Pictures from Thursday

Project: Seeing and Understanding

Date: October 16, 2008 from  3.30 p.m-4.30 pm

Location: Atrium 2 Sheraton Hotel (Minneapolis-St. Paul)

Category: Curriculum development

Format: Networking session / Discussion

Presenters: Pieter Buma, Katja Denen, Hans Jak

Audience:

8 Visitors, seven women and one man, all from the US except two of the women, who come from Suriname, in South America.

10 Members of our own group of  ‘Kennisnet Ambassadors’ from the Netherlands:  Bob, Hans Smeele, Henri, Jan, Jasper, Marjolein, Martijn, Peter, Ria, Ruben.

Pieter gave a good lecture. He was calm and collected, and had a good story to tell. About his participation as a teacher in the Seeing and Understanding project of the dr. J. de Graaf school, a school for students with (speech and) hearing problems. About Teleblik, which is a unique Dutch initiative, and about the way Teleblik is made available to his and other students in the Netherlands  by adding subtitling and/or sign-language. The accompanying Powerpoint presentation was good and instructive. And Pieter’s card-trick, meant to show the power of video (lit. ‘I see’), illustrated that a good teacher (or presenter) has a variety of ways at his disposal to keep his audience interested.

The audience were certainly very  interested, listening closely to what Pieter had to say. They showed their interest by nodding and by now and then laughing at his little jokes or wordplay.  But they were also patient and polite: they saved their questions and remarks for after his presentation.

Questions and discussion (in short):

1. In the USA there is an increase of autism. There are numerous theories trying to explain the phenomenon. It has also something to do with a fascination for the subject. Is that also true for students with hearing problems in the Netherlands?

-Answer Pieter: No. In the Netherlands the percentages of students with hearing disabilities do not differ from those anywhere else. But because of the way students are ‘clustered’ in special schools it may seem that there are more of them. In a system of ‘inclusive’ education, like that of the USA,  they would be dispersed over all the other schools, and thus be less ‘visible’.

2. Do other (not-educational) institutions have access to Teleblik?

-Pieter: Yes, they can apply for an access-code.

3. But is it also available for other people with e.g. hearing problems, like middle-aged people or senior citizens, or veterans coming back from a war with hearing problems?

-Pieter: Not in the first place, but perhaps they can try and apply for an access-code.

-Martijn points out that Teleblik is meant for educational purposes, but that there are other ways of getting access to the same kind of information in the Netherlands. People can address the same institution from which Teleblik receives its material: De Stichting Beeld en Geluid, a national audio-, photo-, film- and video-archive . However, they do not provide this material with subtitling or sign-language (yet).

4. What kind of internet would allow a citizen of the USA to view/use these (Dutch) ‘streaming video’s’? It is not possible to see streaming video everywhere.

-Martijn: Not every American citizen has broadband  internet access. There’s a big difference between cities and the country.

5. (Another member of the audience) But the Dutch streams are in Dutch. Why  would an American want to view them?

-Bob: Many TV-programs in Holland are broadcast in English with Dutch subtitles. They are not ‘voiced over’. So these are in fact available to the American public.

6. About the role of the computer in modern education. In China e.g. the abacus is still used in teaching higher mathematics in secondary schools and even in universities. The computer is not yet always regarded as an alternative. How is this in Holland?

-Martijn: in Holland students use calculators and computers.

All members  of the audience receive a hand-out of the Seeing is Understanding presentation, and also a USB flash drive (memory stick) with all presentations and hand-outs of the six Dutch ‘Kennisnet Ambassadors’-groups.

After this some people leave, others stay another ten minutes or so to talk some more individually or in small groups.

Hans Jak

Look what I can do

Presenters: Jack Vlassak, Ruben Bloemen, Jasper Beguin

The presentation was visited  by 15 people, besides our dutch colleagues.

Jasper started the presentation with a quick summery of the system of special needs education in the Netherlands. After a suggestion from Bob he started using the clip-on microphone, which made it easier to hear him and gave him a better focus on the content of the presentation.

After this we looked at the film by xidis. In hindsight we should have made it shorter. It took too long and was to familiar for the audience. Jack introduced the model of process used by xidis and the regional teams, followed by Ruben who took the audience trough the model step by step. In the powerpoint this was supported with pictures, with a balance between serious pictures and those with a little humour in them.

We ended with a ‘does anyone have any questions?’. There was little response, so maybe we should have prepared some questions to get the discussion going.