Loves from Helsinki...

Dear All,

There is a special event at Helsinki: Worldwide Microsoft Innovative Teachers` Award Ceremony. We hope to return to our country nice memories and fruitful partnerships. I believe that we represent our country well here and I will share some important views and news of the ceremony tomorrow. Another sharing of mine will be an article about the educational system and my reflections on it after today's visit to two Finnish schools of the future. As you know, Finland holds the top grades of educational achievement within OECD countries. Tomorrow night I will be in Istanbul. With love from Helsinki...
Hayal KOKSAL

The Turkish Republic

We celebrate the 84th anniversary of the foundation of the Turkish Republic by our great leader Ataturk. We will defend and preserve his great work of art forever.
Hayal Koksal

Sad and Sorrow...

As daughters and sons of our great leader Atatürk, we have been very sad recently. Atatürk's motto was: "Peace at Home and Peace in the World", however we have just lost many young souls due to terrorism. We believe and know that all these black clouds will disappear and bright and peaceful days will again come back to our land. For, WE STAND TOGETHER!

www.bigg-ist.com

Dear All,

Yesterday we came together with the partners of 2010 Istanbul Cultural Capital City of Europe. We held the second general meeting of my EU project: an "IT Puzzle: Istanbul, from past to the future". The project will also collaborate with the cities of Essen (Germany) and Pecs (Hungary).

As it is seen from the photos, the contribution rate of the participants was highly high. From then on, we will share the steps and products of the project from our web page: http://www.bigg-ist.com

We invite you to take part in it with us. We hope this project will be very beneficial for all the participants and for the next generations of the world on the way of peace and harmony.

With love and peace...

Hayal KÖKSAL

My Love; Istanbul

Dear All,

I believe you feel the same; it is difficult to realize how fast time passes... I started writing this blog to share my thoughts and feelings at a regular basis_I mean everyday_, but I notice that I rarely find time to write even to rest. I believe for my life quality, I should stay for a while without doing anything and I should wait for my spirit as many African tribe members do. :)

Last saturday after the organization of Microsoft Turkey's Innovative Teachers Forum, we started our preparations for the Worldwide Forum of Microsoft which will take place in Helsinki, Finland on 28th October.

Another upcoming event is the 10th ınternational convention on Students' Quality Control Circles which will be held in City Montessori School, Lucknow, Delhi (http://www.cmseducation.org/). We will go there as a team of 11 to share our quality efforts in Turkey and to get the flag of the next year's convention as the host country of that remarkable event.

Qomer ICT Seagulls Project is going to start its 5th year. Last year 93 national and international circles were in it. this year we hope more teams will participate in. In order to register, please write to us.

A European Union Project_2010 Istanbul European Cultural Capital City is going to start soon. Our project: Bigg-İstanbul will include Hungarian, German and Greek teams as well. ıt is related to the preservation of historical monuments through creating awareness among the school partners, municipalities, NGOs...

My course at the Educational faculty of Boğaziçi Üniversity started 2 weeks ago. I am aiming at training constructivist and quality projects-focused teacher trainees. This year I have had 74 students.

The Peace Education and Research Center of Boğaziçi University was founded. As one of the founders of the Center, I believe it will be very beneficial for the whole community to create a peaceful understanding.

My Village Institutions Project still goes on with the teacher trainees. On the 22nd of October, through a panel my new students will learn more about the philosophy of that Enlightenment Period's schools. Furthermore during the Book fair, those award winner students of mine will share their projects with the public.

With the first days of 2008, we will launch a new Benchmarking Study at Ritz-Carlton, Istanbul. The first seminar will be related to Hospitals and Healthcare. If you are interested in the topic, please call us.

I wish you a very fruitful week and I celebrate the Feast of Ramadan of my Muslim friends.

Hayal KÖKSAL

Innovative ideas in Education and Innovativeness

Dear All,

We witnessed a very nice "Sharing & Caring Day" at Marriott Hotel on Saturday. The Microsoft Innovative Teachers Program which has been conducted with the collaboration of Educational Technologies General Directorate of the Ministry of National Education since the beginning of the year 2007 gave its first fruit. As the advisor of the program I had trained 96 teachers about the Innovative teaching on the new Curriculum during the spring months of 2007. 43 innovative ideas were developed as innovative projects of Turkey by those teachers and their poster and powerpoint presentations were shared on Saturday. 10 projects were determined as the best ones by the jury which wwas formed by the experts of the Ministry and Microsoft Turkey guided by the Educational Projects Director of Microsoft Turkey_Ms Şeniz Ciritçi.

All the projects were very impressive although they were designed and put into practice in a very limited time. The award winners got their momentums at an Award Ceremony at Domalis Restaurant at the same night by the Bosphorus. According to the philosophy of the Microsoft Innovative Program; technology is a vehicle on the way of demonstrating "innovative mind" as a key factor within the new curriculum. Innovations come to an end but innovativeness never... The second step of this program_Peer Coaching and Leadership skills_ will go on duing the Fall months of this year. We wish good luck to our teachers on the way of sustaining an innovative approach. In order to see another photo from the Ceremony, please look into the Turkish version of this Blog. Thanks.

Hayal KÖKSAL