PC/IT Use - Games statistics

Nowadays computers are an essential element in the everyday life of humans. The Comenius project as aforesaid is about leisure time activities. These statistics are therefore aligned with the PC and consoles concerning the free time response. We, that are Stefan and I, have suspected before carrying out the survey that the computer is a technological medium very often taken advantage of. The survey confirms this view. So and now the facts!

Our survey deals with modern information and communication technology. We have noticed that for many young people the computer is very important and is a part of everyday life.
Each of 39 asked students uses the PC at least in school or at home once a day. It isn´t only used for homework and studying, but also for chatting with friends, listening to music or for playing a game.












Almost every student spends about 2 hours a day with his little companion - this is already much time. However, this has also many advantages, especially for the later profession.
It is a positive point of the survey that there is much less interest in computer games. The trend fades, that one meets friends in the community at weekends and plays together games.


With the results we are convinced that one can´t remove the PC from our weekday any more. Many people wouldn’t like to do without it. The habits and needs of the people changed very much and will continue to change very much. In future we will be even more dependent on computers and internet. We are curious what awaits us. Perhaps star wars becomes reality soon.
by Dennis and Stefan (copyright picture: Dennis)

One week in Belgium - two German diaries

Torben:
Our great trip began on Tuesday. We took the train via Cologne to Brussels. We arrived in the afternoon so we had the afternoon for checking in in the hotel and going into a restaurant with the teachers.
Brussels is an amazing city with an high rate of chocolate shops and places where you can buy french fries. Our second day in Brussels was also interesting because we saw some sights of the Belgian capital like the Atomium.Later we went via Liège to Aywaille to meet our host students. This was the decisive moment, my first contact to the Belgian students.
First the circumstances were confusing because Lisa's host student was ill and Sophie had already two students. So Sophie and her family had to share their house with three guest students. But everybody was nice, a good premise for getting along with each other. The communication was no problem because everybody was able to speak English only to start a conversation was a thing we had to come across. Sophie's family was very nice. She has a German step mother that made the interactions way easier. Her father is in his free time a clown for ill children in the hospital. Sophie's sisters were also very nice but I didn`t talk a lot to them because they spent most of the time during our visit at the home of their mother.
My time in Belgium was coined by great conversations with great people. I never made a bad experience with Belgian people and I was impressed by the politeness of them. Talking to Belgian people gives you the feeling of being an interesting person, I like that.
Torben

Hendrik:
Tuesday, the 20th of October our Comenius team took a train to Brussels and we arrived there in the evening. Our Comenius team had the following participants: The 4 students Olesja, Lisa,Torben and me and also the 4 teachers Mrs Holzinger, Mrs. Janoschek, Mrs. Spielhoff and Mr. Braun. Mr.Braun has the intention to move to Brussels soon and therefore he was able to show us the most important sights of this town. On Tuesday evening we took a walk to the Grand Place which used to be a place for market traders to sell their wares. Today there a lot of restaurants, pubs and the town hall, which is like the others a magnificent building on this square. Close to this place is also the Manneken Pis, which is also an attraction, but I still don’t understand why. Everywhere in this town are chocolate stores where we bought pralines, which is a speciality of Belgium. Later we went to a pub called “mort surbite”. There we drank the Belgium beer, which is also famous and we got to know that they produce in Belgium fruit beers.
On the next day we visited the Atomium which is a monument built for Expo 1958, visited some European institutions and on the same day we took a train to Aywaille where we met finally our host families. Florence , my hostsister and her dad picked me up there. Florence has got three brothers and one brother who still lives at home. His name is Benoit and he was very nice. Unfortunately her parents and Benoit were not able to speak English and so we had to communicate in French, which was kind of hard. I was only able to understand them when they spoke slowly. Florence was already in Bremen and she stayed at my house and so we already knew each other.
On Thursday we went to school with a bus and it took one hour to get to school, because my host family lives in Tilf which is about 7 km away from Liege. When we arrived at school in Aywaille, we studied the first two hours English with the other host students from Spain and France. Later we had a little ceremony at the town hall. The director of the school welcomed us there. After a mime show the boys played soccer at school and in the afternoon I went with Benoit through the town in Tilf. It’s a little town with a lot of nice stores. In the evening we met Clara in Liege and there we went to a Belgium pub, where they had over 2000 different types of beer. On Friday we met the other participants of the project at the movie theatre and we watched the movie Looking for Eric by Ken Loach. In the afternoon the Belgium teachers and students showed us a folk dance, which is in my point of view kind of funny, but still interesting. In the evening we had a barbecue with our host families and the teachers. The food was very good and despite that it was quite interesting to speak with the other students about their life.
The last day, the dad of Clara took us for a ride on a boat in Liege and later I went with my family to the fair of Liege.
All in all I can say that my family was communicative, open-minded and interested about my life in Germany. The exchange was a good experience.
Hendrik

