Week 10: Graduation

By conincidence(?), the end of this course is on the same day as the school ending in Romania. I feel like a student. I feel great, as during the last 10 weeks I could learn so many new things. I will apply in my future teaching, and my students will benefit from this.

It was a great experience learning and having you here. I shared all my knowledge, all my experience, all my practice, and knowing that somebody read all these meant a lot for me. Now, I want to share something else with you all: in my country, when school ends, the best students are rewarded. They get a diploma, some books, but most importantly, they have flowers on their heads. And they are so happy... you can read it in their eyes, on their face.

Now, I think all of us deserve flowers. I offer them to you. And once again, I promise we'll keep in touch. That's why I didn't name this post "My last post" or "The final post". No way. My blog is alive and it will remain. I will be trained in the elearning classes and elearning space. I will share everything with you.

My advice? Keep up the great work and don't give up: if you have started using technology in your classes, do so in the future. Students will love this, you'll see.

Do you have problems? Do you want to try something and things don't work? Don't hesitate to ask me! I will help you as much as I can. That's another promise.

Now, I wish you all the best

ePals Teacher Ambassador - Off topic

About two weeks ago, I entered an international contest - ePals 2010 Teacher Ambassadors. I explained how ePals helped me and my students, and what our latest project, "Romanian students help their fellows in Ghana" means. Epals is a good platform to be used for establishing contacts and setting up projects with people all around the world. I have been a member since 2005, and among the countries we worked with, I name only a few: Bahrain, Brazil, USA, France, Poland, Qatar, Canada or Ghana.

Today I received an email announcing me that...

"Congratulations! We are pleased to announce that you are one of the winning entries in our ePals Teacher Ambassador Contest. We received many great entries from around the world. Our panel of 9 judges found so many quality entries that we increased our awards to include 10 Teacher Ambassadors. Winners will be announced today, on the ePals site at 5:00 pm, EST.

The judges were very impressed with your entry, “Romanian Students Helping Their Fellows in Ghana.” Please see a few of their comments below:

• Fantastic to see students take action!
• Video is great, for both ePals and the teacher.
• Teacher video is terrific! Action orientation is great too. Would love to see more samples of exchanges (emails, etc.)
• Fantastic promotional video for ePals. Would love to hear more in the ppt about how the students helped. Great teacher! Great students."

I am overwhelmed. I am speechless. What can I say?

If you want to find out more, and see my project and my video entry, follow this link:
http://www.epals.com/projects/info.aspx?divid=TeacherContest2010-Results

Off-topic: Nadine - my name's origin

This week (week 9), Hala started by asking me a curious question: I sign on my blog as Nadinne. Actually, my name is Nadina. Then, Ellen said that finally she can connect me with my name, because all of the "N" names in our class was making her so confused :)

I was asked if I teach French.  I graduaded the university having as specialization French language and literature and English language and literature. During the first years in my teaching career I used to teach only French, then I taught both French and English. At present I am teaching only English.


Now, the story of my name. Before I was born, my father was reading a Romanian Book (The Blind Man's Sunday) whose main character was called... Nadina. She loved this name so much that he decided her little girl will have this name. My second name is Carmen - of Spanish originin.

What does my name mean?

Nadine means hope. Its origin is French, as a derivation from Bernardine. It has many diminutives, the most common being Nadia. (When people call me Nadia instead of Nadina, I get angry!)
Another opinion is that this name has Russian origin, coming from the word "nadejda", meaning "hope" (Ruslana, sorry if I mispelled the word). In old Romanian there is a word, "nadejde", meaning ... "hope". So, I accept this explanation too.

Carmen is of Spanish and Latin origin. It means song. In Hebrew, it means garden and orchid.

I love my names and they influence myself. I can lose everything, but not my hope. And, my hobby is gardening, while my favorite flower is... the orchid. As for music, I couldn't live without it: I listen to music all the time, anytime, anywhere: at home, at school, in my car...

But,

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet" (Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, II, ii, 1-2)

As a gift for you, Eduard Simoni - "Nadine"


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