers whose responsibilities include teaching digital technology knowledge, skills, and behaviors to students. I explained that I had asked questions about these issues of my international students, and international faculty friends, and found many similarities in concerns, but some differences. I proposed some questions about whether the digital citizenship framework was relevant across cultures, and asked the academic audience to consider how students learn appropriate digital behaviors.

I also explained in more detail three of the digital citizenship themes, and how the model of knowledge, skills, and attitudes could intersect with teaching, modeling, and enforcing responsibilities of teachers, parents, peers, self, and technology. I closed with a list of observations I had made about digital citizenship in the Hungarian context, and in my own practice while on faculty exchange in Hungary. A colleague from EKF and I will begin to analyze the results of some qualitative data collected from his students in coming weeks.

The full PowerPoint of the conference presentation can be seen by clicking on the link below. A narrated slidecast will soon be available on Slideshare.net.

Digital Citizenship

Fun: Wien (Vienna) and Szeged

2009-04-17T18:09:00.017+02:00

We got back yesterday from a wonderful Easter trip. The weather does make all the difference, and with perfect Spring temperatures, blue skies, and flowers everywhere, it's hard not to have a good time. After the Eger to Budapest train (always get to go through Budapest to get anywhere), we had about the same time to Vienna, about 2.5 hours.

Vienna was not crowded, and we had a very nice little room in a very nice little hotel (7 rooms), very close to the center of the city. As usual we walked everywhere, and spent much of our time in art museums (Leopold, Kunsthistorisches), and eating/drinking establishments (mostly outdoors--every place has sidewalk cafes). We went to Mass on Easter at the Jesuit Church--it was a High Mass with a full orchestra, pipe organ, and choir. Due to standing room only on a very cold hard floor, we didn't make the whole service, but it was a special experience.

We had a wonderful Easter Monday in the park (Vienna is ringed with beautifully designed green spaces). We rode the giant Reisenrad (ferris wheel) featured in the movie The Third Man (Orson Welles), and ate at the famous Schweizerhaus beer garden with 700 of our closest Austrian friends. The featured food, Hintere Schweinsstelze (roasted pork hock) was gargantuan. Waiters somehow carried four or five of these chunks of meat along with an equal number of steins of draught Budvar (the Czech Bud) overhead without incident.

Four days and nights ate up a lot of Euros, and filled up a lot of digital photo space on my computer. Here are a few of the photos.

Vienna

On the next part of the trip we shifted from being tourists to being academics, heading for a professional conference in Szeged, Hungary, in the southern central part of the country. We left Vienna on the train back to Budapest (of course) on Tuesday morning. In Budapest, we had to change train stations, and so decided to walk through a part of the city we hadn't seen. Somewhat scruffy, but interesting. The old Nyugati train station makes the Keleti look modern and clean! But the Intercity train we took to Szeged (named "Paprika") was fine. Another three hours and we were in the land of paprika and Pick Sausage fame.

We had a pleasant evening, staying at the old, rather grand Hotel Tisza. Szeged is a very pretty city, on the large Tisza River, with lots of Art Nouveau and Secessionist buildings, wide boulevards, squares with flower beds and many sculptures and fountains. Again, Spring added to the appeal.

The reason for being in Szeged was the NETWORKSHOP Conference--someone at EKF had the idea to invite me to participate and get on the program back in the Fall. The conference is a combination of computer networking technicians, academic library people in the technology area, and e-learning people from the various colleges and universities. My Eger colleagues arrived around noon on Wednesday. They came by mini-bus with Vice Rector Kis-Tóth driving--a very "high level driver" as one of my colleagues noted.

Right away, in the "Alice in Wonderland" fashion we've come to know and love, the conference organizers rounded everyone up (200+ people) and put them on buses for a long transport to who knows where for a slightly weird lunch consisting of an apple, noodle soup, and a schnitzel with spaghetti in a lunchroom. Everyone was wondering why we went so far for that! We were eventually herded back on the buses for the return trip and I think everyone was wary after that of any forced transport!

We did get back for presentations beginning at 2:00. Following Lajos, Gabor, Csaba, and Bert, I was the only 'international' presenter, and felt a bit strange presenting in English. Of course, I muffed the few Hungarian words I tried to say due to nervousness! People were, of course, nice and told me I did a good job. After an afternoon of listening to Hungarian presentations, I was a bit tired (I was told by a colleague to remain unnamed that I was lucky because I could imagine that the presentations were more interesting than they really were!). We got goodie bags for presenting, including a delicious Pick Salami--that's unique!

The opening reception was in the evening, and we all decided to troop back to the hotel to get rid of our conference bags, etc. I found it so interesting that this whole group of academics would leave the mini-van at the hotel, walk to the conference center on the University of Szeged campus (probably at least a mile), walk back to the hotel, walk back to the conference center, and then walk back to the hotel--all in one day. You never find American conference goers walking a block if they don't have to! That has to be why the Hungarians can get away with eating sweets, sausage and sour cream!

The reception was purely Hungarian, but like any other conference as well--just with more wine and much more and better food. A good time was had by all, and we didn't have any trouble walking one more time, one more mile, to the hotel.

Two of the EKF faculty had presentations on Thursday late morning, so Jack and I stayed around the hotel, walked along the Tisza River, went to a time-honored cukraszda (sweet shop) for coffee and pastries, and joined back up with the group around noon.

Lajos took us all to a famous restaurant on the river where the famous Szeged halászlé vegyes halbó (paprika-spiced fish soup) was served. The setting was just like any 'catfish house', with outdoor tables, a river view, and lots of excellent food. The soup was great--really spicy--and we just HAD TO have the traditional follow-up to the soup. Nothing like a full plate of homemade noodles with bacon fat cracklings and sour cream to top things off. Delicious but totally unneeded and overwhelming, even for the Hungarians! One of the slides in the slideshow below shows that the restaurant suffers from flooding sometimes--with a 2006 high water mark far up on the wall. The flooding in Valdosta is far more rare, but more recent.

A three hour mini-bus ride back to Eger, with a stop to drop Bert off at home. It was good to be 'home' and Spring had exploded even more while we'd been gone. Our back yard is now leafy and lush, and the shedding blossoms of fruit trees account for the 'snow' on the ground. Lots to do ahead, but no more out of country travel plans, I don't think.

I hope you enjoy the slide show of Vienna above, and of Szeged below!

Happy Easter and Spring to everyone!

Szeged

Fun: Spring in the Park

2009-04-09T17:42:00.002+02:00

I wasn't kidding about Spring!

Teaching: ITED 8100 at VSU

2009-04-09T11:26:00.004+02:00

Yes, I'm still teaching my online class at VSU! In some ways I very connected to this group, as if "VSU" was not between us. The only thing that's a bit difficult is the time difference, and that is only a consideration when we are doing synchronous activities as we did this week in Wimba Live Classroom.

We had a two week time period when the USA (pronounced OOSHA here) had gone to Daylight Savings Time and Hungary had not yet gone to Central European Daylight Savings Time--only five hours difference then! But, timing is everything, and by the time the students were to do their Wimba Live Classroom presentations on issues in Digital Citizenship, we were back to six hours ahead. My students were very considerate, however, and scheduled their sessions as early as they possibly could after getting home from school. That made for only a few nights of my staying up 'til the wee hours! The presentations were all very good, so it was definitely worth it.

I'm preparing for my presentation on the cross-cultural aspects of Digital Citizenship for NETWORKSHOP 2009, the 18 Országos Konferencia to be held in Szeged, Hungary, 2009. aprilis 15-17. So the 30 minute professional development sessions on various aspects of Digital Citizenship presented by the five groups in ITED 8100 were very helpful to me--and, so the Workshop Evaluation data indicates, to the student presenters and their participant peers.

All of the presentations were very good. I'll mention one of them that addressed the Rights and Responsibilities theme of Digital Citizenship, particularly for the teenage level student.

Group Cuatro chose three areas to explore, and to make suggestions as to how secondary teachers could teach, model, and enforce appropriate student behaviors in these important and rapidly changing areas.

The first topic was cheating and plagiarizing, a big concern for teachers and parents. They explored the whys and hows of cheating, elicited participant response and ideas, and made suggestions for controlling the problems.

Another important concern was the problem of cyberbullying, something that those of us in higher education do not often think about except when high profile cases hit the news. But, for high school teachers in the USA, this is a daily problem. I am interested to find out if this is a problem in Hungary.

Finally, the group shocked some of the participants with descriptions of the very sophisticated technology-aided cheating that is now becoming common. Many in the audience pledged to be more keenly aware of the technology in use by their students, and to read more on the topic in up-to-date sources on the Web.

Teaching: E-Teaching Seminars Catch-Up

2009-04-09T10:38:00.005+02:00

I haven't blogged about teaching lately--but I'm doing it, honestly, I am! The E-Teaching Seminars have been a bit less regular, and, in the case of Seminar #6, when Catherine Price and my sister Susan Zahner were visiting, a bit of a disaster (see the end of the blog for explanation).

Seminar #7, scheduled online for when we were out of town, didn't engender much engagement (when the cat's away...), so we covered that material the next week. We didn't get to do the best part (brainstorming) because I taught a lesson on Web Site Evaluation to students following the Seminar. Seminar #8, intended to be a content-intensive and integral to the rest of the Seminar program, was adjourned to an outdoor sidewalk cafe due to the arrival of Spring! But we're still on track--following the Easter break, we'll get down to the business of Designing Online Groups.

The topic of designing online discussion group activities is a main area of my interest, and, I believe, expertise. The nuts and bolts of activities intended to promote learning is consistent. Almost every online course includes some use of discussion groups (also called forums or bulletin boards). Eszterházy Károly uses Moodle to manage their online courses, and the forums available within the system are very similar to those I use in Bb WebCT. But the sheer availability of the tool does not ensure effective use--discussion activities must be designed.

The full PowerPoint with notes for this Seminar is available on Slideshare.net. I'll illustrate this blog with just a few of the slides.

I asked the faculty to think about discussion topics they might use in their classes, whether online, hybrid, or face-to-face. We discussed the various design considerations that govern who, what, when, where, and why we use discussions as instructional strategies. We also agreed that discussion as an instructional strategy is not without problems.

Unique to the online environment is the consideration of whether a discussion should be held synchronously (chat) or asynchronously (forum). That isn't a consideration in a face-to-face class! We discussed the advantages and disadvantages of each and agreed that, as in all instructional design decisions, the bottom line is the goal and objective of the activity to promote student learning. Many other considerations were examined--you'll have to go to the full PowerPoint to read about those--or come to the next seminar!!! Eger welcomes you.

About that Seminar #6 disaster--I put in that mention just to get you to read to the end of the blog. But it pretty much was! At the sidewalk cafe brainstorming session, we were discussing acronyms (I was explaining about NETS and CARS, two mnemonic devices used to remember web site evaluation techniques). Bert wondered if that was similar to K.I.S.S., and I laughed.

I had totally violated that particular recommendation for Seminar #6. I designed a "really big show", using WebCT, Live Classroom, Moodle, PowerPoint, and hands-on activities. I had a full house of participants. I had out-of-town visitors and the Vice-Rector and Head of the Institute of Media Informatics, Lajos Kis-Tóth.

You don't have to guess what happened...

But everyone was kind, I was professional in going with "Plan B", and we all adjourned to a wonderful session of "brainstorming" where the real teaching, learning, networking, and friendship happens.

Learning: Blog Comments

2009-04-08T18:49:00.003+02:00

I've had problems, and have had problems reported, with the comment feature of this blog. Sometimes it has worked for people, sometimes not. I made a change on the settings to have the comment box open as a pop-up. It seemed to work better. Any of you who have been frustrated by the malfunction (or who would just like to troubleshoot this problem), please write a comment on this posting. That way we can figure it out...maybe.

Culture: "Adoption"

2009-04-06T22:43:00.009+02:00

We've been to Budapest, we've been to Prague, and soon we are going to Vienna. I was organizing my photos of 2009 in the first two European capitals mentioned, and it brought to mind discussions with Hungarian colleagues about Prague "versus" Budapest. Budapest generally came out 'behind' in those conversations.

But in viewing the photos (OK, it was lousy weather in Prague), I 'adopt' Budapest. Maybe because, even though I've only been there four times in my life, the city (and, of course, the country of Hungary) has made such a strong impression on me.

So here, for your review, are (mostly) my photos of Budapest and Prague in March, 2009. Just click on the link to go to a Picasa slide show. I'll admit upfront -- I vote for Budapest! I'll tell you that the cobblestones are somehow harder in Prague!

And, of course, Eger is my favorite...hands down.

