Well, honestly, I do not know what and how to start story about myself. It is hard to tell and describe people, but definitely is harder to describe you, and to talk about yourself.

After high school, I was in dilemma what to choose as major for my further education – computer and information science, foreign languages, music. Finally, it was joint decision of our group of friends to enroll on graduate studies in the area of computer and information science. We all successfully graduated and like all university graduates – “pumped” with academic knowledge wanted to start working in successful enterprises, and have high salaries.

But, real life was quite different compared to our wishes. Macedonia, in those years (1991, 1992) was facing serious economical depression during and after separation from Yugoslav federation. Although I was continuously trying for months to find myself employment in IT company, I never did that. Some managers of such companies even got bored of my persistence to enter their companies, that one of them told me that there is an announcement in the High School in my city (Bitola) for part-time teacher.

I was always looking at teachers with admiration, because they were always opening up perspectives for me and giving me valuable inputs that were driving force for me. But, I have never thought of myself as being one. Nevertheless, I applied for part-time IT teacher in the high school where I used to be student. I worked there for 1 semester, starting from February 1992, and I liked working as a teacher.

Actually, I realized that in fact I like to work with students - young people. They always have “fresh” and “unexpected” ideas and thoughts, and to work with them is very demanding and challenging, but also very much fulfilling and rewarding. This was the trigger that directed me in teaching area.

Therefore, I continued to look for employment as teacher. I found vacancy for teacher and started to work in Secondary Electro Mechanical School “Gorgi Naumov” from September 1992. I was teaching IT and related subjects, and thought that it will be easy, but students did not accepted these subject like I was hoping. So, this was additional challenge for me, to work more with these students. The only way to achieve this was to do interesting things that will engage them more and motivate them more.

Therefore, my colleagues and I were continuously asking from school management to have school connected on Internet. Secondary Electro Mechanical School “Gorgi Naumov” was one of the first schools in Macedonia that got Internet access. This happened in school year 1994/95 when school got analogue dial-up connection.

In the following year I have arranged school to have BBS (Bulletin Board System), second node of the first Information system node in Macedonia. Students were maintaining the system and “feeding” it with information.

But, this was not it. This was not empowerment I wanted to provide my students with. I was not satisfied with the achieved because it was only limited to small number of students who were very proficient in using ICTs, was hardly to be disseminated and to motivate other students with it.

In summer 1996 I have learnt about iEARN network (International Education and Resource Network), methodology used, use of technology, empowerment of young people. I thought this is something I had in my mind. That was the piece I missed in my puzzle.

Idea was there, but we faced another problem. There were almost no schools in Macedonia with Internet access, and my students could not interact much with other schools. Real development of small school based projects started in 1998, when Macedonian schools started getting access.

Student were keen on collaborating with their peers from other Macedonian schools, thus we got in communication and came up with ideas for project that we will work on. Projects that we have initiated in school year 1998/99 were: Treasures of Macedonian Language, and Person I Admire. These 2 projects were first collaborative projects in Macedonia that linked up students from my class and school with students and teachers from several schools, and it was major success. Students were talking to students from other classes/schools about what they work and how they do it, and they were pooling in more and more students, with more and more ideas, and enthusiasm.

Students also joined 2 international projects in the frame of iEARN project work: National traditions and folk costumes, and Babel project

The following school year - 1999/2000, 3 more national projects were initiated: Macedonian architecture, Lakes in Macedonia and Achievement by all. Number of participating students was continuously increasing and also quality of learning, their motivation for learning and self-esteem. Same school year, students joined 10 international projects.

Level of self-confidence and empowerment increased to the level when students started initiating international projects. It happened the following year 2000/01. The project was called City Art Video.

In spring 2001 in Macedonia started arm conflicts. It was much tensed situation that politicians and media made it even more complicated. This was situation that students and I could not stand and simply we jointly started build the project that will enable them to raise their voice against irrational behavior of adults. This is how project Building Bridges over Borders by using ICT and Project Based Learning was initiated (www.imor.org.mk/programmes/bridges). This project linked schools from Macedonia and Albania in the times when tension was really high between Macedonian and Albanian ethnic communities. At those times, my students and I were first to dare to go beyond the ethnic boundaries, to join minds and hands and to collaborate across cultures.

This project even reached finals at:

• In “Education category” on Stockholm Challenge Awards, Stockholm, October, 2002 (http://www.stockholmchallenge.se/finalists.asp?id=0&y=1&yr=2002)
• In category of “Youth up on age of 18” on Global Junior Challenge, Rome, November, 2002 (http://gjc.gioventudigitale.net/2002/en/Categ18.asp)
• Commended project in category “New to the Net” at Child Net Academy (Child Net Awards), London, December 2002 (http://www.childnetacademy.org/winners/previous.aspx)

Another important project that chronologically followed after previous one was Youth Have a Say against Terrorism (www.imor.org.mk/programmes/noterror). Youth network that was created with previous project was something students, I and colleagues do not wanted to fade and vanish during time.

Terrorism was something that was disputing young people a lot lately, and that’s why, together with students I have initiated this project in which young people will collaborate on this very sensitive topic. Among other outcomes, youth from Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo jointly developed Youth Declaration against Terrorism that was supported by many individuals and organisations worldwide.

This project won First Prize in a category “Youth up on age of 18” on Global Junior Challenge in Roma, Italy, November 2004 (http://gjc.gioventudigitale.net/2004/en/wCateg18.asp).