One week in Belgium – a multicultural experience

The first day in Belgium we spent in Brussels. It was very impressive to walk through the old part of the town and its streets. It was quite hard for me to walk so much, because it was very exhausting after spending half of the day in the train. But I enjoyed the good atmosphere between teachers and students.
Late in the evening we got to the hostel and I was very happy to fall on my bed and to just sleep.
The next morning we had get to up early, because there was another day filled with activities and visits. (Sorry to the teachers, that we were a little bit too late)
It was interesting when we were in the ‘Atomium’ but it was more interesting being in the European Commission.
It was great to hear about the activities the men told us about. But at the end of our visit it was too much information, so that I couldn’t keep it all. Fortunately we had the possibility to take some magazines and papers, which gives us much information, too.

But the whole day I was looking forward to the moment I would meet my host student and her family. I am very happy, that I could spend my time with THIS family. They were all very lovely and we talked a lot, so that I felt, that I really belong to this family.
It was truly a multicultural experience, because first I had the feeling being in France because of the language, second it was the fact that I had the possibility to talk to the host father in German or English, third we had at one evening Chinese food for dinner.
It was a lot of fun, talking during the dinner with the whole family. The father often spoke to me in German and then went on talking with his daughters in German as well. And the same situation was when he talked to the girls in French and than started to talk to me in the same language.

I enjoyed all activities we did in school, like learning the folkloric dance or just joining in the tournament, which I won together with a French teacher (the funniest thing at all was to play with and against him). But the best was being in my host family and talking with Clara and her sister. I was surprised, that we got so close to each other. We (Clara’s family and me) did a walk through a part of the Ardennes and visited the castle of Hazer.
We talked about dreams and plans for the future, about boys, families and great
experiences we had in the past.
from the left: Sara Line, Clara, me and Zoe (my host sisters)








Time passed too fast, so I was very sad about the fact that I had to leave the family. I got a present from the little sister of Clara and I was tearful because she showed with this attention that she liked me a lot.
I also got close to Clara’s friends and it was a lot of fun, spending the time with them in school and at the funfair. We laughed a lot and I was VERY HAPPY, that we had no problems with communicating.

To sum up, I would like to say, that I will never regret to join in the COMENIUS Project and I’m very happy that the choices of the families for us students were made so well. (Thanks to Mrs Holzinger and of course to the Belgium coordination!)
Olesja

Belgium in October

The exchange started on 20th October 2009, we took the train, that means 7hours till we arrived in Brussels.
Torben, Hendrik, Olesja, Mrs. Holzinger, Mrs. Janoschek, Mrs. Spiehlhoff and Mr. Braun went to a nice cafe in the Belgium capital. It´s called “ Mort Subite” ( in Englisch that means sudden death).
We saw there a lot of the nightlife of Brussels and the Belgian people e.g in the cafe. the way they talk, they often use their hands and speak really loud.
Wednesday 21st October 2009 we met our host families. But to be honest I was a bit confused on this day because a girl called Sophie told me that I´m staying at her house and not at Lara’s house .
When we arrived at Sophie’s house, Torben also stayed there, Sophie asked us if we are hungry: Of course we were hungry!
All the time during this project Sophie was really caring and asked us if we were hungry, thirsty or something else to make us feel comfortable.
My opinion is that Belgian people are really openminded and really friendly, they like to talk and are really interested in you as a person.
My host was first a bit shy, because she had to talk English but after two days we talked about almost everything.
Furthermore Belgium people are really polite. I made the experience that people like to know new things about different cultures.
Sophie’s dad has a big social engagement, on few evenings in the week he works as a volunteer in a hospital as clown. Usually he is a realtor.
Now I want to use the chance and say again thank you for the great time and the experience we shared.
Lisa Katrin