Culture: Spring (Tavaszi)

2009-04-06T08:15:00.004+02:00

I had a difficult time thinking of which category to put this posting. But then I thought of the main topic of 'conversation' in two emails I received today from sisters, a phone call with my Mom last night, a Skype with another sister, and communications from friends in Valdosta--all in the USA, and all, in one way or another, about Spring (or lack thereof). I've heard about the snows and floods in the Midwest, the rains and floods in the Southeast. The Georgians had their flowers washed away by rain; the snow has covered the brave tulips in my Wisconsin sister's garden, and more is predicted.

This topic parallels the conversations we've been having here, with each other, and with friends, for the past month. When will Spring come? I'd been composing a blog on that topic in my mind. For us, here in Eger, I thought Spring would be the end of long underwear, hats, scarves, and boots. Spring would be moving the draft-blockers from the doors of our balcony, and opening them up to the open air. Spring would bring warmth to our kitchen in the morning so we could make coffee without putting on a sweater and shoes, before scurrying back to the sitting room to drink it. In Spring, the fountains would flow, the flowers would bloom, the trees would blossom and leaf out, and Jack might actually go to the outdoor thermal pool (soaking in hot water does not take care of the journey to get to and from the pool!).

For a month this has been a topic of conversation. We have been told by nearly all of our friends and colleagues--Spring will come soon. And not only that promise, but that when Spring comes it will come suddenly. "One day it will be cold, and then the next day, Summer," to paraphrase.

I didn't believe that. I've watched the signs of Spring approach. Tiny flowers, more birdsongs. I was thrilled a couple of weeks ago to see the plastic wrappings come off the big fountain in the park. I noticed the draining of one of the big swimming pools, and subsequent scrubbing and painting. The Spring Cleaning "Holiday" came and went. We started to hear the sound of rugs being beaten along the row of gardens by our apartment. We noticed the plots of land were being prepared for planting.

Then tables started to appear outside the restaurants in little Dobo Square--complete with red plaid blankets draped over the chairs, to encourage the hearty. Flowers, always evident at the market, increased in numbers and included many plants for the garden. Seed vendors showed up, bare root roses, onion sets, and seed potatoes were displayed.

Women's boots started to change color--they weren't all black now, but white, silver, pink, and even lace (I saw those at the market yesterday!). The store windows had lots of sales on sweaters, and added displays in pastels, featuring eggs. Chocolate bunnies dressed in gold foil multiplied. WHITE shoes appeared. Sunglasses were pulled out for display in the streets. School groups showed up, touring the castle (they've started charging admission, another indicator), but wearing winter coats. But Spring stayed away, the hats and long underwear stayed on, and snow and frost occasionally greeted us in the morning.

But then, four days ago, OVERNIGHT, Spring arrived. It is beautiful here. The fountains are running, people are outdoors in short sleeves and even shorts, the many sidewalk cafes are full, the flowers are beginning to bloom, the willows have tiny leaves on them. People are smiling more, and couples sit on park benches and kiss. Ice cream vendors are doing a great business in the Centrum, and I even heard an ice cream truck coming up Napsugár Ut. yesterday.

I saw a squirrel yesterday in the park. Not a major happening in my yard in Georgia (there are way too many squirrels!), but here it was nice to see the chestnut brown, bigger than Georgia squirrel, eating chestnuts and perking up ridiculously long tufted ears. Cats are yowling in our garden at night, and the bees are buzzing us as we sit on our balcony.

YES! We are sitting on our balcony in the warm, even hot, sun. Wishing for shorts and wondering what we were thinking not bringing any? Did we think it would be winter forever? Apparently.

My sweaters, jeans, cords, wool and fleece are not going to make it much longer. I went out and hit the second hand stores on Saturday (there are a lot of them--yeah), and found a few "Spring" clothes. OVERNIGHT, Spring has come. And with Spring, a total aversion to being inside on the computer--thus, the stagnation of this blog.

Hungarian friends, you were right. American family and friends--this too, will pass! Spring is awaited eagerly by all cultures for the warmth, the beauty, and the sense of renewal. Happy Spring!

Fun: Design Despair

2009-03-30T13:51:00.006+02:00

A friend from home recently wrote to say she had done 'home improvements'--to a house I always think looks great! We've also gotten links to Picasa photo album updates from another friend, showing us the painstaking efforts to get just the right color combinations on their remodeling project. I laughed, knowing that if either of these two friends, with their artistic eyes, saw our daily environment, they would be aghast!

Although our apartment is cozy, convenient, host-provided, and has a wonderful landlady (nice, and a great and generous cook!) the colors aren't exactly complementary and the patterns are engaged in a serious and ongoing conflict. The textures in the living room alone range from a shiny quilted pink ruffled sateen spread on a kingsize 'bed' to napless hunter green and brown flowered carpet to bumpy mint green walls to floor-to-ceiling rose damask and white lace curtains to olive green/brown velveteen chairs/couch, to pink, brown, and white patchwork throws over the chairs/couch to a jungle corner of dusty plants hanging from 70's macrame to a red and tan oriental style throw rug. All is lit overhead by hanging lamps that throw strange and overlapping geometric shapes on the ceiling. There's no bringing it together.

We just confound the problem by bringing the powder blue and navy flowered duveted comforters and pillows in from the bedroom to cuddle up and keep warm while we watch International CNN play the same 'news' for the upteenth time, or the TCM movie of the evening (the Cartoon Network switches at 9PM from Hungarian dubbed cartoons to English language movie), or the many bad/good old series (Magnum, P.I., The Saint, Dallas, Northern Exposure) dubbed in Hungarian, to the haunting FilmMüzeum channel that's nothing but old European road, bridges, cities, harbors, gardens with sometimes enchanting classical music in the background, and sometimes techno-pop.

I thought it might be fun to try to document this environment in a patchwork collage--here goes!

Culture: Blogs and Email

2009-03-28T15:45:00.004+01:00

I replied this morning to a friend's short newsy email and was struck by the difference in communication modes. I have been focused on keeping up this blog, for professional reasons, and now, have a really good motivation for the upkeep--I just received my acceptance letter to present this blog at the 25th National Distance Education Conference in Madison, Wisconsin in August. I've also been interested in the process of creating a professional blog, and hearing the comments of friends and colleagues about it. But it does seem to be mostly a one-way street, and sometimes seems a bit presumptuous for me to think that others want to know my doings. But at least I'm not Twittering!!! (Or should that read "Tweeting")?

So I now commit to sending more emails in addition to the blog. Why? So I'll get some answers! I would love to see more comments on the blog, and I intend to try to elicit some. I also intend to get a few 'guest bloggers' involved, either in an interview format, or to be an author in this blog. So watch out! The next email you get from me may be an invitation to come 'blog with me'!

Until then, let me post a version of the email I wrote today as a contrast to the blog postings--a more immediate tone, no pictures, and clear confession of confusion about many aspects of life.

March 28, 2009. Eger, Hungary

Just a short message since I'm very behind on my blog, and professional commitments are building up for the next week (research meeting with colleague, language class, immigration bureaucracy stuff-we have to apply for temporary residency since we are here longer than 90 days, guest lecture in a class, my weekly seminar, a joint presentation with Jack at the American Corner, and lots of late night presentation time with my Georgia online class). So relaxation is not the word of the week.

We are, however, going with one of my colleagues up to the Bükk Mountains near Miskolc tomorrow (Sunday) by bus to see the woods and a "part time spring"--some water event that happens when the water builds up inside the mountain and spouts out like a geyser in the Spring (?). That's the best translation I can give at the moment. Should be interesting and will be our first outing by bus.

We did go to water polo again last night, but whoever Eger was playing shouldn't have bothered to make the trip - the score was 17 - 5. I felt sorry for the other team, especially the goal-keeper. Tonight I think we're going to either a folk dance or a folk dance performance--I
sincerely hope it's the latter, but it's hard to tell from the flyer and even the Tour Inform people couldn't seem to clarify. Oh, well...we call these our 'Alice in Wonderland' or 'down the rabbit hole' experiences.

We've coined a new expression of our 'southerner' readiness for spring to come--we say, "Ready to suit up?" when we leave the house, meaning one more time to put on long underwear, wool socks, boots, sweaters, coats, scarves, hats, and gloves. It's not that cold, and there are buds on the trees, but the promised "spring next week" has been coming for the last month!

We were beginning to try to make plans for our Easter break, but it turns out that that's when the conference my department had planned for us to go to (and present at) in Szeged is--right in the middle of that week! So much for my dream of a warm and sunny Croatia! That's OK.

We are going to try to have a few days away during that time. Right now the plan is to take the train Eger-Budapest-Vienna for a four-day Easter weekend, and then take the train back to Budapest and on to Szeged in the south for the conference. We'll get a ride back to Eger in a van or cars with our colleagues.

Well, I'm cooking butternut squash with walnuts purchased at the market yesterday. I'll add some locust honey that a friend gave to us for sweetness. I can smell it across the hall, so I'm sure it's getting done. With no temperature gauge on the oven, baking is a bit of a guessing game!

Viszontlátásra!

Jane

Culture: Mangalica Pig Exported

2009-03-28T15:30:00.005+01:00

One of the loyal followers of the blog sent me this link to a New York Times article raving about the quality of the "Mangalitsa"-- I guess that at least helps those of us who speak only angolul to say it right!

Read the article here.

Learning: Libraries and More Libraries

2009-03-28T15:23:00.010+01:00

I've posted before on library tours, but wanted to make sure that I highlighted the award-winning Heves County library. Jack and I recently were invited to tour the library with Komló Ági, who works there as a system librarian, and her husband, my Institute of Media Informatics colleague Komló Csaba.

The tour was short, but we'll be back! I was asked to write a little note about the visit for the library newsletter--I'll reproduce it here and hopefully be able to add a link to the 'real thing' if it comes out electronically.

For the Newsletter:

People in Hungary seem to really appreciate books. Since Jack and I have been in Eger, we've noticed many bookstores, and enjoyed tours and privileges to borrow books from the college libraries and the American Corner. But we didn't know what a fine county library Heves had until Komló Ági gave us a tour recently. We were impressed by the beautiful buildings, the attentive staff, and the collections, especially the special and local resources, and media materials. As a librarian myself, I can tell you that this facility would be a treasure in our own community in the US, as it is here. Congratulations to the Library of the Year!--Dr. Jane Zahner, visiting professor from Valdosta State University, Valdosta, Georgia, USA.

The only thing that was missing from Heves County Library (besides much needed room to expand!) was the children's collection. I asked Ági about that and was told that the children's materials and programming were in the Forrás Gyermek Szabadidó Központ, a community youth center a few blocks away. As it happened Csaba and Ági were taking their daughter to storytelling and crafts there in the late afternoon and I was invited to go along. Csaba was also going in an official capacity to check on some library student interns doing practicum hours with the children (sound familiar?).

A great place, homey, full of books and seasonal decorations. I'd been making origami cranes lately, and was glad to see a whole ceiling full of them in the children's library. I listened as intently as the children did to the wonderful storyteller. Although I could only understand occasional words, the drama of the story was evident. I'm not sure the metaphor would translate, but she definitely had them "eating out of her hand"! That experience made me think more about my past storytelling and puppetry, and awakened a desire to do that again in the future.

After the storytelling began the crafts. I believe we were to make a fabric collage based on the story. Since I didn't know the story, I cheated, and peeked at the work of kids, teachers, aides, and parents. There was definitely a castle involved, and possibly a goat. Somehow rain, lightning, and aliens entered my work--it was rainy that night, and I am an alien!!!

Much thanks to Csaba and Ági for the invitation--it was great to meet your daughter and see dynamic child-centered learning going on!

Culture: Hungarian Holidays

2009-03-28T11:01:00.007+01:00

There have been a few holidays recently, one familiar, one unfamiliar, and one that makes a mess of Eger for two weeks. We were surprised by Women's Day, celebrated on March 8. Jack and I had noticed that many men seemed to be carrying flowers and plants as they walked away from the market on Sunday. He even asked me, "Was I supposed to give you flowers or something?" But we didn't find out what was going on until the next day, when I got a call from Gabi, our wonderful secretary, telling me that "the men" wanted to invite me to the workplace Women's Day party at the library at 2:00 P.M. Two other calls came in from "men" of the library and the Institute, extending the invitation. Having experienced Zsuzsana's Name Day office party, I knew that wine, at least, would likely be involved!

At 2:00 P.M. we gathered in one of the beautiful reading rooms in the library. Since the Institute is large (about 60 people), and mostly male, the 10 or so women were well honored with speeches from Dr. Kis-Tóth, wine, champagne, cookies, presentation of flowering plants (Dr. Hauser gave me mine), and a puszi (kiss on each cheek) from each man!