In year 2005 I managed to reach out to North and to invite schools from Serbia in a project called: Information for Development – Linking and Empowering Balkan Youth (http://www.imor.org.mk/programmes/informationfordevelopment). Idea of this project is to contribute in building of the information management capacities among the young population in the Balkan region by using ICT infrastructures using, despite differences, aiming to prevent potential problems, and empowered youth in applying of transparent and free flow of information, using ICT structures despite differences.

This was something that used to exist in Balkans and in the last decade or more was destroyed due to separation of former Yugoslavia, arm conflicts, destroyed economies, alienation of people because of the poverty, lack of communication and many other factors. While collaborating we are overcoming all these differences and looking at things with same “eyes”.

These projects are pure justification of what Mahatma Gandhi said “If we are to have real peace, we must begin with the children”, in which I strongly believe too.

Therefore, we, adults, need to enable youth to access technology and Internet, to provide them with instruments, tools and methodology, so they can enter in collaborative learning, and create secure environment (classroom) that will encourage and empower them to learn, share, discuss and interact.

Having said this, I am very happy that I, in collaboration with students and colleagues have contributed at least a bit in what was and still is important for my students and all people.

This is how we can contribute in bringing up generations that understand and appreciate other cultures and collaborating/cooperating across borders and boundaries. Simply, “We must be the change we want to see and not the darkness that we wish to leave behind” (Mahatma Gandhi)

Students and I made our first steps in working on on-line collaborative projects in school year 1998/99. We started with 2 national projects in the period October 1998 – May 1999: Treasures of Macedonian Language, and Person I Admire. With these 2 projects we went through self-learning process of participating and coordinating on-line collaborative projects. We were learning on our mistakes and benefiting from each other.

With the project Person I Admire we wanted to open up students minds for sharing and interaction about persons they admire. Although it looked easy, very serious and sometimes controversial discussions took place, especially when some admired persons were “bad” persons in the eyes of the other students. And student done it, they were confronting standing points, opinions and perspectives, but also carefully listening and learning from each other. They put together and we organized printing of project booklet that was distributed to all project participants.

While project Treasures of Macedonian Language, was organized with teachers of Macedonian Language from 3 schools aiming students to collect treasures of the language, compare, explain between each other their opinions and learn their mother tongue while collaborating and interacting on-line. Very interesting treasures were collected and printed in booklet. This booklet was distributed not only to project participants, but also to other classes and Macedonian language teachers in participating schools.

Both these projects had modest number of participants – 40 students and 6 teachers from 3 schools, but were very important, because they were foundation and infrastructure on which we were building blocks ever since.

Continuing in the similar manor, together with several colleagues we have initiated project Achievement by All. It aimed to introduce new features to challenge students and teachers to combine traditional methods with recent approaches in English language learning. It was done through promoting small publication of students compositions on topics treated in international iEARN projects. With this project scope of schools and number of participants was increased. Now we had 7 schools and more than 60 students involved. All of them in a period of school year 1999/2000, explored, interacted, collaborated and learnt English language while participating in this and international projects and jointly compiled project booklet.

Together with students empowered by interaction with other cultures that wanted to collaborate and learn even more, in way that differ from what they have practiced until then we have proposed City Art Video project. In this project students were exchanging and comparing information about the places and environments they live in, presenting them in a light of culture and lights of interest for young people. After discussions, they were recording video tapes with scenes from the cities, their lives, music they listen to, traditional music, other values they cherish. Within this project, students distributed and collected video tapes with their new remote friends from 10 countries, and they realized that all collaborative activities are beneficial for them, they are always learning, working hard, but at the same time, they made new friends and had a lot of fun.

In the period September 2000 – August 2001, young people continued to interact and work together in projects with other Balkan countries and hundreds of students and teachers from Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Hercegovina, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Macedonia. In the projects Balkan In our Eyes, www.imor.org.mk/programmes/bv, and Teenager Beliefs, they joined on-line collaborative project work, on-line researches, had face-to-face gatherings/camps, and grew together with their friends. Schools from Macedonia (http://www.imor.org.mk/programmes/bv) collaborated and interacted on several topics with the collaborative friends and peers: Folklore, Media, People, Future in our Eyes, Political History, and Teen Issues. Being active participants in this project, students became aware that their problems are similar in all participating countries, that they want similar things, learnt about other cultures and had big network of friends.

Another interesting project that we were working on along with schools from Surinam, Latvia, Kenya, Slovenia, was Medicines in our Backyard (http://www.imor.org.mk/programmes/medicines). My students worked with group from primary school – student groups (http://www.imor.org.mk/programmes/medicines/student_groups.htm), went together on filed trips (http://www.imor.org.mk/programmes/medicines/field_trips.htm) where explored plants in the area where they lived, compared their findings with findings of groups from other countries, exchanged information and in many cases realized that there are similar stories about same plants, or plants names although different in different languages, have similar explanation of their names. They have built plant lists (http://www.imor.org.mk/programmes/medicines/plants_list.htm), where they put the most interesting findings for them, and for their on-line friends.

Starting from September 2000, students from more than 10 schools in Macedonia had opportunity to compete, show their collaborative skills, values they appreciate and along with their teachers to win computer lab (sponsored by Schools Online) with free Internet access (matched by Macedonian Telecom) for their schools. Within the frame of this Global Education Model Schools- GEMS (www.imor.org.mk/programmes/gems) project, commission composed from members of schools, Ministry of Education, Presidential Cabinet, and other stakeholders awarded these labs to 4 schools including mine. It was big holiday for students from my schools, teachers and school management when this lab became functional.

In these labs, students played key role in doing collaborative project work on national level, being trainers, coaches, mentors of students and teachers from 2 associated primary schools, and being part of international projects that ran between 40 GEMS schools in 5 more countries (Argentina, China, India, Russia, Spain).

