Budapest

10/04/2016:

Budapest 19:00

We have just arrived in Budapest with 8 lovely students. We felt extremely secure at the airport thanks to lots of policemen and security guards. There was not much delay and we had a nice flight.

Now we are very excited to explore the city centre.
One by one the students are using IT to inform us about their host families. And they sound enthusiastic.

This week, we will inform you about our adventures in Budapest, Hungary.

Leen en Miek


11/04/2016:

Erasmus+ @ Budapest - day 1

We had an excellent day at the school in Budapest.
After a traditional ceremony of speeches, they got a tour around the school, which is quite large. The students were put into teams with students from Hungary, Holland and Spain. They had to take a quiz with questions about the four countries. They discovered that Hungarian invented many things, such as Word and Excel, the biro, the helicopter, and so on.
We ended the day with a lovely traditional dance and participated ourselves !!

12/04/2016:

Erasmus+ @ Budapest - day 2

Today, we started the real work. We discussed all the hard work we had been doing up until now and learnt about some new appliccations, such as Geogebra and Scratch.
It was really nice to see how fluent all the students from the four countries could communicate and so they not only improved IT skill, but also English competences!
In the afternoon, we did a cultural visit to the Parliament and Heroes Square.
Here some impressions:

13/04/2016:

Erasmus+ @ Budapest - day 3

Today we have been trying out some new apps like makebeliefscomix.com and prezi. By the way, did you know that prezi is short for 'presentation' in Hungarian. 

14/04/2016:

Erasmus+ @ Budapest - day 4

15/04/2016:

Erasmus+ @ Budapest - day 5

Today, the students visited Szentendre, a picturesque town not so far from Budapest. They even tried a typical snack, Langos, which appeared to be extremely tasty.

Summary of the project.

Sunday, 04/10/2016. It seems a day as any other when we are heading for the airport for our Erasmus+ project, IT@School, but arriving at the airport, we discover it is not. People with a non-Caucasian complexion are halted and screened. At the entrance, our students need to pass 4 check-points, some of them with heavily armed soldiers.

Once we have passed these check-points, our journey begins. We are in a project about IT, about schools, but mainly about cultural differences and tolerance. And this is very necessary these days. We want youngsters to use Facebook applying netiquette rules, we want to create a window of opportunities for youngsters so they learn about other cultures in order to become more tolerant.

This week in Hungary was a valuable experience: students were immersed into the Hungarian culture. They even had a workshop folk dance and they were guests in Hungarian host families. They discovered new apps, they created netiquette rules and created surveys. Moreover they visited both Budapest and Szentendre. They communicated in English and, more importantly, made new friends. Friends they will never forget about. They created impressions they won't forget. Long live Erasmus+.

Zondag 10 april 2016. Het lijkt een dag als een andere wanneer we voor ons Erasmusproject, IT@school, naar de luchthaven trekken, maar eenmaal we de luchthaven naderen is het dit duidelijk niet. Mensen met een gekleurde huid worden aan de kant gezet en gescreend. Bij de ingang is het nog imposanter, wanneer we onze leerlingen doorheen 4 controles moeten loodsen, enkele hiervan bewaakt door zwaar bewapende militairen.

Maar eenmaal doorheen deze screening, begint ons project. Over IT, onze scholen, maar vooral ook over culturele verschillen en verdraagzaamheid. En laat het nu net dat zijn wat we in deze tijden willen verwezenlijken. Jongeren die Facebook gebruiken volgens de nettiquette, jongeren die hun kansen leren waarderen, jongeren die tolerant zijn ten opzichte van andere culturen.

De week in Hongarije was een ware belevenis: De leerlingen werden ondergedompeld in de Hongaarse cultuur, inclusief een ware dansworkshop en een verblijf in een Hongaars gastgezin. Ze leerden nieuwe apps kennen, ze creëerden nettiquetteregels en ze namen IT-enquêtes af. Bovendien bezochten ze Boedapest en Szentendre. Ze converseerden in het Engels, maar daarenboven, ze maakten vrienden. Vrienden die ze nooit meer zullen vergeten, net als alle ervaringen en indrukken die ze opdeden. Lang leve Erasmus+.