International Women's Day, celebrated in several countries in Europe, is the basis for this holiday. You can read about the origins in Wikipedia (I take no responsibility for accuracy!), but from what I was told and observed, the holiday in Hungary has become more like a Valentine's Day that is extended beyond lovers to female friends and colleagues. In any case, it was fun, I was honored to be included, and my plant is actually still living on my desk. I also found out in Hungary there is a Mother's Day and a Children's Day, but no Father's or Men's Day!

Hungary celebrates March 15 (március 15) as Independence Day, the day of the outbreak of the 1848 revolution. Jack, my sister Susan, and I were to be in Budapest on that day, and my colleagues gave us cockades (ribbons with the national colors of red, green and white) to wear. They also told us that the day was traditionally a day when demonstrations take place, as well as large political gatherings, and that we would likely see police and barricades. Our cockades had the effect of causing us to be addressed in Magyar rather than English when leafleted! We did see a lot of preparation and decoration of the city, but were on our way back to Eger early enough to avoid most of the crowds. We watched the Hero's Square festivities and minor confrontations on TV, like everyone else.

The latest holiday was a puzzler. When Jack and I returned from our short trip to Prague, we walked from the train station through our neighborhood. The whole area, usually very clean and tidy, had become strewn with piles of broken furniture and toys, clothing, tree clippings, rubbish of all types. People were throwing stuff out of the first, second, and even third story windows, and watching it drift down to form even bigger piles. Spring cleaning fever on a massive scale?

The next day I went to the office and thoroughly amused the office staff by asking if there was a Spring Cleaning Holiday going on. It is, of course, a designated day for each neighborhood when bulk trash can be put out and collected at no cost. This takes place over a two week period in Eger, with days rotating from neighborhood to neighborhood. The practice brings with it groups of people (many seeming to be minority Roma families, often with children, equipped with hand carts and large bags) who go through the piles and take what could be used or sold by them. For once, I had no extra 'stuff' to throw away!

Fun: Back to the Bükk

2009-03-21T10:23:00.002+01:00

Just a quick blog--I'll do more when we return from a trip to Prague. We've had visitors this week, and one day trip was a return to Szilvásvárad with my sister, this time. We both like horses, and wanted to see the Lippizaner Horse Museum--unfortunately, it was closed. But the Lippizaner Stud Farm was open and we got to see the 1 and 2 year olds (black ones below), who will turn white by the time they are 3. We also saw beautiful carriages and sleighs on display. Wish we could be there for the big horse exhibition in July!

We also hiked to the Fatyol Falls, and, on the way, saw the wood carved statue above. Help me, Hungarian friends, who is he and what's the story? I didn't take my Hungarian dictionary in my backpack!

Teaching: Future E-Teachers

2009-03-17T11:33:00.002+01:00

This is just the beginning for a group of soon to be teachers. They are very interested in E-Learning, both for themselves as learners, and in their future teaching practices. We compared Moodle, WebCT, and blogs as ways to add technological interactivity into lessons. The students especially seemed to enjoy Wimba Live Classroom, as evidenced by the collaborative drawing you see here. We've already made plans for future sessions, including building a blog posting based on a trip to the Lyceum Terrace and Camera Obscura.

Fun: szombat séta (Saturday Stroll)

2009-03-09T09:19:00.009+01:00

I would have labeled this posting "Culture" a few weeks ago, but now that we're at home in Eger, I would call this fun. It was a beautiful Saturday morning, some sunshine we haven't seen in awhile, and warm enough to wear fewer layers. Jack was meeting with some students in American Studies, so I went for a walk with some goals in mind. I don't have the standard wicker basket that most carry for shopping, so I took along a spare conference tote bag that a colleague gave to me--I guess academics collect them here, just like we do in the States!

First to the recycling bin, to deliver some bottles and paper.
Then to our neighborhood bakery, to buy alpesi bread, or our most recent favorite dark bread (repcemagos kenyér), shaped like a heart and deliciously chewy. I wanted to make sure to get the bakery early, since they close around midday. I couldn't resist the sour cherry streudel (meggyes rétes) so I asked for two and got three--there is a custom to add on extras that I haven't quite figured out! Into the bag, hoping they didn't leak cherries everywhere.

My next stop was the Bitskey Aladár Uszoda (swimming pool/stadium) to buy tickets for the 3-day Volvo Cup Water Polo Tournament (Hungary, Serbia, Romania and the USA). As I waited in line, I actually had a conversation of sorts with an elderly gentleman who complimented me for TRYING to speak Hungarian. With Sunday tickets in hand, the final game between USA and Hungary, I went on in search of a couple of places I wanted to find in the old part of the city near the Castle (Vár).

It still seems amazing to me that I daily walk on cobblestones in the shadow of a 16th Century fortress. I was looking for the Palóc Folk Art Exhibition, which I thought was on Dobó Tér (Square)--turns out it is on Dobó Út (Street). Not open, unfortunately, but at least I now know where to find this collection of masterpieces of folk art in the 19th and 20th centuries. I'm especially interested in looking at the textile collection.

Where next? I wanted to find the building where the Joga (yes, yoga) classes are held daily. I still haven't made it to one, but I have ambitions to do so. I found the building, very near the historic Turkish Minaret. There are a number of activities held there, including several events during the upcoming Egri Tavaszi Fesztivál (Eger Spring Festival).

Speaking of the Minaret, it was open, and I was very briefly tempted to pay the entry fee and climb the 97 spiral steps to the top balcony. Then I remembered, from my 2004 experience, just how claustrophobic an experience that was, so I just waved at the people on the balcony and went on.

At this point I was near the back of the market hall, where I wanted to pick up some cheese, and knew that I'd end up with more to carry. I hadn't been in the back door before, and just inside saw the 'cabbage machine'. There is a huge pile of cabbages, and an industrial strength slicer (looked like a table saw to me!). I guess you pick your cabbage, pay for it, and then have it sliced/diced to a consistency that is right for whatever recipe you are cooking. Cabbage is eaten a lot here, in all kinds of ways. So far, every kind is great, including the savanyú káposzta, we got at the market last week (see earlier blog posting)!

So a stroll around the very crowded Saturday market led me to some ewe cheese, some Magyar spinach, and some Hungarian (right!) peppers. I have to control myself so I don't buy more than I can carry! I went outside and was treated to an explosion of the flower market that is always there--real signs of Spring! Flowers are very important, and people were buying pussy willows (we went back later and got some for me, and some for our landlady), tulips, hyacinths, snow drops, every color and size. I was almost hesitant to take pictures--like stealing beauty.

A real treat at the market was running into someone I knew! Laszlo, a colleague from the E-Teaching Seminar, was talking to a friend, while his little boy examined a flyer about toys for sale. I actually remembered, from Hungarian language class, how to ask how old he was. His birthday is this week, and he was 'shopping' for the perfect toy. We talked for a bit, and Laszlo's friend showed me a certain kind of hand-made "snail" pasta (csigatészta) he recommended, and told me where to find it in the market. Back into the market, and one more thing added to the shopping bag. By the way, Gabi at the office, explained how her grandmother made the csigatészta, and looked up photos on the Hungarian Wikipedia of the array of tools needed!

I walked away from the market through the pedestrian streets. There were many people out, enjoying the sunshine, and talking in small groups everywhere. I ran into another colleague and stopped for a short chat, and spoke with a couple of Dutch students from our language class. I even spotted, and talked briefly, with a couple of (labeled on their jackets) members of the USA water polo team, in for the tournament. I wished them good luck, which obviously didn't help since they finished last in the four team tournament. Eger is really starting to feel familiar.

My conference bag was getting heavy, and I decided to head for home. Suddenly I realized that it might be possible to catch Jack before he left the class he was teaching. I did, and we went to the Astronomical Museum and Camera Obscura--but that experience deserves its own blog posting entirely.

GREAT szombat séta!

Learning: VSU Mailbag

2009-03-07T14:46:00.003+01:00

When I checked my VSU mail this morning I was struck by the connections between happenings at Valdosta State University and Eszterházy Károly Föiskola, particularly in content areas that are taught within the Institute of Media Informatics, where I am hosted. I wanted to bring these connections to the attention to faculty at both institutions, to encourage collaboration and communication.

I've written in this blog about the intense interest and activity in film-making here at EKF, both by students and professionals. It seems that everywhere we go, whether to a park, the Castle, or the hallways of the Lyceum, there are students making movies. Thus, the announcement of the 5th annual Valdosta Film Festival posted by Brian Day clearly caught my attention. Here's an excerpt:

"The submission deadline is Thursday March 12 by 5:30. Films, entry forms and dues can be dropped off in the Communication Arts office in Nevins Hall. Entry Forms and more information can be found at the following website: http://www.valdosta.edu/filmfest."

Another posting today connected with library instruction and training, also supported here in the Institute. Emily Rogers (ecrogers@valdosta.edu) encouraged faculty to have students enroll in a one-credit library instruction course, offered either face to face or online. That brought to mind discussions I've had with both the academic librarians here, and a public librarian in the very fine county library they have in Eger. I don't know if EKF is offering any library instruction online, but it might be interesting to compare notes about how instruction is done, and what is included. It may also be interesting to compare opinions about who is responsible for making sure the library skills are strong--the student, the faculty, or the librarians!

An excerpt from Emily's message:

"Do you wish your students had stronger library research skills? Are your students looking for a class to complete their Fall 2009 schedules? Consider LIBS 1000, a one-credit class taught by Odum reference librarians that helps students learn to use library resources more effectively. For Fall 2009, we're offering LIBS 1000 in both face-to-face and online versions..."

Of course, the Institute of Media Informatics in interested in teacher training and technology integration in the classroom. A posting in my mail offered an interesting opportunity to VSU College of Education Faculty and students from the Georgia Educational Technology Centers (a state funded system of centers and staffing dedicated to improving P-16 student performance through technology integration). Here's an excerpt:

"The Georgia Educational Technology Centers (ETC) coordinate a regional/statewide project-based learning competition entitled “GA ETC PBL.” Students in grades K-12th compete to create educational web sites or thematic movies based on Georgia curriculum standards. I am soliciting volunteers to judge the web sites or movies using an established online rubric. Ideally, we need two judges per project to ensure fairness. For those of you at colleges, this would be a great assignment to give to some of your college students as well."

Sheila Hall, the ETC staff member who wrote the posting, gave the deadlines and procedures for volunteering for judging. She also offered the following opportunity that I extend to anyone following the blog who might be interested in creating projects like these:

"If you would like to view last year’s entries, visit http://www.gaetcpbl.org/ and scroll down to the “Projects” section."

As evidenced by the ongoing E-Teaching for E-Learning Seminar I've been leading each week, faculty in the Institute for Media Informatics are, like many faculty at VSU, interested in professional development in the area of technology. I happened to get a e-newsletter issue today from Slideshare.net, which is one avenue through which I've been sharing the Seminar presentation materials. This commercial site is a great place to post your conference presentations, and to look for presentations in which you are interested. It's free to use (has advertising), and has an intriguing set of opportunities for professional development including "presentation camps", awards competitions, featured 'cool' presentations, and hosts synchronous events at many conferences. Here's an excerpt that might intrigue you:

"Watch conferences in your underwear! And continuing with our underwear theme from last newsletter, if budgets have let you down and you are going to miss your favorite conference then check out our events directory. You can also use it to look up presentations after attending a great conference."

Well, I hope we'll continue to have our face-to-face Seminars on E-Teaching, but we may also have some virtual presentations where the dress code will be lax. Who knows? We may even get it together to have an E-Teaching for E-Learning Wimba Classroom session with faculty from her, and my colleagues from VSU. Last week in the seminar, we started learning to use the Wimba classroom, so we should be ready to try it out soon. I hope so, and we'll work on it!

Learning: Marketing

2009-03-04T14:52:00.005+01:00

We're lucky to have a nice ABC store (small supermarket) just down the street where we can get most necessities. There's a bakery just a little further, and many other small fruit markets, flower shops, and other ABCs within a three block area. The only challenges have been to learn the various opening and closing hours (on weekends only morning hours, if at all), to learn the rules about bottle deposits and weighing/labeling produce, to remember to bring a shopping bag to bring home the goods (or plan to pay for one), and to manage to position yourself so that you can see the numerals on the cash register. The cashiers are kind and patient, but when you hear that you owe, "ezerkilencszaskilencvenkettö" it just doesn't get from my ear to my brain in a timely manner (that's 1992 forint, about $8.50). Add to that our (mostly) resolved fumbling with Hungarian bills and coins, and the need to bag our own groceries, the next person in line does appreciate whatever we can do to hurry it up.