Benefits from this project were multiple (http://www.imor.org.mk/programmes/gems/priang.htm):

• Opportunity for self-development of students and teachers. 
• Contribution in improvement of the quality of the educational process (ICT, English Language, cross-curricula etc.). 
• Supporting continuous iEARN on-line collaborative project work and project work within the framework of other programs different from iEARN. 
• Encouraging co-operation/network between GEMS schools, partner schools, and other institutions. 
• Inviting parents to be part of the Program. 
• Enabling fruitful co-operation with local community. 
• Providing cross-cultural exchange and co-operation. 
• Empowering student to be trainers. 
• Increasing of quantitative and qualitative scope of project work in the environments where GEMS is active. 
• Increases the number of teachers and students that are active. 
• Increases school rating. 
• Possibility for having opened ILCs for everyday school work. 

This project had great impact on directly and indirectly participating students that can be easily seen on: e-mail traffic, discussions, interactions, collaborative project work was rapidly going up day by day. (Some statistics available at: http://www.imor.org.mk/programmes/gems/statang.htm)  

Based on the assessment/evaluation done locally in the schools, GEMS impacted students and teachers significantly (http://www.imor.org.mk/programmes/gems/impctang.htm):

• Notable raise in the students' self esteem when they saw that the work they've been doing for years is acknowledged both inside and outside the country. This helps them to reaffirm their identity and look inside their school and community. This is especially important for these schools, which has a population of students with many social and economic problems.
• Parents are getting acquainted with GEMS Program goals and are getting very supportive to the whole idea of Program. It is expected that they will be very helpful and will contribute to its development and promotion.
• It is to be noted the willingness of the teachers to participate, their interest to find out what the program was about and their approach to ILC in order to participate in the first activities.
• Partner schools are keen on being part of foreseen activities and Program continuation.
• Local community in quite interested in the progress of this Program. 
• Around 120 teachers and directors are trained.
• Approximately 1350 more students are able to access Internet.
• The assessment says that number of students that is working on-line is more than doubled.
• E-mail traffic per day is more than 6 times busier.
• Number of project in which GEMS schools are engaged is almost tripled.
• Some articles were published in local newspapers.
• Support from Presidential Cabinet in the implementation of GEMS.
• Support from Macedonian Telecom - free lines for GEMS schools. 
• Support from Bureau for Development of Educational in the implementation of GEMS.
• Macedonian GEMS team is consist of Macedonian iEARN team, GEMS representatives from GEMS schools and advisor from Presidential Cabinet for education, one of the directors of Macedonian telecom, State Secretary for Education from the Ministry of Education and Science.

This project was running until December 2001, and positive energy among students was evident.

Meanwhile, in March 2001, in Macedonia started armed conflict that caused political and economical destabilization. Such situation in Macedonia and in the region was restricting or disabling cross-border co-operation.

Therefore, in November 2001, mine students and I have initiated project Building Bridges over Borders by using ICT and Project Based Learning, www.imor.org.mk/programmes/bridges that was aiming to build bridges over the same political and cultural misunderstandings and barriers. The idea was to prove that new technologies can bring closer people especially youth and can secure good ground for mutual action and exchanging activities, by enabling teachers and students from Macedonia and Albania to immediately expand their collaborative online project work and to create a dynamic and sustainable infrastructure for expansion to others who are not yet involved.

Through the partnership, schools and institutions from both countries that have demonstrated successful participation in online collaborative work mutually extended the network of youth capable of being successful citizens in the contemporary information age.

In this project we brought together 17 participating schools with more than 350 young people and teachers in direct communication and collaboration.

Also, other organizations made their contribution in assisting and supporting this important:

• National Commission of UNESCO for Macedonia
• Macedonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
• Agency for Youth and Sports, Macedonia
• Macedonian Telecom,
• Hermes Plus, Macedonia, Vendor of equipment
• Open Society Institute Albania,
• Research and Development Center Albania,
• Albanian Telecom

We have started from identifying the similarities in order to overcome the differences. Joint collaborative projects that were identified: Teen Life and Communication Technologies. Teen Life was coordinated by Macedonian teacher (www.imor.org.mk/programmes/bridges/teenlife);

Communication Technologies was coordinated by Albanian teacher. (http://www.imor.org.mk/programmes/bridges/albanan 20web/default.htm). Both projects have many sub-topics that were subject to submission, discussions, comments, and interactions.

Mailing list of the project in the middle of January 2002 had more than 100 subscribed students and teachers. By the end of February 2002 more than 280 students and teachers were using it for regular communication. Something interesting is that discussions that were taking place on this forum, intrigued participants from other countries. For example, we have in the list, The Federation of Environmental and Ecological Diversity for Agricultural Revampment and Human Rights - (FEEDAR & HR), from CAMEROON which was very interesting experience for us and probably for them too.

Youth, raising their voice, developed open letter to all stakeholders (http://www.imor.org.mk/programmes/bridges/open_letter.htm) spreading their voice wider in their communities and country-wide.  

To what extend this project impacted youth are speaking testimonies and stories of directly and indirectly participating students and teachers (http://www.imor.org.mk/programmes/bridges/personal_statements_and_testimon.htm):

Achievements of this project were internationally recognized:

• Finalist in “Education category” on Stockholm Challenge Awards, Stockholm, October, 2002
  (http://www.stockholmchallenge.se/finalists.asp?id=0&y=1&yr=2002)
   

 
• Finalist in category of “Youth up on age of 18” on Global Junior Challenge, Rome, November, 2002
  (http://gjc.gioventudigitale.net/2002/en/Categ18.asp)
   
   
   
• Commended project in category “New to the Net” at Child Net Academy (Child Net Awards), London, December 2002 (http://www.childnetacademy.org/winners/previous.aspx)

Some links to on-line articles speaking about this initiative are:

http://www.mango.org.mk/mk_news.asp

http://www.unesco.org/webworld/news/2002/090102_infoyouth.shtml

There were many articles in daily papers and periodicals published about this project.

