LATINA/lingua has been finished… During five days we were translating LATINA resources in our native languages: Nepalese, Polish, Spanish and Ukrainian.

For each of us has been created blog similar to the original one,  where we began our work.  It wasn’t formal translation of pages, we had to work creatively. Every page required its own special approach.

I can divide all of these pages into two groups:

1. Pages which contain instructions, rules, excerices and so on. They are easy for translation and I hadn’t any problems with them.
2. Pages with some theoretical content – definitions, explanations, key words and others. It is required more time to translate each of them.

When you are working with the second kind of pages, you do some necessary steps in their creation. At the beginning, you must understand clearly what certain page about. Maybe, you need to find and to read some additional materials in Internet (Wikipedia is very useful for this purpose). Then, you do translation. Sometimes you can use Google translator for it, but sometimes – no. Why? Because, you can lose the whole meaning of the information – correction won’t help on this. In this case your own words will be more appropriate. The next step is finding and adding links on different pages – original blog, Wikipedia and others resources. And, after all this work you check your full page; maybe, do some kinds of correction; and finally, publish it.

I feel responsible for each page, because I am creating them for my country and I will be happy if someone finds them useful. LATINA resources are very strong and even during my translation I was learning something new and was rethinking my own experience and knowledge. So, I would say that it was more like a study than a work.

I haven’t finished my translation yet. LATINA blog consists of many important pages and it was difficult to cover all of them in five days. But I’ll continue this work. I have some reasons for it. Firstly, it is very interesting and valuable work. I’ve really got a great experience during these days. Secondly, I am sure that LATINA resources may be very useful for development of Ukrainian theory in the field of Learning and Teaching in a Digital World.

One of the most famost and popular attractions in Ukraine is Kiev Pechersrk Lavra.

Kiev Pechersk Lavra also known as the Kiev Monastery of the Caves, is a historic Orthodox Christian monastery in Kiev, Ukraine. Since its foundation as the cave monastery in 1015 the Lavra has been a preeminent center of the Eastern Orthodox Christianity in Eastern Europe. Together with the Saint-Sophia Cathedral, it is inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was named one of the Seven Wonders of Ukraine on August 21, 2007, based on voting by experts and the internet community.

Some interesting links:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiev_Pechersk_Lavra
2. http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?AddButton=pages\K\Y\KyivanCaveMonastery.htm
3. http://kiev-ukraine-information.com/kiev-kievo-pecherska-lavra.htm

What result will be if you connect these 3 pictures in one? Do you know?

Let’s try…

What is it?

Our movie…

“Diversity is the magic. It is the first manifestation, the first beginning of the differentiation of a thing and of simple identity. The greater the diversity, the greater the perfection.” (Thomas Berry)

The  great diversity of flowers helped us to tell a little story about what the different colours mean in our life..

I think I need to change the name of category “Nature of Norway”. Because I want to tell about the other thing that impressed me here very much, but it isn’t from the world of nature.

Ships… That sounds strange. But I’ve never seen such enormous ships, even more, I’ve never imagined that they are sooo large. I open my mouth as a child every time when I see them. I suppose I’ll have a big collection of their pictures before I go home.

Besides, we were in the Viking Ship museum yesterday. They are great. It is amazing to touch to history.

Some weeks ago…

“I am going to Oslo.. Oh, how does this city look like? Is it big? What is the climate there?… I don’t know… But I know where I can find this information. Wikipedia will be really the most appropriate information source for this purpose. .. Yes,.. I found!”

Wikipedia is a web-based encyclopedia, which consists today nearly 13 million articles in more than 260 languages. It is written collaboratively by people from all around the world. Anyone can edit or add useful information. That is why, Wikipedia is continually updated. Wikipedia articles are all linked, or cross-referenced that does  search very easy. Besides, Wikipedia’s articles provide links to guide the user to related pages with additional information.

In my opinion, Wikipedia is aimed to acquaint user with certain information, not give him full knowledge about the subject. So it cannot be used in education as a main source of information. Besides, it is important to use Wikipedia carefully since individual articles will, by their nature, vary in quality and maturity. But, it is gives another great possibilities for students, such as: to research and create own articles, to use external links.

Some days ago I found there very nice article “Education for Sustainable Development” in English, but it isn’t exist in my language. So I’ve decided to translate it and add in my pages. I hope one day I’ll contribute to Wikipedia too.

Well, the third day of Latina course is finished. What can I say about my studying here? I enjoy it. The atmosphere is friendly, people are nice, educational material is interesting and useful. What do you need else?

I don’t want to list what I have studied for these day. This blog is a result of it. Another question is more important for me: “How can I use it in my life, especially in my study and work?”

Firstly, I have found out how some programes can reorganize and improve you working environment. Yes, I was acquainted with some of them before, but LATINA gave me possibility to look at them from another side.. how to use them with the optimal benefit.

Secondly, everytime after acquaintance with any program or new information I begin to think if I can use it in my work, what for, in what way. And I’ve already had some ideas.

And thirdly, I am studying here how to teach too. What do I mean? I am pedagogue and I also pay some attention to the second side of our learning – teaching. And I am fond of our teachers, how they organize our education, use different methods and techniques.

Excellent!

I like to do photos very much, expecially photos of nature. And my computer stores a large number of the pictures. Of course, this leads to that sometimes it is very difficult to work with them.

But now, Picasa gives me unique possibility to organize them. Besides, this software application also offers several basic photo editing functions, including color enhancement, red eye reduction and cropping. Other features include slide shows, creating collage, printing and image timelines.

This collage contains photos, which I did in Ukraine, mostly in the village, where my grandparents live and where I like to rest.

When I was studying at the University, our teachers often said us: “In our modern world to be able quickly to find  necessary information is one of the important skills in most professions”. And it is true.

Today, Google.com is the most used site in my study and not only. I open it everytime when I need to find answer for appeared question.. maybe several times in a day. And it isn’t important what nature of this question.

I also like Youtube.com. But, it is mostly for fun – to listen favourite song, to watch music video or something else…

In contrast to previous, Picasa is a new program for me. So, today I started to investigate it.

As a result of the second day of my studying here, the first page of this blog “ICTs in Environmental Education” is ready.