Another challenge has been to know for sure what we are buying. Mostly it's not too hard; the brands may be unfamiliar, but the products are similar, and sometimes identical. I must admit I've been the one who's brought home some oddities, such as when I thought I was getting a tube of a pate-type substance and it turned out to be paprika flavored velvetta-type cheese, and the same day managed to bring home a block of 'fat' (lard) instead of butter. Jack has been surprised when cherry filling in a strudel was poppy seeds, and I brought home chocolate cake with cherries in it for breakfast one morning. We both contributed early on to buying a nice large box of feta cheese, which was a full pound of the richest and most delicious cream cheese you could imagine. All in all, we're doing fine at the supermarket and in the kitchen, where we've been cooking somewhat like we do at home, beans and rice, veggies and noodles, and soups. There's so much meat in the restaurant meals that, except for some sausage, we've left that all at the store.

A bigger challenge, and much more interesting, is to go to the downtown market. It's everyday (I think), and has both indoor and outdoor stands. Fruits, vegetables, meats, fish, breads, honey, cheeses, are sold by individual vendors. They are sold by metric measurement, of course, so when it's not as easy as handing the vendor three oranges (delicious, from Spain), sometimes I'm reduced to forming a sign language equivalent, such as two handfuls of dried beans. That's probably better than garbling grams and kilograms and ending up with having to take the beans home in a wheelbarrow.

The method of positioning oneself to see the cash register readout doesn't work so well at most of the booths in the market, since the produce is weighed the old fashioned way. But the vendors are very good about writing down the figures, or even, in a particularly obtuse moment of mine, taking the proper bills and coins from my outstretched hand. I definitely have learned to smile, and say my excuses and thank yous in Hungarian.

We went to a new booth, for us, a few days ago. The cabbage stand sells freshly made sauerkraut, peppers stuffed with pickled cabbage, and other such delicacies. We had heard about the stand, and wanted to have a nice meal of kolbász and sávanyú káposzta. So we took a plastic container with a tight fitting lid, found the stand, and found this sign.

Not hard to get what we wanted (although we bought too much!), but I took the picture so that I could translate some of the other choices for our next trip.

Upstairs in the market there is an area with 'fast food' that you can eat standing up at tables, or take out. There are lángos, palacsintas, rétes, kolbász, and pogácsa (some of you from the upper Midwest may recognize some of these dishes). There are also many items that are stuffed, fried, or both--likely all delicious.

So, each time we go to the market, we get a little better at it. As of yet, I haven't bought any flowers there, but I certainly look--they are beautiful. And they are now putting out seeds and garden plants, and pussy willows, sure signs (I'm told) of the impending TAVASZ (Spring!).

Teaching: Reality is NOT Ideal

2009-03-04T09:57:00.004+01:00

At the end of the E-Teaching Seminar #3 last week, I was full of enthusiasm about the Reflective Captioned Artifact (RCA) assignment that was due from my ITED 8100 class this past weekend. This assignment entails having each student review the large number of discussion postings that have been done (their own, mine, and those of their peers) over the first six weeks of the course. They then select a range of postings that they believe would, as a whole, demonstrate significant learning across a number of required course objectives. Once selected, students add annotations to the postings that guide me, the reviewer, to understand the rationales for choice, and the patterns of thinking and behavior (as evidenced in writing) of themselves and their peers. The assignment is completed by a reflective 'caption' or paper in which the student summarizes the process of doing the RCA, and describes the product (artifact) to follow. [Note: I know this is hard to visualize - if anyone would like to see this assignment, please leave me a comment and I'll send it to you].

I demonstrated to my Hungarian colleagues the method of selecting, compiling, and saving compiled messages as a pdf file. I showed them an example of a completed RCA, with an impressive array of annotations. While the assignment is difficult to grasp without having been involved in the six weeks of postings, I believe the seminar participants did come away with at several important concepts about online discussions: 1) recognition of the need for careful instructional design of the activities, 2) requirement for the discussions to be integral to the goals and objectives of the course, and 3) an understanding of the idea that online discussion postings do not have to stand on their own--they can be preparatory to a paper or other project. As one colleague stated, "I didn't understand why anyone would use online discussions; I am beginning to have some ideas now."

I believe they also fully understood that I did not have an easy weekend of grading ahead, with over 20 papers, often each over 20 pages. This term students have posted at about an average rate, assembling as a class somewhere over 500 content-related postings for this time period. I think my colleagues were surprised at the length and complexity of many of the postings; I explained that these were graduate students, and the design of the activity called for such complexity and depth. Rightfully so, they asked me how I could read and review 400 pages in a weekend. I explained that I didn't necessarily read the postings, having read (or scanned) them at the time they were posted. I pay more attention in reviewing the RCA to the reflective paper, and to the structure of the annotation and commenting added by the students to the artifact.

But it's still a lot of reading--and a lot of feedback to deliver. I was asked what students would receive from me. I listed the feedback methods: 1) a numerical and percentage grade in the course gradebook, 2) a marked copy of the RCA assignment rubric in pdf format sent to each student as a attachment to email within the course, 3) a personalized 2-3 paragraph comment on strengths and weaknesses added to the rubric, and 4) a summary content analysis of the papers from the whole class, with particularly memorable quotations from some of the papers delivered through a discussion section called "Friendly Facilitator".

And we wonder why people don't want to teach online! Just writing this description makes me think about my practice, and understand why I often say, "I believe I can get more effective at online teaching, but I don't seem to be able to get more efficient!"

Believe it or not, having done this many times, grading this activity and giving feedback was a manageable, if tiring, task in a weekend. You can see that I'm feeling it!

The RCA Assignment is the most difficult one of the course for individual students, and counts for nearly half of their grade in the course. They are required to bring together what they have learned in a new discipline, with new terminology, for an extended period of time. This grading period is also the hardest for the instructor, and there is pressure to let students know their grades before the fast approaching midterm date. But I'm finished, they know their grades, and a few of them did so well that I have asked if I can use their work as future examples. We can now move on in the course.

Things in the course change now. We are entering the Online Learning Activity project in which is much more relaxed. Students get to take a break from the primary textbook, and use a text from the International Society for Technology in Education, Digital Citizenship in Schools.
They will work in groups to design professional development activities on this topic for delivery through the Wimba Live Classroom tool. The next four weeks of the course will proceed with guided design of these activities, in small groups of 3-5 students. My role becomes much more advisory, rather than evaluative during the design process.

That's good...I think we're all ready for a little change of pace.

Culture: Rác Church and Gallery

2009-03-03T18:34:00.004+01:00

In the winding and twisting streets of Eger, some of them cobblestone and a bit rough on the feet, there are many great 'walks'. For the last month (!) we have been in a car only three times--once from the airport to here, once transported to a lovely dinner party, and once for an extended tour of campus including the model school and upper campus.

So our walks are both practical and pleasurable. We walk to movies, and walk to sightsee. One recent outing was to the Rác Church, not too far out of the work, walk to shop (in many different shops depending upon what we are shopping for!), walk to bank, walk to lunch, walk to Centrum, and the visual arts center nearby.

As in many cases, the tower and steeple of the church is visible from far away, but then sometimes disappears as the street side buildings close in. We first came to the entrance to the parsonage, now a visual arts center. We enjoyed the quiet, peaceful, and free visit there--there were many wonderful contemporary paintings, sculptures, and textiles, many by artists either from Eger, or who worked in Eger.

I'd read about the Serbian Church, and the former parsonage, now a 20th Century visual arts center. The name of the church refers to Serb, Greek, and Dalmatian people who escaped from the Turkish occupation and settled in Eger. I'd read about the wood carvings and paintings, and looked at photos in the wonderful KaiserArt book on Eger, with photos by Ottó Kaiser and text by Ede D. Szabó. But we weren't quite prepared for the beauty and atmosphere of the church.

We wound our way around the block to find the entrance to the churchyard. The thick walls, old gate, and snowy cemetery led us toward a beckoning guide. We walked into the church through a side door, and the (recorded) music echoed within. The late-Baroque church, now only used as a public monument and museum, has amazing paintings and carvings. My photos did not do it justice at all. So I highly recommend a visit, or at least a look at the photos in the book I mentioned above.

Teaching: E-Teaching Seminar #3

2009-03-01T19:38:00.006+01:00

The third Seminar went very well, I think. As is nearly always the case, hands-on learning is the best! I thanked two of my colleagues for becoming followers of the blog, and gave some slightly belated Mardi Gras beads to our saxophone playing leader, Kis-Tóth Lajos. Well, they were still in time for Farsang!

In Seminar #2 I described a number of strategies I use in the ITED 8100 class to advance the principles of Identity and Community. In Seminar #3, I invited my professional colleagues to see how these strategies are applied within the WebCT course. We went on a hands-on tour, guided by a screen shot illustrated PowerPoint with notes that I had distributed through email attachment, Slideshare.com, and the Eszterházy Károly E-Learning Moodle site in the days leading up to Seminar #3. I'm planning to learn more about Moodle and begin to work in activities there for the future Seminars. That's really the best way to promote the strategies I describe--by seeing and showing how they can be implemented in the instructional context that exists here.

We are still going to talk about the Principles of online teaching discussed in the first two seminars, based on the results of the survey in Week 2. That's on the agenda for next week. But we're also going to continue the engaging technology use, and this week explore the synchronous world of Wimba Live Classroom. It's interesting that on the evening of Seminar #3 my colleague Andy Brovey presented a Georgia Board of Regents professional development seminar using Live Classroom. I had the link for the Wimba event, held at 3:00 PM Georgia time, and logged on here in Hungary at 9:00 PM to find several Valdosta State colleagues as well as Komlö Csaba, one of my Seminar friends from here in Eger. I'll be interested in discussing his impressions of the session.

Following the seminar, as is the wonderful custom, as many of the group who can, go to a brainstorming session. We discuss e-learning, systems of education, how our classes are going, language, current events, travel, and, occasionally oddities such as the differences between what we call a meat-producing animal when it is walking around, and when it is on your plate. These informal discussions, as well as the food, beer, and wine that go with them, are important to the formation of our "learning about e-learning" community. This week was special because it was a holiday--one that we'd never heard of. It was Gluttonous Thursday, a day when many restaurants in Hungary offer 50% off. This only happens once a year, on the last Thursday of February, so we were happy to have already promised to pick up the tab! I don't think anyone was particularly gluttonous...but we did have a nice time.

Learning: Teacher Education Promise and Problems

2009-02-27T18:57:00.006+01:00

Eszterházy Károly Föiskola is an important source of teacher training in Hungary. And, as in many teacher training institutions in the USA, there are constant efforts to improve recruitment, training, and retention of teachers. Among these efforts is establishment of educational partnerships with schools, enabling high quality education for children, while providing timely, substantial, and mentored learning environments for teacher training candidates. An extremely rich example of a partnership can be found in the demonstration school we had the opportunity to visit last week.

We visited a classroom with friendly eight year olds, who had clearly been studying English for some time. We also attended a presentation by József Sándor, the energetic leader and school master of the school. He clearly described and delineated roles of administrators, experienced teachers, mentor teachers, teacher trainees, methodologists (specialists in pedagogy), and college (Föiskola) faculty in the shared responsibility for 'growing' teachers for the future.

We had heard about the 'Bologne' procedure, a new model of teacher training that emphasizes advanced preparation at the Master's level. He spoke of this process as well as the problem that teacher education units face in Hungary -- fewer candidates pursue teaching as a profession, and many who do pursue the teacher credential either do not practice, or drop out of the profession within a relatively short time period. Other problems common to education included funding shortages, problems with matching education to workforce needs, and the need for differentiated learning and adequate supply of specially trained educational personnel to work with a variety of learners.

These problems certainly sounded familiar to someone who teaches in the USA in a College of Education. The same themes, and some of the same solutions. I hope to spend more time in the schools, particularly in English language practice with children during this faculty exchange time. There is so much that is interesting in the full PowerPoint presentation by József Sándor, available at the link below.

Presentation by József Sándor, School Master of the Demonstration School, High School, and Elementary Art School of Eszterházy Károly College in Eger, Hungary. Posted for blog readers by permission.

Culture: Media Arts

2009-02-27T10:08:00.003+01:00

The end of last week was a wonderful opportunity to experience the strong culture of film and media arts here in Eger. I had had a welcoming email from Csaba Bollók, who described himself as teaching moving images here at EKF, but also in Budapest. We planned to meet when he came to Eger to judge the student film festival. Included in the lunch was Dr. Paul Swann, a Fulbright scholar from Temple University, who is also a motion picture and visual arts teacher and researcher.

Csaba is a dynamic and very accomplished filmmaker. His film ISKA'S JOURNEY was nominated as the Hungarian entry for the Academy Award for best foreign film this year. We had a very interesting conversation, and hope to meet again in the future. He grew up in Eger, and even showed us the special spot in the Lyceum where the acoustics are perfect.