Empowered by this project, I did not want to stop here. Student and I wanted to extend the network and to have more young people on board the network they have value and cherish.

This is how and why, we have initiated cultural exchanges that culminated in summer camp for 100 hundred young people from Albania, Macedonia and Serbia, called Balkan Youth Network (www.imor.org.mk/programmes/byn)

Active involvement of the youth of Albania, Macedonia, Serbia and Bulgaria and their encouragement to create network of open-minded young people capable to show the world that they can live, communicate, work together and to learn about other cultures was our aim. Through variety if activities - research, exchanging research results, on-line collaborative project work (http://www.imor.org.mk/programmes/byn/day3.htm), cultural exhibitions and presentations (http://www.imor.org.mk/programmes/byn/day2.htm), educative workshops for voting and election systems, educative workshops for conflict resolution http://www.imor.org.mk/programmes/byn/day5.htm, net ethics, young people were collaborating and learning together. They have developed dictionary of word in different languages in order to communicate easier between them.

During this summer camp youth were unanimous that situation in the last several years in the region was creating a lot of instability, inter-ethnical tension, fostering social exclusion and increasing the rate of poverty, which is already significantly high.

It was logical that youth is in very complicated situation. Adding on all these everyday problems social exclusion and inter-ethnical conflicts that are still present in the region creates non-pleasant environment for youth for development.

In such complicated times for youth where links are destroyed and communication is very limited, one of the most convenient tools to re-establish links and to engage youth in everyday life is to enable and empower youth to interact with peers, to take actions and to say their opinion about everyday situation. This shift could be done by using ICT; it can help youth to be reintegrated into the system by using contemporary and cost-effective way - computer technology and Internet; it can help youth to express their ideas and make changes in their world.

Therefore, in November 2002 we have initiated project called Youth Have a Say against Terrorism, www.imor.org.mk/programmes/noterror. Aim of this project was to get youth in one regional network and empower them to interact and communicate among them by using ICT and collaborative learning despite crisis and despite everyday terror. They will be enabled to fight against terrorism in their environment, and with the use of Internet in whole world. And all this by reaching the disadvantaged and bring the dialogue and values to the excluded, passing messages for peace and tolerance, using existing information structures, development of ICT based content (CD ROM, web sites) developed to foster dialogue and networking activities and to share conclusions and results of dialogue events.

Around 500 young people and educators direct or indirectly involved in the project, from 12 school/organizations benefited from it.

On-line collaborative activities (http://www.imor.org.mk/programmes/noterror/project.html) that were identified at the starting point were: Its not easy to be young and understood, and Relations teacher-student. Background for choosing topics that are not directly linked with terrorism in the region is to have youth firstly engaged on more “easy and not tricky” topics/discussions and after that to shift from these topics on more serious matters.

During the exchange of youth and staff (February 21-23), youth from Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia agreed on 2 more topics for on-line collaborative project work: Terrorist: Criminals, or Heroes; Did the World Created Terrorism, or Terrorism Creates the World?

Relations teacher-student was co-ordinated by Albanian young man and web site developed by Albanian students.
Terrorist: Criminals, or Heroes, was co-ordinated by Macedonian teacher, and web site developed by Macedonian students.
Did the World Created Terrorism, or Terrorism Creates the World? was co-ordinated by young man from Kosovo and web site developed by Kosovar students.

As a project crucial objective that have been identified is to empower youth to raise voice against terrorism. As most convenient and cost-effective tool ICT and project based learning is/will be used. Key approach when dealing with such a sensitive issue was to start from positive thinking and to identify similarities in order to be able to cope with differences. Therefore, discussions and interactions are initiated on less sensitive topics and to make shift towards more sensitive ones. Synergy that is already created at this point speaks very much in favor of the justification of the approach correctness.

Speaking about the success of the project key aspect is to present relevant outcomes of the project. One of the very important outputs was good quality of dissemination. The most important was the “good will spirit” that was transferred and spread among participants. Additionally, quantity of dissemination is also more than it was expected. Initially was planned to transfer the “know-how” to at least 150-200 young people and educators. And, after dissemination phase of the project ended, more than 350 trainees that went through it. In fact, number of young people that were interacting is much bigger, because young trainers and disseminated young people were informally spreading the idea and rationale for this project, and participation was much higher.

There were many outcomes (http://www.imor.org.mk/programmes/noterror/out.html). Some of them are:

• Declaration Of Youth (This document is VERY important. It is a Voice Of Youth from Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo against terrorism)
• Evaluation & Impact
• Events (Something more abot the events happend during this project)
• What Is The Terror? (Result from the group work at the Exchange in Ohrid. Every group had a topic to work on and this is the topic for the group number 1)
• Types Of Terror/Violence (Result from the group 2)
• Terror Over Youth (The topic for the group 3)
• Global Terror (Result from the group 4)
• How Can We Deal With Terror? (The topic for the group 5)
• Stories & Testimonies (Reflections from participants and some of the various reflections about Declaration of youth against terrorism)

Simply, youth found out how similar they are. Perspectives of young people are very close. Therefore, it could have been expected that youth would be very interested to stay in touch and develop self-replicable and sustainable structure, and to maintain it as such, especially, when they have developed something together - Declaration of Youth against Terrorism. (http://www.imor.org.mk/programmes/noterror/decla.html)

With the Declaration, they are raising their voice, aiming to foster dialogue and deliver message for peace and tolerance, and presenting the best practice example, how youth can communicate and work together.