Minutes of the Comenius Conference in Belgium 21st to 25th October 2009

PARTICIPANTS

Aywaille (BE): Collette Franck, Sophie Defise
Chateau du Loir (F): Valier Baraile, Stéphane Duarte, Patricia Guitton
Ourense (ES): Elisa Álvarez Fernández, Almudena Alonso García, Carmen Babarro, Amparo Vázquez Vivas
Bremen (GER): Andrea Holzinger, Christian Braun , Christel Spielhoff, Irene Janoschek
Portugal: Eléuterio Santos

AGENDA

Ø meeting in Spain

Ø next activities

MEETING IN SPAIN
Elisa Alvarez pointed out that 19 March 2010 will this year be holiday in Spain. This usually means that most families spend the weekend with their family in the countryside. This might cause problems. The host families will be informed. Belgium can arrive on 17 March and can stay until 21 March. Germany and France are easy on arrival dates and will arrive on Tuesday. Elisa explained the advantages of the airports Madrid and Porto and said it would be possible to arrange a minibus from Porto and back when contacting her before.
The number of travelling students is fixed (4 students by partner), not so the number of teachers.

NEXT ACTIVITIES

Belgium
is going to research production of «tools» for leisure activities (like musical instruments or sports equipment), looking as well for older local productions.
France
will focus on the subject “dancing”. Within that they plan to research history of dances and regional aspects.
The positive aspects, such as basketball, horse riding, swimming, dancing, going out and shopping, will appear in a photo report.
They ask for a comparative with the other partners.
Spain
School has just started and further proceedings have to be worked out, but they plan to work on local festivities as magosto, carnival etc.
Germany
The participating German students are now in their courses for their final exam (Abitur). The project has to be organised as an extra-curricular activity which cause troubles as students have different timetables and already many afternoon lessons. Some students still work out a questionnaire on computer use, others a personal insight into their leisure time. Problem is furthermore that most students are not in the participating teachers’ classes any longer. So future results can not be safely promised.

Thinking of the presentation of a collective work or final product, for the meeting in Spain the partners arranged that the travelling students will prepare 2 to 3 regional activities (dance or games) that they will have to explain so that they can be practised by all, and presented to the others as different workshops.

Furthermore we decided on an exchange of handmade Christmas cards. Teachers and students are asked to send them to a partner.

Referring to the final report, Andrea Holzinger remarks that there is a common part that we should work out together. She points out as well that we should not forget to mention the item of “evaluation”, e.g. how was evaluated?, feedback from pupils, opinion polls, written communication of personal experience, etc.

by Andrea Holzinger and Elisa Álvarez

PS: Germany will ask students to send at least one to a partner and one to the German coordinator to check their work. The Christmas cards could as well be displayed in the meeting in Spain.

4th Meeting in Belgium COMENIUS 21st - 25th October 2009

PROGRAM 4th MEETING IN AYWAILLE COMENIUS – 21st to 25th October 2009

Profile Samuel

Hi!

My name is Samuel, I’m 15 years old and I live in a flat in Ourense with my mother, and I have neither brothers nor sisters.

I’m a nice and friendly person who really enjoys going out with his friends, watching good films, reading, and listening to music, I specially like bands like Arctic Monkeys, Bob Dylan, The Clash, Led Zeppelin, Franz Ferdinand…

In my free time I also go swimming and I do sport, I stay at home and I chat with my friends or surf the internet while I listen to music, or sometimes I just sit around at some café with my mates.

I really like travelling, and I’ve really enjoyed visiting foreign countries, both with my parents, and on school trips; and I suppose that’s why I ended up joining the Comenius Project, so that I can get to know more people and their cultures. I think it will be very interesting and I’m looking forward to go.