In the evening we attended the opening ceremony of the film festival. The festival has been going on for quite a few years, and Lajos Kis-Tóth and Zóltan Hauser, the Vice-Rector and Rector, recounted their involvement as students in the early years. Speeches (in Hungarian, so not much understood!) were followed by wonderful food and wine (no translation problems there!). It was a great evening.

There is a Film Klub here, with a season of showings just starting. We plan to attend some of the films--we've even figured out (thanks, Csaba) how to tell if the film is dubbed, subtitled, both or neither!

There are also multiple theaters, with current films playing. I think Slumdog Millionaire is here now--I wonder if it's dubbed in Hungarian?

Teaching: My Seminar Friends

2009-02-26T12:54:00.003+01:00

Culture: Mardi Gras

2009-02-24T13:09:00.006+01:00

We have Hungarian language class with the Dutch, Bulgarian, and Belgian students, so don't have much time. I hope you enjoy the link to Mardi Gras in New Orleans, and take time to make a comment about your experiences with Mardi Gras, Farsang, or Carnival!

Mardi Gras in New Orleans

I just made the small video below to wish all of you a happy Mardi Gras! I'm not so great, but the little bit of music that follows will put you in the mood. I'm going to take my iPod and speakers, with a playlist of Mardi Gras music to the American Studies semester kick-off party tonight. Who knows? There may be a second line in Eger!

Learning: Library Tour

2009-02-23T17:14:00.009+01:00

Director Czeglédi holding a restored book dated 1637.

Lászlo Czeglédi took time out from his busy schedule as library director to give us a tour of the impressive library facilities of Eszterházy Károly. The libraries are housed on two floors of the Lyceum and include the collections of natural sciences, social sciences, humanities, arts, and literature. There is a large collection of periodicals, including many in English, and the library has extensive access to periodical articles online through databases such as Ebsco.

The professional staff of eighteen manages the collection which ranges from special collections, with some very old and restored books and materials, to modern media like like DVDs and CDs. The media room had been very recently upgraded with new work stations for multimedia production.

In contrast, the area where Hungarian literature local history resided included cases with materials dating back several hundred years. The reading rooms are spacious and well-lit, some with beautiful two level stacks, with fine wooden shelves, and stairs curving to the upper level. In one of these rooms, the upper levels include the Churchill Collection, and an impressive collection of American Literature. In fact, I almost immediately found a book I've been wanting to read, and couldn't find in bookstores in the U.S. before I left!

Although not technically a part of the libraries, the American Corner is also housed in the library area, and accessed through the library on the ground floor. There are interesting collections there, as well, but seeing the American Literature collection was like discovering treasure. Can't wait to get my library card...

As we toured with Lászlo, I couldn't help thinking of "my" library; that is, Odum Library at VSU. Although the physical scale of Odum Library is much larger, there seemed to be a lot of similarities. Well, except for the ratio of foreign titles! I think the librarians at our library would be very excited to visit in Eger, as would the faculty of the School of Library and Information Sciences. I'll have to see about promoting a study tour, and I'll volunteer to be the travel guide so I can get back to Eger!

Fun: Bükk National Park

2009-02-23T15:38:00.004+01:00

We had a great daytrip on the weekend. We took the small (three car) red and yellow train from Eger to Silvásvárad, north of here in the Bükk Mountains. It only took an hour to climb from slightly snowy Eger to the pretty little town, complete with ski hill.

We didn't ski, though, we hiked into the forest. In the summer, there is a narrow gauge train, and we followed the tracks up through trees, along streams and trout lakes and hatcheries. There were several waterfalls, and the train tracks ended at Veil Waterfall, a very pretty place, with a unique geologic profile.

We walked on, and the snow got a bit deeper. The climb to the Istállóskö Cave (many archaeological finds there) was well constructed, with a rustic handrail all the way, but it was slick. I made it to the cave, and snapped a picture to prove it.

After walking back, and a wonderful lunch including a fresh former resident of one of the ponds we saw, we caught the train back to Eger. We'll go back in Spring to see the wildflowers and the Lippizaner horse museum and stud farm there.

Great Saturday!

Click on the slideshow below. This will take you to a Picasa site where you can view.

Bukk Day Trip

Teaching: E-Teaching Seminar #2

2009-02-23T14:32:00.005+01:00

The second seminar picked up on the themes of identity and community, that is, where we finished the first seminar. We first discussed how best to share materials prepared for the seminars, and how to capture and document the experience. Several seminar participants indicated that it was very helpful to have the PowerPoint annotated with my notes, both to help comprehend my English-language lecture, and to provide additional information for the slide. So, if I'm doing a PowerPoint, I'll make sure to prepare the notes in writing. I made arrangements with Dr. Komenczi to distribute the file through email attachment during the week before the seminar.

I also told the participants that I would make the Seminar #2 slides with notes available on Slideshare.net for both viewing and downloading. This is a site I have used before to post conference presentations and make them available to those who express interest. It's free and easy to use--I encouraged the seminar participants to take a look at the site and see if it would be of use in their professional practices.

This blog was included in the discussion of how to share seminar materials, as was a Moodle site, set up by some of my departmental colleagues. EKTF uses Moodle, finding the free access and open architecture a plus. I expressed interest in using Moodle in the seminar, and asked for guidance from participants as to the best way to do this. Another resource mentioned was Voicethread.com, another site unfamiliar to me, but of interest.

The idea behind this seminar was for me to share my contemporaneous experience with the Valdosta State University course, ITED 8100 Theory, Models, and Perspectives of Instructional Technology, as I teach it online during this term from, obviously, a FAR distance. Although I communicated the instructional context of this class to the group during Seminar #1--graduate, first course in online program, mature, experienced educational professionals as students--I wasn't sure I'd been entirely clear.

I created a slide that (conceptually, not mathematically) showed why design of this particular class would have such a strong emphasis on the principles of identity and community. The two largest pieces of the "pie" are identity and community, followed by an emphasis on motivation (research shows that new online students are at risk for dropping out), opportunity for peer teaching and informal learning (these are experienced teachers).

I contrasted this perspective with a conceptual analysis of a research-based course I will teach in Summer 2009--with the SAME STUDENTS. The emphasis will be far more on formal learning (half the pie), evaluation of their knowledge, and development of problem-solving skills. Identity and community won't be lost in the design, but will hold far less emphasis.

As always, desired learning outcomes should determine the design of the course.

The reason this distinction was important became clear as we discussed the instructional contexts of my Hungarian colleagues in relation to online teaching. In many cases, faculty reported very large classes (over 100), which would obviously render the kinds of activities I do with my classes of 20 quite impossible.

Although I'm not entirely clear on all the reasons for choosing to offer courses online at EKTF, common reasons such as appealing to wider student audiences, initiating new programs, and conserving funds, were mentioned. Thus, my emphasis on discussing how to establish personal identities for students and instructor, and forming ample opportunity for developing community among the students, seemed out of place. I was assured, however, that the methods I use are a part of a hoped for future, when, at least some online courses at EKTF would be small enough to employ interactive methods like mine.

The rest of the PowerPoint presentation gave examples of specific activities and assignments in ITED 8100 in relation to identity and community. I don't know how useful the group would find these exercises at this point, but it was a very useful, reflective activity for me as I assembled the list. ITED 8100 is a mature online course. I have taught the course each Fall and Spring semester for several years. There have been a lot of changes, but gradual ones, over time. In analyzing my own instructional design, I am pleased by what I see. I do provide ample and meaningful ways for students to establish and develop identity (personal, professional, and academic), while engaging in acquisition of new knowledge, supported by the multiple and rich examples of authentic experiences.

So I learned from my own seminar--whoops? No, but I do want and need input from the group in order to make this seminar useful for all of us. I worked the Principles of E-Teaching for Learning (from Seminar #1) into an informal survey, that I hope will provide a way for us to work together to make the seminar meaningful. I asked the group to look at the list of principles, and to assess them in two ways: 1) Importance in their own perspective and practice, and 2) Desire to include as a part of the seminar.

Although I considered creating the survey electronically through a free service such as Survey Monkey, I opted for the old fashioned paper and pencil version. Almost immediately, one of my colleagues in the Seminar asked if we could put it in a Moodle survey--so I'm looking forward to seeing that. More than anything else, I want to find ways to use my online teaching experience to support the ideas and problem solving efforts by my friends in the Hungarian higher education context.

Learning: Snow Day

2009-02-23T13:47:00.005+01:00

When I was a child in the midwestern US state of Iowa, the best day in winter was a 'snow day'. That was a day when heavy snow, either the night before, or the day itself, made school bus travel impossible so school was canceled for the day. We would hear about the cancellation on the radio, and be overjoyed that there was a nice long day ahead when we could stay home, and, eventually, be ushered out the door by Mom to play in the snow.

Today I took a 'snow day' and stayed at our flat in the Napsugar Vendégház. Yes, it is snowing; actually more is piling up today than we've seen. The TV weather report mentioned up to 20 centimeters. But the snow is light and fluffy, the wind is calm, and the temperature not too cold. My boots would take me easily through the snow to the office, so there's not really a weather excuse for staying home.

My reason, though, is that the list of experiences, perceptions, and events about which I want to blog has now spilled over onto a second page. I certainly can't complain about having such a full life, but it's also good to occasionally step back and reflect upon what learning is taking place. I want to spend some extended time today writing and sharing some of the events that are forming this faculty exchange experience.

I've learned that a true welcome for a visiting faculty member is not just kind words and gifts, although we've been showered with those. The true gift is invitation for meaningful involvement with the place and people. We've been invited to so many different places and events--lunches with colleagues, formal tours of the library and campus, a dinner party in our rector's home, a water polo match, trips to the pool and thermal baths, a professional educator's conference and reception, Global Cooking night by the International students, a film festival, lunch with a notable young Hungarian film director and a Fulbright Scholar, a presentation and tour of the teacher education practice school, classes and lectures by colleagues, brainstorming sessions, and Hungarian language survival classes.

We've responded to nearly every invitation and suggestion, because everything is a learning experience here. Even going to the grocery store is a learning experience, as we usually bring home what we thought we were getting (although not always!), and, increasingly, we remember to take shopping bags and returnable bottles with us, and fumble less with our forints. So learning is taking place, at and away from Eszterházy Károly Föiskola--and learning to type accents is a part of it!

Culture: Boots

2009-02-22T21:04:00.005+01:00

This posting will likely cause a bit of a question as to professional relevance! Well, there's a reason for it. In preparation for this trip, we had to think about what clothing, outerwear, and footwear would be necessary to transform two warm climate people from South Georgia to people comfortable in Eger during the winter.

Tall boots in South Georgia? Well, yes, you see them, but only for fashion, not function. Just before I set out on this adventure, I was visiting in western Iowa/Nebraska where I grew up. It's very cold there in winter, and sometimes quite snowy. The day after Christmas two of my sisters and I set out on a time-honored (but not usually by us) tradition of shopping. We walked the malls, gawking at the overabundance of goods and shoppers. And we saw lots of beautiful winter boots--suddenly I actually had a reason to look and to buy!

I ended up buying the boots below, not anything I would ever buy in Georgia. But it was a right decision--since I've been in Eger, I know I'm almost in fashion (my boots are conservative and comfortable!) with almost everyone wearing tall black boots. The shop window above is just a pale version of the wide variety of boots seen on the street--extreme pointed toe cowboy boots with stitching seem especially popular, and very high heeled boots as well. I've even seen quite a number of young women wearing boots, textured tights, and shorts--a good look for the under college student population!

We now understand (from many of our hosts) that Spring is right around the corner. So I'll wear my nice boots in the snow and slush, knowing that "these boots were made for walking". And I'll think of the shopping trip with my sisters--they both bought boots that day, too. When I go back to the hot summer in Georgia, my boots will remind me of Eger until I return.

I Skype with my sisters, and one sister is actually coming to Eger soon to visit. It's a privilege to share this wonderful experience with my family and friends. Yes, I know...time to get back to substantive blogs!!!

Culture: Eszterházy Károly site (for my English speaking friends)

2009-02-20T12:57:00.007+01:00

A short post:

I was very excited and honored to find that the VSU - EKF faculty exchange had been recognized on the college home page. In fact, the photograph that is included was taken on top of the Minaret in 2004. Take a look!

Learn: Blog in Hungarian (for my English speaking friends)

2009-02-20T11:42:00.010+01:00

If you want to see the blog in Hungarian, go to this great site!

http://www.webforditas.hu/weblap-fordito.php

Just put the blog address http://zahnerpkm.blogspot.com/
into the translator. If only I could write in Hungarian--oh, I can!