This declaration received big support internationally:

Dear friends,

ADSISTO is a nongovernmental organization for social and economic assistance from Republic of Moldova. It support your initiative and activities. In case you need more support in the fight with terrorism, let us know.

Tatiana Munteanu, ADSISTO President

 

We do support you action and wishes with all our heart and energy. The whole team congratulates you for this initiative May it spread the word, and be successful. Peace in the Balkans is all yours.

All the best,
Secours Catholique - Caritas France

Dear Jove,

Thank you for sharing this important document with us. We have many problems in this world. Selecting the most crucial ones and making the voice of youth heard on them is what can make a difference. This is exactly what you have done.

Victor, iEARN Russia

Dear Peter, Jove and friends around the globe:

I would like to congratulate Jove and his partners for this very important initiative. I also agree with you Peter about the importance of listening to everyone and all parties. Maybe the world did not do enoughlistening to cert ainregions or areas or ignored their needstill terrorism appeared! We need to take action.We need also to identify the word terrorism in each context. Lately, it has been very much misused.

Good luck with your magnificent project and hopefully we will have our teams joining your project soon. Thank you for sharing it with us and havea lovely day from thepeaceful sunny land full of warm hearts, Egypt.

Dalia, Egypt

Finally, ICT provided young people with all necessary resources they need for research and on-line collaborative project work. Additionally, ICT is very convenient to be used for preparations for everyday school obligations students might have. Teachers are using the ICT for their professional development, preparatory work for teaching, as a communication tool, for training, for collaboration, and for research purposes.

This project won first Prize in the category of “Youth up on age of 18” on Global Junior Challenge in Roma, Italy, November 2004 (http://gjc.gioventudigitale.net/2004/en/wCateg18.asp).

Lately in the Balkan region problems are getting more complicated because information sources available in diverse formats are unlikely always to present the correct and relevant information with its all original ingredients. In fact, there are numerous cases when wrong, adjusted, or distorted information can cause problems of any kind, worsening situation, instead of improving it.

With the idea shift that need to be done to be done by using ICT (information and communication technology) as a tool to acquire information, process and disseminate information, to outreach communities that were in conflict areas, or do not have access to information, or are based in remote areas, I have initiated the project Information for Development – Linking and Empowering Balkan Youth (http://www.imor.org.mk/programmes/informationfordevelopment).

Students and I wanted to contribute in building of the information management capacities among the young population in the Balkan region by using ICT infrastructures using, despite differences, aiming to prevent potential problems, and empowered youth in applying of transparent and free flow of information, using ICT structures despite differences. Therefore, we brought “on-board” the project more than 300 youth and teachers from 16 schools and/or organizations from Macedonia, Kosovo, and Serbia.

Among many activities we had, in the frame of this project Internet conference was organized. (http://www.imor.org.mk/programmes/informationfordevelopment/managing_information/Default.asp). It was the biggest wrap-up event of the project. It lasted for 36 hours starting from September 22, 2005 at 09:00 AM (GMT) until September 23, 2005 at 21:00 (GMT).

Conference topics were identified at the gathering of youth in Macedonia, (http://www.imor.org.mk/programmes/informationfordevelopment/managing_information/Forums.asp) and were:

• Sources of Information Distortion: Who, Why, When
• Acquisition and Dissemination of Information: How do we do this in our own community?
• How to Provide Accurate and Correct Information  Best Practices and Recommendations

In average each of the topics has 15 threads with at least 20 contributions, or approximately between 900 and 1000 contributions.

Information about this conference was spread in the international community and international networks like iEARN and InfoYouth. This is the reason why internet conference was enriched with the presence of participants from: Egypt, Mali, DR Congo, Columbia, Peru, and other countries.

Additionally, facilitators from the international community were facilitating conference in different time slots. Facilitators were from: Argentina, Australia, Lebanon, USA.

It is unwritten rule whenever project is getting closer to its end, project teams to be concerned how to sustain it. In our case there was no problem of that kind. Community of youth, created within this project, is cherishing the values they gained, knowledge they learned and want to sustain that. They are taking initiative for self-leading and self-governing event that will get them together in order to sustain the structure they have been part of. They are approaching parents, organization, institutions, and business community in order to fundraising sources and resources for future co-operation and follow-up.

They are willing and ready to cope with fundraising in order to fulfill some of their plans. It is obvious and logical that every support secured from different sources and donor organizations are very much welcome.

It can be freely concluded that the project has impacted the awareness and perception of information management in the eyes of the young people. Furthermore, this project has also impacted the life of the more than several hundreds of young people directly and indirectly involved in this project. All these was achieved by using ICT and project based learning whenever it was possible and project staff thinks that this project has created a big caring family of young people committed to continue after the project itself will stop.

And it can be seen from the internet conference that youth by themselves initiated thread that they want to continue with their collaboration.

In addition to all these projects, my students were actively participating in many projects in the frames of global network of International Education and Resource Network (iEARN). List of some of those projects is:

• Do We Have a Spare Planet - An environmental project stressing activities that can be done to preserve our planet.
• Amusing Natural Science – Interesting numerical and/or experimental tasks in the area of mathematics, chemistry, physics.

