Woei, very busy week with lots of activities, so updates will be fewer!
On Tueseday, we went to the Viking ship museum in Roskilde, because some people had to do their visual culture task there.
After walking a fair bit through a beautiful park, we arrived at Roskilde Fjord. The fjord in itself was worth the trip, it is so beautiful!
We paid our entrance fee and entered the museum a bit later.
The museum was built in Roskilde to house four Viking ships which were dug up from the fjord and then treated and reconstructed. Viking culture is a big part of Danish history, so these boats are seen and treated as national treasures. The longboat, which could hold over 80 people was especially impressive. There were also various documentary showings explaining the Viking travels, the use of these boats, and their travels. The Viking ships were very fast, which is why they could travel such impressive distances in their time.
There was also the possibility to dress up as Vikings, which was perfect for the group doing their Visual Culture task, but also very fun. ;)
On Wednesday, we had class again. In Danish, we sang "Frère Jacques" (Broeder Jakob) in Danish, as well as in our Native languages - Which was pretty fun!
In Globalisation, we were asked to bring laptops, which wasn't the best idea I think. The laptops weren't REALLY necessary and almost everyone was on Facebook most of the time. The lesson itself was also very stretched, in the four hours we were there, we were only really active for about half an hour of that time. Which is a shame, since the concept being taught was very interesting! We focused on the use of globalisation in regards to Education. Especially the use of "The Internet" was focused upon.
We were told about three websites:
The Image of the Other is an on-line project for teachers, where they can find "e-mail partners" for their pupils. Through a series of structured e-mails, they will get to know their partner, and form an image of them. For every part of the series, there is a skeleton structure to help the pupils.
eTwinning - As the name would imply this website is a platform for teachers to "twin" (ie. pair up) with a class group from a different country, and to work out one of their own projects. Belgium, has 1042 schools registered already, and they have been involved in 408 projects.
One example of a possible project was shown to us in class. The teacher got hold of two free newspapers, one local, and one international. (In this case, "Metro" was the international one) - And the pupils were asked to pick out one part of each newspaper (one article, a headline, a picture) and report back to their "twin" in a different country, what their newspaper had to say.
British Comenius Programme - This link was given to us with the added phrase "Located in Brussels, they have over 1 billion euros to spend on the lifelong learning programme, why not take a piece of the pie?" - Which is an immediate attention-puller. The website lists a lot of possibilities for teachers, to improve their skills even after graduating.
On Thursday our Visual Culture group went to the Karen Blixen museum in Rungsted.
For those who don't know who she is, she is the author of the book "Out of Africa", which was the basis for a well-known movie starring Meryl Streep. She often used the pen-name "Isak Dinesen" as well.
She was born in a bourgeois family, but was plagued by disease and bad luck her whole life. Her father hung himself after being diagnosed with Syphilis when she was eight years old.
The museum is actually her old mansion, which she left to the foundation she founded for the preservation of Danish Art. Part of it is turned into a restaurant, and a museum detailing her life. The other part is the (very) well-preserved house in which she lived out her days.
To preserve the house, you need to wear these funny-looking cloth bags over your shoes.
In the evening, some of us met up to go see Tim Burton's adaptation of "Alice in Wonderland" in 3D! It was awesome!