Thanks, Sandor!

Culture: Water, Snow, and Steam

2009-02-17T20:16:00.002+01:00

This short posting (no pictures!) is to express appreciation for the wonder of soaking in a beautiful and steaming outdoor pool at the Eger Termal Baths, only a few blocks from our apartment. To be outdoors in February, swimming, soaking, and chatting with a friend, with light snow falling on our heads, at the end of a work day, is absolute stress relief. Every University town needs one of these, but not many have them--except in Hungary!

Culture: Media and Kis-Toth Lajos Photographs

2009-02-16T18:07:00.012+01:00

We've been interested to see what the mass media, and local media has to offer. Eszterházy Károly Főiskola has it's own Liceum Television that is broadcast on the satellite and online. If you'd like to take a look go to this link.

We look at TV at night, a little CNN, a little BBC, and an amazing number of shows that we kind of recognize (Moonlighting, The Saint, Andy Griffith), but in Hungarian. I can recognize a few words--even the Cartoon Channel! We get a Turner Classic Movie each night as well. The Superbowl was better the next day than it would have been at home--almost no commercials! They did include Bruce Springsteen's half-time show.

We've asked some people about how so much very current information, particularly sports events, are so quickly translated and dubbed, not just narrated. I'm not sure I have the full story yet. I'm confident I will learn more, however, because our department is very rich in knowledge, skill, and talent in media arts.

An example of this is Dr. Kis-Tóth's wonderful photographs of one of his several trips across the U.S. by automobile. His photos are on display in the Lyceum, and I'm able to tell him about the times I have visited most of the national parks he photographed. Jack and I were in Mesa Verde National Park, in the Cliff Palace (see above just last summer! And yesterday, Jack said, "There's the Vice Rector on TV!" It was an interview program called Arckepek--I'll have to ask him about it.

Teaching: E-Teaching for E-Learning Seminar, Week 1

2009-02-15T20:46:00.013+01:00

All PowerPoint slides in JPG

Last Thursday was my first E-Teaching for E-Learning Seminar. I appreciated the attendance of several colleagues. In the seminar I outlined the framework for the seminar series that will be held this semester. The first slide forms an introduction to the place of e-teaching in the service of e-learning. The graphic expresses a belief about e-teaching and e-learning. E-learning is on top, and should be increasing and improving all the time. The learning is what is important. E-teaching supports e-learning, and should make it possible for good e-learning to happen. E-teaching without e-learning is worthless.

Dr. Bertalan Komenczi welcomed the group to the first E-Teaching for E-Learning Seminar. Eszterházy Károly Főiskola and Valdosta State University have been official partners for 15 years. The Institute of Media Informatics hosted a delegation from Valdosta State University for the Agria Media Conference in 2004, and some distance collaboration was done in the intervening years. Dr. Komenczi said that this seminar would be the first one that would focus on E-Teaching, and would be held in English. He encouraged the participants to attend each week, and to assist each other to discuss, and ask and answer questions in English.

I began the seminar with a few sentences in Hungarian, including greetings, and introduction of myself and my husband, Dr. Jack Hasling. Dr. Hasling is a retired professor of sociology who will be informally participating in classes and seminars in the American Studies department. I apologized for not knowing more Hungarian, and expressed a desire to learn more during the February – May exchange period.

During this semester, we will meet regularly to talk about e-teaching. In the first seminar I communicated the framework of the seminar series. On other days, we will be less formal, and will discuss specific topics that the group finds interesting. I have created a a four-part framework that includes communicating my perspectives on online teaching, principles of online teaching, practices of online teaching, and promises about the seminar series from me to my colleagues, and from my colleagues to me.

FRAMEWORK: PERSPECTIVES

Academic perspective, or instructional point of view, is formed by academic training and teaching experiences. I wanted to tell the group about my academic training so they would understand where my perspective was formed. My first academic subject in college was telecommunicative arts, in which I studied the theory and practice of working in the areas of radio, television and film production and performance. After earning a bachelor’s degree in this field from Iowa State University, I worked in the broadcast industry in California for some short time.

My second academic subject was library and information sciences. I studied this field at the University of Iowa, and earned a Master’s degree. My speciality in this field was in college level libraries, especially in assisting library users as individuals and teaching groups of students to use the library. My time as a librarian spanned the time period during which computers became important for storage, automation, and communication, and the Internet became a necessary source of information.

My third academic subject was Instructional Systems Design (ISD), in which I earned my Ph.D. at Florida State University in 1992. ISD is a unique blend of learning theory, educational psychology, management, and technology. The discipline had an historical beginning in the United States just before the Second World War (1939-1945), when the military and military-industrial complex had a challenge of training new soldiers and factory workers to do jobs efficiently and at a high skill level. ISD is a discipline that encouraged application of scientific practices to the field of teaching and learning. Practitioners in the field may be in academic settings, like me, or may influence production of instructional materials for use by schools, colleges, businesses, government agencies, or the military.

All of my academic subjects help me with my job as a professor in a College of Education at Valdosta State University. I teach students in the areas of instructional design, learning theory, technology integration in schools, action research, needs assessment, program evaluation, and knowledge management.

Academic perspective is also formed by teaching experiences. There was a time when all of my classroom instruction was…in a classroom! Even then, I used a great deal of technology support including video, photography, and overhead projection. I moved to real-time interactive video delivery, with groups of students at specially equipped sites, and a group of students in the classroom with the instructor. This was an excellent system in our State, and was used for education and telemedicine. As the Internet developed, classroom and video classes became Web-enhanced (blended learning), and the classrooms became rich environments with areas for computer use, student collaboration and traditional professor-led instruction. The once-successful interactive video system lost support as the Internet grew. Since 2000, distance learning has been equated with online learning. We use Web-CT, an online course management system. Since 2002, I have taught almost exclusively online.

My academic training and teaching experiences have led me to my perspective about online teaching. From my background in telecommunications, I learned the importance of good design of instructional messages. From my library training, the importance of resources became clear. Like many librarians, I fully believe that it is not so important to know all information, but it is important to be able to find information when needed. My Ph.D. program in Instructional Systems Design included a great deal of emphasis on learning theory and the scientific principles of learning. The necessary connections among goals, outcomes, and assessments was stressed. I learned that technology could be a tool for learning, but was not the main focus of teaching.
Instructional Systems Design advances an argument that the “delivery system” (that is, via professor lecture, reading, discussion, computer-program, distance learning, or video) does not matter nearly as much as the quality of the content and design of the instruction itself. Good instruction is good instruction, no matter how it is delivered.

I thought it was important for my colleagues to understand my instructional context. I teach in a College of Education in a regional University in the Southern United States. Our University has 11.000 students, and teacher training is a strong focus of the mission of the university.
My department is the Department of Curriculum, Leadership, and Technology. Other departments in the College of Education focus on training beginning elementary, middle, and secondary school teachers, and on training special educational professionals such as speech pathologists, special education teachers (for children with mental or physical disabilities), and gifted education teachers (for children with advanced abilities).

My department has only graduate students, mostly teachers with a lot of practical experience. They continue their education in order to specialize their knowledge and also to get a higher pay. Most of the classes taught in our department are held at night, on the weekends, blended, or online. This is because most of the students work at their schools each day. They also take classes during the summer when the children’s schools are not in session. Because of these nontraditional (adult) students, I expect my students to have knowledge and experience to share with their peers (other students). So I know that they have much to teach each other, as well as what I have to teach them. I call this peer learning.

Other instructors in the department have chosen to deliver programs on weekends or at night in classroom settings. Those of us in the instructional technology area decided that our program and courses could be delivered online. This has been a popular decision, since it allows students from a far distance to take our program. The benefit of this group is that the students get to study with people who live in different size cities, different economic settings, and who teach different kinds of children. This diversity has made our program rich in depth.

FRAMEWORK: PRINCIPLES

The second part of the framework is Principles. By principles, I mean some common ideas that support teaching and learning in an online setting. These principles can be found in the professional literature, but also by examining my own practices to see what works best across many instances. I made a long list of principles, too many for us to speak about in the time that we will meet in the seminar. I hope my colleagues will help me to choose principles that would be interesting for the local context, and we will focus only on those. I also hope they will suggest topics for seminars in the weeks ahead. For the first seminar, I gave an example using the first two principles--identity and community.

Identity is “who we are”. In a classroom setting that might include an introduction of names, courses of study, and perhaps academic interests. Some students might know each other already from other classes, or from previous experiences. Some students might talk to each other after class, and meet in social settings. In an online class, especially at the beginning of an online program, the students do not know each other. They do not live close to each other, and they do not see each other. Online students are alone at their computers in their homes. I think it is important to plan activities that allow students to share their identities. By writing autobiographies, and including photographs or video of themselves, they feel more involved in the class. The instructor and other students have more information about them, and a friendlier environment is established. Communication in online courses is very often only conducted through writing. More personal connection makes it possible to interpret written communication in a more precise way.

Community is related to identity. My courses, whether online or not, have always stressed having students work together in teams and groups. As said earlier in the presentation, I expect my students to engage in peer learning, in addition to learning from the textbook, other resources, and my lectures. By giving students the opportunity to share their interests, and to propose what technologies they know and want to know, they make connections with each other. The more the students know about each other, the better they are able to work together on course projects.

FRAMEWORK: PRACTICE

The third part of the seminar framework is practice. I have taught many online courses, and used various practices in the courses. I am currently teaching a course at Valdosta State University, and this will be a good way for me to show my practices in an immediate way.

My course is described on this slide. The Course Description is: Survey and analysis of the theoretical perspectives of change, communication, diffusion, systems, learning, and instruction as applied in instructional technology.

FRAMEWORK: PROMISES

The fourth part of the framework involves promises. I want this seminar to be helpful and interesting, and to do so I must ask my colleagues to help shape the content of the seminar. The seminar will be in English, but I will try to speak some Hungarian. I hope they will help me when I use wrong words or pronounce words incorrectly. I will be appreciative and helpful as they speak English, and I know that there are varied levels of English speaking among the group. I know they will help each other with translation.

Another kind of language that sometimes needs translation is jargon. Very often people in Education use words in a particular way that might not translate very well. If I use an English word that does not seem to make sense in the context, I hope my colleagues will let me know. As I said earlier, my instructional context is very specific and may not be similar. I ask for help to generalize the principles by explanations of EKF teaching situations, so we can discuss how the principles may apply. The classroom and collegial culture has some differences between the U.S. and Hungary. I hope they will help me to do things appropriately, and tell me if what I propose would be considered offensive or inappropriate.

If there are others, whether in our Institute or not, I ask my colleagues to please invite them to attend the seminar. If people can come only occasionally, that’s OK. I also asked that they invite me to attend classes, or other activities. The more I can see of EKF work, the better I will understand. That includes seeing what is going on online, if that is possible.

SHOW and TELL: DEMONSTRATION OF PRACTICE

I showed the group a bit of my ITED 8100 course. My students welcomed my Hungarian colleagues to the course, in written discussion messages. I showed a couple of the introductory discussions and will show the assignments (also called prompts) below. The first one addressed the principle of Identity, the second one addressed the principle of Community.

Biography Exercise 1: Just the Facts

REPLY to the Just the Facts instructor prompt below with a posting in which youintroduce yourself to me and to your peers. State your name, what you like to be called, where you live, where you work, what you do in your job, and any facts about your family, interests, or background you'd like to share. Please attach a digital picture of yourself if possible.

Biography Exercise 2: Birds of a Feather

In this discussion group, CREATE MESSAGE in which you propose a particular instructional technology tool that you know a lot about, or would like to know about. Briefly describe your interest and experience. The subject line of the message should be descriptive of the technology, and whether you are an expert, enthusiast, or wannabe. Examples of such subject lines would be: Interactive Whiteboards-My Passion! Or Digital Moviemaking: Beginner Level. Monitor this Biography Discussion Area during the next week, and REPLY to any postings that describe areas in which you are also skilled or interested. This networking will help start our Ed.S. Learning Community.

I also showed a Yearbook of pictures and personal information about the students in the class. This document helps the students to get to know each other. A Google map, which helps people to know where other students live, was also shown.

We'll start next week's seminar discussing activities that may help with identity and community in online classes. I gave the group an assignment--or HOMEWORK, as Dr. Komenczi called it.

Following the seminar came the best part--we went to a nice restaurant for brainstorming and refreshments. We talked for so long, it became dark, and the gates leading to my office were locked. Oh, well! It was a great day for me, and, I hope, for the rest of the seminar group.

Teaching: I'm more than six hours behind, not ahead!