• Waste – Problem or Possibility – This project researches how we are treating waste in our communities.
• The Ecological Footprint project - Participants research the impact their lifestyles have on ecological systems, and work for justice and sustainability.
• Dream School - Schools discuss and investigate what aspects of school life they want to improve. Students write essays and poems describing their dream school.
• A Vision - an international literary magazine that teaches
• Food For Everyone – A pilot program to examine hunger and agriculture issues.
• Local History – Students share histories of their own town’s or surrounding area’s, buildings, famous people, and events.
• The Danger of Nazism Today – Create an on-line information exchange on criminal and other extreme nationalistic activities in our countries, initiate joint international action.
• Folk Tales and Values – Students study folk tales in their own communities and beyond.

• Joys of Music – Participants are invited to explore the wonderful world of music.
• City Art Video – Students record video clips about their cities, and accompany them with information about the city’s history, legends and interesting facts.
• Teenager believes – Students conduct a survey and analyze collected data.
• The Holocaust/Genocide project – The HGP is a global, theme-based Internet project on this topic, with participants from more than 16 countries.
• A Day in the Life – Students describe a day in their life.
• National Drinks and Related Traditions – A project comparing the history and traditions of national drinks around the world.
• Inside View – Magazine based on the issues that teenagers go through living in an urban society.
• Life – Students explore and share their understanding of the meaning of time in various spheres of human life.
• Youth CAN – Students write about and interact on environmental issues in their communities.

Students participating in these projects had a chance to interact internationally with young people at same age and to exchange/share their thought and perspectives. Also, they had a chance to contribute a lot in the publications, editions developed in the frames of these projects. And most importantly they all had chance to collaborate and learn on-line that enriched them intellectually and emotionally.

I, in collaboration with students and colleagues have tested on ourselves and practiced many different approaches in collaborating with close or remote peers.

First of all, we always kept in mind what is our aim with that project. Some of the projects we have initiated were dealing with very sensitive areas, some of them not.

No matter sensitivity of the topic/area of work, our strategic approach was to start from similarities, to build community of collaborators and friends in order to be able to cope with differences and to create solutions that will overcome the differences. This have affected greatly student’s perspectives and attitudes, opened up their minds for different approaches, broke stereotypes and prejudice, made ready for open collaboration.

There are many examples of great statements they gave.

GEMS project (http://www.imor.org.mk/programmes/gems/storyang.htm)
“Collaboration with people is treasure”
“Strengthening self-confidence”
“Professional development”
“This is the future…”

Project Building Bridges over Borders by using ICT and Project Based Learning
(http://www.imor.org.mk/programmes/bridges/personal_statements_and_testimon.htm)

Project Youth Have a Say against Terrorism
(http://www.imor.org.mk/programmes/noterror/stories.html)

Additionally, I always listened to wishes, and expectations of youth, trying to meet as much as possible what they wanted to do, or achieve. So we have combined different methodologies in many projects.

Kids Video Collaborate Online – KVCO. My students were collaborating with schools from Surinam, Latvia, Uganda on the issue of waste management. They were collecting information from Internet, filed trips, observing waste starting from their homes and it’s processing, video taping interesting situations, exchanging information, comparing information, drawing conclusions. They have produced video material that have exchanged with other schools and all together compiled video tape that was overarching all they did together.

In the project Sing-a-long, students and I were collecting national traditional music and exchanging it with other participating schools from other countries: Argentina, Georgia, Spain, Belarus, and Australia. Again, it was great collection of traditional music from these countries, which is enriching the minds of young people.

Some statistics from GEMS project is describing the increase of the amount of interaction and collaboration made:

In order to foster cross-cultural understanding in Balkans, we have initiated cultural exchanges wrapping up with summer camp for 100 hundred young people from Albania, Macedonia and Serbia, called Balkan Youth Network (http://www.imor.org.mk/programmes/byn/day2.htm).

Youth developed Declaration of Youth against Terrorism  (http://www.imor.org.mk/programmes/noterror/decla.html) in the frame of Project Youth Have a Say against Terrorism.

Project Building Bridges over Borders by using ICT and Project Based Learning

Youth, raising their voice, developed open letter to all stakeholders (http://www.imor.org.mk/programmes/bridges/open_letter.htm) spreading their voice wider in their communities and country-wide.

And many more examples in the listed projects, with the conclusion they made, it is not easy to start collaboration, but definitely is rewarding and make them richer.

Unfortunately, in Macedonia ISTE standards are not used in education. This is one of the things colleagues and I wanted to introduce in Macedonia via practicing on-line collaborative projects. We were making pioneering steps in this direction for many years up till now, and we think that now there exists awareness and understanding of the approach and its benefits, thus soon it will be practiced in most of the schools in Macedonia.

Projects topics and respectively outcomes varied in different projects, as described section Projects of this narrative. Nevertheless, overarching requirements were/are sharing, discussion/interaction, ICTs, collaboration within the classroom, school, country and wider.

Although subjects needs, requirements and used methodologies vary; together with colleagues we were integrating several subjects into 1 one cross-subject class. On many occasions multimedia performances were realized in the frame of different subjects. Colleagues themselves were/are improving curricula according experiences gained with collaborative activities. In discussions with parents and students we were trying to implement their feedback into the curricula, if doable.

Inviting guests and experts in the school became regular practice. Also, visiting institutions and learning things “hands-on” is more and more accepted.

Basically, most of our on-line collaborative projects were dealing with cross-cultural, ethnical issues, through which we were also dealing with ethnical and human issues. These issues were and still are pressing for us living in Balkans; therefore it was logical to have them higher of our agenda.

Predominantly, ICTs were used as communication, research and decision-making tools in meeting project aims and objectives and in reaching mutual decision in regard to various project activities.

All these improvements are necessary to build positive attitude towards life-long learning perspective students need to acquire and also to make whole this process joy able and fun, because this is the way learning is most empowering.