2009-02-15T18:17:00.004+01:00

My online class at VSU seems to be spinning along quite nicely--and it feels a little like they are doing it without me. I am so accustomed to spending time each day interacting with student postings within the discussion areas. This is especially true during the first six weeks of the course, when the large majority of instructional design and technology material is introduced through the textbook readings. Most of the students are new to instructional technology, and so the terminology, theories, and perspectives are new as well. I think of myself as a "Friendly Facilitator" during this class--one who designs activities and experiences which will guide the students to engage with this new material in meaningful ways.

So...am I facilitating as usual? I am reading postings, and answering direct questions from students posed through mail and the ITED 8100 Help Discussion Group. I am noting whether and which students have replied in proper format and on time, and giving reminders to those who may not be participating fully (an extremely very small number of instances this term so far). I am noticing and thanking students for their initiative in helping each other, either with course questions, or with problems in their own professional teaching practices. I am also publishing a weekly detailed posting called the "Friendly Facilitator" in which I comment on the general direction of the course, synthesize individual work into class summaries, and give advice on upcoming activities and workload. I did realize today that I "owed" the students a Module 4 Friendly Facilitator, and posted that one. It really should have come out toward the middle of last week.

I'll work on another Friendly Facilitator posting tonight or tomorrow, based on the work the students did last week in Module 5. I was trying to access and read the postings in that Module late this morning on the network in our apartment. While I am TOTALLY grateful that we have this Internet access at home, I have to admit that interaction with the many pop up windows and image loading within WebCT is a heavy load for this wireless connection. I've devised a workaround for the many times that I need to read a large number of student postings. I select all the postings, including my prompt, then use the "Create Printable View" feature to open all the postings in one file. I "print" the file to pdf and save it on my desktop. Then I'm able to read, take notes, and prepare my Friendly Facilitator remarks "offline", saving me frustration when I get knocked off the network. Funny...that's exactly the kind of workaround advice I give my students!!! Sometimes I think I've been spoiled by fast connections at home and school--this is a good lesson in empathy for some of my students who have to work on slower or variable connections.

So...am I facilitating as usual? Enough? Probably from the student point of view, yes. But, from my point of view, the competition for my attention here in Eger is quite intense. I'm meeting new people, getting settled in a new (fabulously old) office, trying to learn some Hungarian language, coping with a new climate (it's snowing!), and wonderfully spending time walking instead of in a car. I'm also trying to communicate with a lot of people, both in the US and here, through this blog.

This is the first blog I've really written, and it reminds me very much of the kind of time management challenge, and resulting addictive behavior, that has sometimes characterized my online teaching. So I think I am facilitating my ITED 8100 class almost as usual, with the blog siphoning off a bit of my time and discussion posting energy.

Another difference is that while I did meet in a synchronous face-to-face Wimba Live Classroom setting once with the students since I've been in Hungary, this doesn't seem to be practical on a regular basis due to the time differences. I plan to have the students use Live Classroom, for some activities and for presentation of a major group project called the Online Learning Activity. This is important because the whole program leads to their final research presentation to be conducted in a similar setting, a few semesters down the road.

There is one doctoral student in the course who is an IT Master's graduate and works as a Training Specialist for VSU. So he is amply prepared to act as my surrogate facilitator, and will guide the students to archive (record) their presentations so I can review and grade (when relevant) from the archived version of the work.

So, the students seem to be getting along fine without my "Mother Hen" impersonation. In a couple of weeks I will have a large number of very detailed papers to grade--I'm going to have to hide out for a few days and dedicate myself to my VSU teaching then. But until then, and after, I'm going to take this opportunity to do 'enough' to help my students learn, and to reflect on this experience. This reflection will have two benefits: 1) it will add to my weekly E-Teaching for E-Learning Seminar with colleagues here in Eger (upcoming blog posting outlining the first week), and 2) it will likely make me a better and more thoughtful online teacher and designer.

One thing online instructors are sometimes slapped in the face with is that they are not necessarily the 'center of the universe'--and that students can learn from well designed activities and assessments, and appropriate (not necessarily voluminous) feedback. They need me--just not all the time!

Fun: The Swimming Pool

2009-02-14T13:42:00.004+01:00

I have a lot of serious blogging to catch up on. This was busy week, and included meetings with Lajos Kis-Toth, the Vice Rector, my first "survival Hungarian" class, lunch at the "Red Lobster", meeting Paul Swann, a Fulbright scholar from Temple University, our official welcome from Zoltan Hauser, the Rector, and my first E-Teaching for Learning Seminar. Many of those events deserve a blog all to themselves. But right now I will just say, "Happy Valentine's Day" to everyone and tell you about the wonderful swimming facility they have here in Eger.

You have to see it to believe it, so click on the link above to virtually visit the Bitskey Aladar Uszoda, designed by architect Makokvecz Imre. A new friend and colleague was kind enough to invite me to meet her there, so I could 'learn the ropes', that is, understand the procedures. She says she tries to go there at least once a week to relieve the stresses of the job--and I can certainly see how this would help! There were many people coming in after work, and bringing children to swim and to practice swimming. There is a 50 metre pool (I think that's the first one I've even swum in), that looks pretty long when you push off from the end. A smaller pool is heated to a warmer temperature, and I think in warmer months there is an outside area, too. There's a pleasantly hot sauna, large jacuzzi, and very nice changing rooms. With passes to this place, supplied by our wonderful Ezsterhazy Karoly hosts, located a very short and easy walk from our apartment, we have NO EXCUSE for getting out of shape during our stay here!

We also look forward to going to the pool for water polo games; in fact, there is one tomorrow. We were told that Eger's team is quite good, ranked first in Hungary, and includes Olympians from 2008. I've never seen water polo, except on television, so look forward to the match tomorrow. I read from the website linked above that they also play "underwater hockey" in that pool--learn about that sport from the Eger Online website--you heard about it here!

*Note after the fact: We enjoyed watching the match on Sunday--thanks to Dr. Hauser for the invitation. Unfortunately, Eger finished behind 10-7. I look forward to attending regularly so that the rules I looked up in Wikipedia will make sense!

Teaching: American Corner

2009-02-11T20:51:00.003+01:00

We visited the American Corner the other day, a room within the library in the Lyceum. The resources in this room are furnished by the U.S. Embassy, a part of a program that is in many countries. I remember that in 2004 when I was here before, Eger had applied for this program but it was not yet granted.

Both Jack and I will give talks about American culture topics for the public in this setting at some point while we are here, but the subjects and dates have not yet been set. There are a lot of good resources there, and Gabor Jakubik, the man in charge, is kind and knowledgeable. It's a source of English language books--important for readaholics like us when we finish what we've brought. We'll look for a good place to donate the books we have, and will enjoy reading what's in this area. However, it's at least my goal to be able to read 'kiddy books' in Hungarian by April! Any recommendations?

Learning: Like a Child

2009-02-11T20:41:00.002+01:00

An interesting thing happened last week, just after moving in. We awoke around 2:00 A.M. to the sound of the doorbell, downstairs in our guesthouse. We thought we were the only ones in the house, and that the landlady did not stay here. But then we heard footsteps on the stairs and had one of the "what do we do now" moments.

It's interesting that we hadn't really anticipated what it would take to report some kind of emergency, whether it be crime, fire, or medical. It immediately reminded me of what our young grandchildren had been drilled on--learn to say your name, address, phone number, etc. So now I can recite the essentials in Hungarian, including spelling of my name. And I can even use my cell phone, now that the commands are in English! By the way, there was no emergency and everything is fine in our house...just an interesting lesson in the basics.

Fun: More Video

2009-02-11T14:45:00.004+01:00

Mr. Forgo liked the video of the Mangalica Festival--here's another short video to see how well I can load it on this fast connection in my office!

Culture: Good Memories

2009-02-11T14:29:00.004+01:00

Sandor Forgo sent me a pdf file of a description of the Valdosta State University faculty visit at the Agria Media Conference in October, 2004. We all look even better than we did then! Happy memories and a definite reminder of why I have looked forward to coming back for so long. If anyone is interested in seeing this original document, please click on the following link:

http://www.ektf.hu/~forgos/hivatkoz/HungaryReport2.pdf

Teaching: Ahead

2009-02-10T17:50:00.002+01:00

Well, it's settled now--my first official "Online Teaching for Learning" seminar will be Thursday at 2:00 P.M., and several faculty members have said they will attend. I've decided on a framework of Perspective, Principle, Practice, and Promises, and will upload the PowerPoint file to the blog, once I get it done! My ITED 8100 students (current class) will form the "Practice" part of the seminars, and several of them have already responded to a request to write a welcome to my Hungarian colleagues in one of the discussion areas. Of course, the class has already assembled a large body of work, with over 500 postings in just the first five weeks. Quantity is not everything, but this course is structured to have the most writing and individual work in the first third of the class, and generally sets the tone that students should try to understand their own experiences in relation to the textbook concepts. This course appears to be developing as other times I've taught it--the students themselves, experienced educational professionals, are the greatest source of expertise and understanding of all. More later...

Fun: Weekend Report

2009-02-09T18:29:00.011+01:00

We just pulled in on the train from a weekend in Budapest--lots of art, architecture, and walking. We found a three day winter special rate at a small hotel in a good location close to the Great Market Hall and the Szabadsag hid (bridge). You can tell that winter is a slow season, and, likely, especially slow during this economic situation. You couldn't tell times were slow in the Market Hall on Saturday morning though--big crowds shopping for vegetables, meats, cheeses, and breads.

Art is always at the top of the list for us when we visit a city, so we spent a lot of time at the wonderful Hungarian National Gallery (Nemzeti Galeria). As the guide book says, "with a collection of 10,000 art objects, this museum is not for the cultural faint of heart". It's enormous, and so interesting because these are not works of art we've seen before, and yet, they are familiar in style with other European works that we have seen. It's all new...to us.

In addition, the collection is in Buda Palace, on the top of Castle Hill overlooking the Danube River, and the many bridges crossing it. We happened into a complete retrospective exhibition of Vajda Lajos, a famous Hungarian artist. We went through that exhibit first, and then were totally amazed by the galleries upon galleries still to go. We'll return next time and visit some areas we only viewed for a short time, or not at all. We strolled around on Castle Hill, and looked at the view of the Danube and Pest from the Fisherman's Bastion, but didn't go into St. Matyas Church. Next trip, I want to see that again, with the amazing painted and decorated interiors.

Beyond art, we did transportation pretty well. We crossed two of the famous bridges over the Danube on foot, went up to Palace Hill on the funicular (siklo), managed the Metro without being kicked off or fined for incorrect ticket behavior (!), and narrowly escaped being mashed flat by a speeding yellow tram. The train trip to and from Eger was uneventful and inexpensive, but did include some unexplained (to us) stops.

In sightseeing, we admired the gilt and glitter of the sacred and the profane (respectively) St. Istvan Cathedral and the Four Seasons Hotel lobby (also known as Gresham Palace). We took a walking tour of the Jewish Quarter, with most sights gone now, or being redeveloped. The Holocaust Memorial remembers the 600,000 Hungarian Jews who died during those years. We walked into the Opera House lobby, but didn't attend the program that was in progress.

Our hotel included breakfast in the fixed three day cost, so we didn't have to find lunch, although there are many inviting restaurants and kavehaz (coffeehouses). We didn't eat 'Hungarian'--instead went to a tapas bar one night, and an Italian restaurant another. Both had Hungarian flavor, however, and were interesting urban choices. For really Hungarian food, we managed to find out about, and go to, a local festival--the Mangalica pig festival!

The festival was held in the Varosliget (City Park) near the Szechenyi Baths, and was quite crowded with crafts, music, food, beer, wine, and palinka. There was even a live Mangalica piglet being strolled around in a cart full of straw, although we could never get close enough to see the hairy little creature. The Mangalica is a Hungarian breed of pig that almost went extinct during the Communist era due to lack of suitability for mass production--it's now coming back as a healthy meat, and source of national agricultural pride. They were serving the pork in all kinds of ways from sausage to roast to stuffed cabbage, and more.

The weather was very good on the weekend, with temperatures getting up in the 40's, and blue sky even coming through at some times. We did have some rain, and we saw a few snowflakes this morning as we walked to the train station. There was some snow on the ground near Budapest, but by the time we got close to Eger, no more.

We went through our emails to make sure we don't miss anything we're supposed to be doing tomorrow. They are taking it easy on us...or they don't quite know what to do with us. The American Studies folks (all English-speaking) are interested in Jack's contribution, but nothing concrete has yet been set up. My 'debut' will be Thursday, my first seminar on online teaching. I've got to work on that so they'll think I've got my act together, at least for the first week! I woke up early this morning with the structure of the seminar series in my head--I guess I've been working on it in my sleep. I had a pad of paper nearby, jotted some notes, and will work on fleshing it out tomorrow when I spend my first full day in the office.