Projects were assessed by colleagues – teachers and students from different aspects in different phases of the project in order to secure project activities to be student-fit and to match their expectations. We all agreed that it is much more important that students do assessment of project activities and their accomplishments rather than teachers.

In most of the cases students have developed forms that they used to assess project activities.

Processed evaluation forms of the project Building Bridges over Borders by using ICT and Project Based Learning can be found at:  (http://www.imor.org.mk/programmes/bridges/evaluation_of_training_and_event.htm)

Some of the objectives are:

• Provide educators with ongoing professional development opportunities and support with which we are expanding their ICT skills and multi-cultural awareness and learning opportunities for youth.
• Developing sustainable and replicable models of good practice that use technology for learning and cross-border collaboration.
• Contribute to the ability of students to engage collaboratively and to encourage social responsibility, multi-cultural awareness and self-actualization.

Complete list of objectives is wider and more overarching. There were numerous outcomes from this project – measurable and not measurable. Few things that were evident and arose from youth initiative are: youth profile, and open letter from youth from Macedonia and Albania to all stakeholders.  

Also, rate of expectations met according participants was approximately 89% out of maximum 100%, as they expressed themselves.

Outcomes of the project Youth Have a Say against Terrorism are presented on: http://www.imor.org.mk/programmes/noterror/out.html. Having in mind project objectives, it is evident that there are many outcomes. To be able to better sense the real impact of this concrete project it would be necessary to also read stories and testimonies, and declaration youth developed.  

Assessment has been done using similar approach described previously. Links to forms used for impact assessment are:

• http://www.imor.org.mk/programmes/noterror/evalu.html
• http://www.imor.org.mk/programmes/noterror/descript.html
• http://www.imor.org.mk/programmes/noterror/yesno.html

One more way to assess learning outcomes was to fill in such forms:

Besides statistics and measurable outputs/results, in working with young people, we were very much focused on assessing impact on young people via not directly measurable results. Such assessment could have been done via collecting testimonies, statements, stories, and also via observing young people in the classroom, reading their interactions, talking with their parents and other students.

Logically, colleagues and I were always observing students and were talking with them about their impressions of the activities, what they liked or disliked, and why. We were also asking students to how much they are satisfied with their performance and accomplishment, and on the bases of that, in front of the class we were making open and transparent discussion about assessment of learning outcomes.

Affective domain is domain that is very much targeted with our projects. I think the reasons for this is that on a daily basis young people are facing such challenges and need to cope and live with them.

Therefore, some of the learning requirements are touching upon this domain - preparing a young person for cross-cultural understanding and appreciation, which is priority for us, living in this part of the world.

The following questions and answers are extracted from the questionnaire from the form used in the project Building Bridges over Borders by using ICT and PBL. On these questions all surveyed young people answered yes.

More you interesting questions and responses can be found at: (http://www.imor.org.mk/programmes/bridges/evaluation_of_training_and_event.htm)

In the following section are some answers on questions that were asking what are the things students from Macedonia, Albania, Kosovo, Serbia (Building Bridges over Borders by using ICT and Project Based Learning, Youth Have a Say Against Terrorism, Information for Development – Linking and Empowering Balkan Youth) learnt, and gained from the project. This can be the easiest way to present their attitude towards project activities, and the achieved outcomes.

• Their country is alike ours.
• We’ve learnt about their religion, hobbies, customs and traditions.
• I learnt that if you want friendship with your neighbors you have to accept the difference of cultures.
• I known that people from Albania don’t like borders like me too.
   
• We have many common things. We are interested in many same isues. I realy did not expect to be like that.
• They are full with life and they look forward to make friends.
• Being from different countries doesn’t mean that we should be different. We are at the same age and we have same ideas.
   
• I have gained new friendship and many points of views.
• Experience. Friends. Knowledge – things that I belive are very important for our future carier what ever it is.
• That nothing is like you imagine it.
   
• It make me happy.
• I belive that one day people in the Balkan will live in country with out borders.
   
• The next topics in on-line collaberation may be OPEN  BALKAN or BALKAN  WITHOUT BORDERS.
• I want to go on holiday together.
   
• We  get familiar with different cultures, learn some new words, we have got the possibility for sharing of ideas with people from different countries.
• We are all interested in learning about new cultures and we all agree with ,,No war only peace”.
• We are really friendly and we have a great desire to know each other and to live better in the future.
• The differences between us don’t realy exists.
• We didn’t have difficulties in making new friends,we didn’t experienced some serious problems and the participants were very friendly.
   
• We made new friends, we share our experiences, learnt something new about terrorism, new thoughts and much more knowledge.
• The power of ICT in bringing people together.

They do not want project activities to stop and plan how to continue. Some of their plans for future co-operation are the following (Building Bridges over Borders by using ICT and Project Based Learning)

• Investigate on the www for the Balkan’s countries cultural life and derive a list of links to sites of the most relevant cultural institutions;
• Invite lecturers and decide on the topics for debate with them;
• Start cooperation with the other neighboring countries as well as countries from throughout the world;
• Perform a research on the conditions of creating and running an IRC channel only for the people interested in this project;
• Organizing a net-meeting by the children;
• Include competitions in future gatherings such as sport games, quiz-shows, educative "duels" etc.
• The seminars should last longer;
• Invite new children and teachers;
• Debates on issues that concern the children (drugs, AIDS, smoking and alcohol, going out, friends and similar to these);
• Lectures on the previously mentioned themes;
• Visiting, while together, cultural and religious institutions;
• Computer education;
• Organize international cuisine day (to present the national kitchen of the participating countries);

More than 2000 young people from Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo addressed whole world with their Declaration of Youth against Terrorism

THE DECLARATION

We, young people gathered together from different countries/territories (Albania, Macedonia and Kosovo), are raising our voices against all types of terror and terrorism.