I think we're going to start going to a survival Hungarian class next week--they hold it for the international students. All in all, however, I think we're doing pretty good with the phrasebook and kindness of strangers (and English-speakers!).

At the Mangalica Festival...hungry after waiting in a long line!

Fun: To Budapest

2009-02-06T10:57:00.002+01:00

We're heading to Budapest for the weekend, taking the train. We've figured out how to ask for the tickets, and written it down just in case. I sound good to myself when I practice Hungarian (Magygar) in my room, but somehow all but the pleasantries become garbled out in public. Oh, well, this is only Week 1~

I was in Budapest for a few days in 2004. The slide show on the blog is from that trip. I expect we'll have some new pictures from this trip to load on Monday or Tuesday. I made sure to look for a hotel in the same general area as I was before, so I can get oriented as easily as possible. The weather is grey, but relatively warm. They say the snow from Britain is on it's way to central Europe, but the forecast doesn't indicate that until Monday.

So off we go to see the Castle, the bridges, the Great Market, and Parliament. Budapest is a great walking city, with the utcas (streets) and the ters (squares).

Culture: Kindness and Hospitality

2009-02-04T20:03:00.007+01:00

There isn't any way to overstate the kindness and hospitality of our Hungarian hosts. After a pleasant weekend of settling in, adding a few things to the apartment, taking lots of walks, and catching up on sleep, we were ready to get started. Dr. Bertalan Komenczi had been a Louie A. Brown scholar in our department at Valdosta State University in 2004. He's the link that led to this exchange six years later, as well as to the opportunity for me and my colleagues to attend and present at the Agria Media Conference here in Eger in 2004.

Jack and I went to the Lyceum (a more descriptive name for this beautiful 18th century building than the alternative "Building A") in late morning. We were met by Mr. Sandor Forgo, whom I'd also met in 2004, and we started on a long and winding path up many wide and narrow staircases, low passageways, iron gates, and numerous 12 foot high doors to get to the department. Dr. Komenczi was there, in the office they had arranged for me.

Large, beautifully decorated, computer (a promised American keyboard to come soon), and with a window looking out to the courtyard far below. I'm in the tower of the Lyceum, not quite at the small space at the top, but not far from it!

I was presented with a letter of welcome from the Vice Rector, Dr. Lajos Kis-Toth, who will return next week, and a gift of Eger wines. Coffee and champagne were offered--we had the 'kave' from the espresso machine just outside my office...that will be handy! We took a tour of the many segments of the Institute of Media Informatics and the Instructional Technology and Multimedia areas. The faculty and students are spread over three floors, in many rooms, and it was difficult to keep track of who was who.

We visited students who maintain the college website, staff and students who run the college TV station, and department and institute staff and faculty. It's going to be a challenge to learn names and to connect them with where they work and what they do, but it's just going to take time and willingness to ask for help. Bert (Dr. Komenczi speaks English very well, Mr. Forgo does well, but defers to Bert for assistance. Gaby, the department secretary, is very fluent, so that will really be a help to me. Both Jack and I are trying and will continue to try to learn as much as we can, but, realistically, we probably won't get too much beyond the basics. We are going to take a "survival Hungarian" course along with the international students who will arrive next week on campus--should be fun!

After the tour it was time for lunch--after toasting our venture with the earlier offered champagne. Jack, Bert, Sandor and I had a great HBH lunch (same restaurant as on Friday with Sandor), and managed not to overorder quite so much. We did have our first palinka apperitif, though, and felt very honored by the welcome!

Culture: Meeting with Andras Tarnoc

2009-02-03T18:48:00.003+01:00

It was very pleasant for us to meet Tarnoc Andras (in Hungary family names are put first) again. Andras is the Director of International Programs, and teaches in the American Studies department, which uses English as the language of instruction. He came to our apartment, bearing the gifts of inviting tourist brochures and maps from the region, and a bells and whistles cell (or mobile, as they say here) phone for us to use during this time.

Of all common technologies, I must say that cell phones are my least favorite. I've made do with a "Target" phone, just buying minutes when required to keep the phone alive, and seldom using the minutes I have. The phone I had was not going to work over here, so I did finally use up most of the minutes in our December travels, and plan to get a "real phone" when we get back to the States. That is, if I don't totally go nuts trying to use this one. What's the problem? All the screen controls are in Hungarian, as is the manual! Yes, I know I need to go back to the T-Mobile store and get the language changed. But, for the weekend, it has been an interesting exercise--downloading the correct model manual in pdf from the Internet, comparing it section by section with the printed manual in Hungarian, simultaneously looking at the screen and seeking the VERY LONG WORDS that comprise the commands. I did get some contacts in there (only accidentally dialing Dr. Komenczi once on the weekend in the process), I did actually answer the phone once when Andras called, but I've missed a couple of calls and darned if I can figure out how to listen to the messages! Tomorrow--T-MOBILE and take a number from the machine on the wall to wait your turn in the queue!

Following a nice walking tour from our apartment to the centrum, Andras, Jack and I had a typical Hungarian lunch (huge) at the HBH, a wonderful restaurant-sorozo (beer) place, that I remember from last trip. I was forwarned, and ordered somewhat carefully, with oxtail soup (great), cucumber salad, and pike (fish) with pesto. Jack had the classic bean and ham (sometimes sausage) soup that's so wonderful--nice big dollop of sour cream, followed by a veal and noodle dish with paprikash sauce. Way too much for Jack! Andras assured us that it was OK to take it home for supper--Jack did ask because that's definitely viewed in different ways in different cultures. Side dishes? Potatoes, potatoes...nem. Bread...bread...nem. Dessert? Nem. One of these days I may eat a small enough meal to say "igen" for dessert, but that's not in sight yet!

We'll meet Andras again next week to make plans about what we can do within the American Studies area--obviously Jack has a lot to offer as a sociologist. It was interesting to see how much we talked about the change in the U.S. administration--good for American Studies as Andras sees it, and hopefully, good for us, too.

Learning: We were (mostly) right

2009-02-02T20:07:00.000+01:00

Getting ready for this trip has been a long and hectic experience. All the wondering and anxiety about what we'd need to "survive" four months in Hungary, and how our home would "survive" four months without us, has been put to rest. We (mostly me) did more than adequate preparation and worrying, and, I think, did well. The house will survive, thanks to the care of friends. The office will survive, thanks to my colleagues. Our families will survive, thanks to Skype and the fact that we saw everybody in a whirlwind trip from Georgia to Virginia to Iowa to New Orleans in December--and that they usually don't see us for at least four months at a stretch, anyway. In fact, the grandkids didn't seem particularly impressed yesterday when they could talk to us and see us through Skype--what's the difference, Hungary or Georgia? (and we got them a globe for Christmas!). And my students will survive, since I brought them with me on the other end of Bb WebCT Vista, just six hours offset.

Jack and I will, no doubt, survive and thrive. Yes, it's winter here, and we get to regularly wear long coats and long underwear for the first time since we left in Wisconsin almost 30 years ago. But they say unusually warm winters are happening more and more (global warming), and this is one. Maybe we'll get snow tomorrow, but maybe not. Anyway, what a great excuse for buying beautiful knee high black boots (yes, everyone is wearing them), and silk long underwear (who knows?), and great wool clothing from the consignment shop! By the way, that last sentence was strictly for Jane! Jack gets to sport a leather driving hat and his Uncle Pat's cashmere overcoat--very handsome.

The main reason we will survive and thrive is our hosts. Amazing hospitality and organization. After an easy (and empty) flight from Atlanta to London on British Airways, and transfer to a full Malev (Hungarian Airline) flight, we were met at the Budapest airport by a young woman from the International Programs area, and a driver. Our luggage arrived without incident or loss (whew) and we went to a giant Walmart like place for some shopping. Between disorientation caused by jet lag and more disorientation by finding ourselves in a megamart, we bought a few useful groceries (cabbage, onions, garlic, potatoes, pasta, beans, olive oil, salami, cheese, bread) and proceeded to Eger.

It was kind of a long way around, so it took awhile to get to Eger. We had a great time talking with Anita, who wants to come to our University for further study (we'll be fortunate to have her), and to improve her English (already very good). It was interesting to me how much she knew about the U.S., and especially her interest in the national parks and different regions of the country. As we were coming into the city, we passed through the vineyards near the "Valley of the Beautiful Women", an area famous for the wine cellars embedded in the limestone caves there.

Our home for the next four months is the Napsugar Vendeghaz in Eger, Hungary. Napsugar means "sunshine" and we've seen some here, already, plus a few lazy snowflakes. We're very comfortable with a large sitting room with balcony (for warmer times), a bedroom and bath, full kitchen across the hall, and access to an additional guest room and guest bath. We've even got wi-fi that works pretty well! Right now we're the only people in the building, although Valera (our landlady) is here a lot, and we haven't quite figured out her schedule. We've unpacked, cooked on the gas stove, made espresso stovetop, listened to music (yes, I brought my iPod and speakers), slept, showered, watched TV (more on that later), and shopped (mostly) without difficulty (difficulties will be in the "Culture" postings!). We have not yet washed clothes, vacuumed, or hung clothes out to dry on the balcony--those are kay-shoob (later, transliterated, since I don't know how to type accents properly yet).

In any case, I think we prepared the best we could, and it's turned out well. Maybe we brought too much stuff, especially cold weather gear. Maybe we shouldn't have bothered with some of the shampoo, toothpaste, etc., since it's all clearly available here. I know we were right to bring books, both Hungarian language materials, and English reading materials. I know I was right to listen to Hungarian language recordings, because I can say and understand a few useful things already. I'm glad I brought the laptop, now that I know I can "work from home". I know this was the right exchange for us right now, and we're very happy to be here.

Learning: Getting Started...

2009-02-02T19:04:00.001+01:00

It's the first of February, the day I've contracted to begin a faculty exchange assignment in Eger, Hungary. My husband and I arrived in Eger last Thursday, and the intervening days have been full and interesting. I'll backtrack to those days, as well as to the (seemingly) months of preparation in upcoming posts. However, right now I want to get this blog started with today.

I'm inviting friends and family to read the blog, as well as my colleagues and students. The focus will be on teaching from Hungary, since while I'm here I'm continuing to teach a post-masters level course in instructional technology online through my home institution, Valdosta State University. Some people say that a big advantage of online teaching is the freedom from geographical limitations--both students and teachers. Well, this will be a test of that theory.

I am a very interactive and involved online instructor--one might even say compulsive. I get to know my students very well through lots of online discussion and feedback, and through synchronous activities, mostly using Wimba Live Classroom. Having experienced an early start in distance learning via two-way interactive television back in the 90's, I have enjoyed reintroducing video and audio in my online classes, now that the technology has become more robust. Am I going to have problems with my class structure now that I'm six hours ahead of my students? No doubt. Can we work around the time difference and maintain the level of interaction I value? We'll see.

So one purpose of this blog is for me to analyze, reflect upon, and communicate what it is like to teach from a FAR distance, that is, out of the normal support situation, and with very different competing concerns that the usual University office administrivia that takes away from instructional time. In parallel, I will be holding a weekly seminar on the Eszterhazy Karoly Foiskola (note to self: need to learn to type accents and diacritical marks) in which I describe to interested faculty what has gone on that week in my class. They are interested in seeing how a professor dedicated to lots of interaction in online instruction goes about it.

Exercises in reflective teaching--after all, I'm up for post-tenure review this fall! All of the posts in which I focus on this purpose will have a subject line that starts with "Teaching".

"Learning" is what I really expect to be doing a lot. Whether it's understanding the Hungarian language (whew!), dealing with keyboards and cell phone directions in Hungarian, or using an unfamiliar washing machine, library, or subway system, the next four months had better include serious learning on my part! When I comment on these experiences, the subject line on the post will start with "Learning".

The blog isn't going to be all academic and dry, however. I want to make this a place for my friends, family and colleagues to follow our adventures and share our travels. I know I'll want to post a lot about "Culture", that is, what you don't know about Hungary, and to share our "Fun". Posts that focus on those two areas will have subject lines indicating the content--if you want to skip the teaching and learning posts--go ahead!

Teaching: Destination

2008-12-08T00:49:00.001+01:00

Here's the link to the Eszterhazy Karoly College site.

I was there for a week long conference in 2004 with my colleagues Dr. Lorraine Schmertzing, Dr. Richard Schmertzing, Dr. Lars Leader, Dr. Catherine Price, Ms. Brooke Price, and Mr. Tom Price. It's a beautiful city and campus, and my husband Jack and I are looking forward to our time there in 2009.