Today, we are united stronger than ever stating our clear and strong message "Do not let terrorism injure us and continue destroying our lives and our future!"

We shall begin with expressing our perspective on terrorism: "It is sick and selfish to achieve someone's goals by spreading violence!"

We all know some of the causes and most of the consequences of terrorism, and we want to say to everybody that we are fed up! Even if we do not have the power, as politicians do, we have the wish and the will of young people to put an end to the terrorism.

We are a driving force and the future of our society; we are going to fight for our lives; and our voices are growing stronger compared to existing powers.

Terrorism feeds on people's attention. We think that media should be sensitive in order to contribute to the fight against terrorism. The media should not aid terrorism by trying to report the story first although it might be twisted or even enable them to make money.

Youth need support from governments, which is something significant and necessary - another way of minimizing this evil.

We deserve a chance to live in peace and freedom and to have better lives for us and the next generation. Having this in mind, we, young people from Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo, united together, challenge everyone not to support terrorism in the world, to find the most peaceful ways coping with it so as to not to foster conflicts, and to appreciate other cultures, races and religions.

Therefore, we are inviting all interested individuals, enterprises, organizations, institutions, and other stakeholders from all countries around the globe - Let us put an end to terrorism, create a better world with no war and conflict, a world in which everyone can live freely.

Young people from Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo

This declaration was also accepted and supported by thousands of young people and educators internationally.

These extracts are simply telling that youth minds were significantly impacted and through learning and collaboration they have opened their minds, widened perspectives, changed attitudes and made a lot of friends.

When I first found out what is missing in my puzzle for having good learning and teaching process – on-line collaborative project activities, I somehow knew – this is it.

I described that we in Macedonia, had possibilities to really get on-line from 1998 and on, with exception to several schools, including mine, which had connectivity earlier.

In those years I dared to step into the “unknown” area for many of us in the Balkans trying to reach out over the border and boundaries and to break down many prejudice and stereotypes. I like to be challenged, but in those times challenges were sometimes that big, that I may say there were also many temptations to simply quit and have steady and smooth life without turbulences.

Thing that pushed me forward despite all problems was “humanware” that arose. Network of on-line friends - students and teachers that was and still is valuing and cherishing values we all gained in collaborative learning. And all that without knowing people in the first moment, but simply starting collaborative activities with them.

In this process I also interacted a lot, learnt a lot, and gained a lot. Definitely, I was and I am empowered a lot, because I am fulfilling my dreams: As Sir Charles Darwin once said: “Spices that survived were neither the strongest, nor the fastest, but the ones that were most responsive to changes.” I am responsive to changes and challenges, and this is how I am “surviving” with my soul.

I can freely say that working with students and colleagues on on-line collaborative projects I have improved in many different aspects. Professionally, I have improved my teaching, understanding of young people, communication and collaboration with students, colleagues, parents, overall performance, experiencing joy while working, working with many wonderful people out the classroom walls, and I am sure I want to further improve myself, and to create circumstance and environment for other to experience what I have already did.

When I started with on-line collaborative projects, it was the challenge to see what is this, how these projects can fit into my way of thinking; will I find something there for me?

As the time was elapsing, I was getting more and more convinced that this is “the real thing” I want to do with my students and I want to involve as much as possible other teachers. Why? Because with such activities we are crossing the classroom walls and country borders and these activities are the most powerful tool in fostering the learning.

On top of that, when justification and recognition of results and achievement/s comes, then there is nothing more rewarding and fulfilling for each human being. Some goes for me too.

I am really felling proud when alumni student is getting back to us, which frequently happens, telling us how she or he are now working together with other alumni, or are together, how they feel bonded, how they are feeling proud of having so many friends in Balkans and internationally.

I am even more proud that some of our projects got their international recognition on world wide know challenges – Stockholm Challenge, Global Junior Challenge, Child Net Awards.

All these impacted me very much, I have changed lot, work differently with colleagues and students, increased my self-confidence (I am going in right direction), and of course have changed my approach in teaching.

There are sometimes challenges that are more or less expected. Sometimes people are having stumbling blocks and hesitate to speak freely about the pressing issues/problems. Sometimes connectivity can cause problems in project activities, or to keep things “on-track” and dynamics line can be an issue. These problems are always solved in collaboration between us – participants, which is again good example how collaboration can be beneficial.

Not to forget, we are all aware of the potential and possibilities Internet offers. And almost all of us want to perceive Internet from that perspective. But, also we need to be aware of the challenges and even dangers that exist there and problems that might arose from that. I could not even imagine some of those dangers, I hearing about from time to time. This is big responsibility on our shoulders we must be aware of and to act proactively to alert our students and to prevent unwanted situations.

What to say? OCL project activities enlightened me with all their benefits, and enriched me with wonderful and amazing friends forever. I think that this biggest treasure person can have is to have such friends.

At the beginning of our work we did not paid much attention to the promotion of our work. We became aware of that when we started to participate in international projects, and when we start receiving questions about work we are doing.

In fact, we were at least not aware of the quite and not planned promotion each one of us made when sharing positive attitude and great experiences we had with the collaborative experiences we were doing. First to know were our closest, families, friends, and colleagues.

When we start getting our first products we started to inform our community at first, then wider surrounding about what, and how we are doing.

After short period of time, journalists start approaching us and asking what are the new things we are doing, with whom we are collaborating now, how do we feel about that, what are our plans, and many, many more questions.

On meetings we teachers are having on national level we were all passionately describing our unforgettable experiences.

Many articles in school newspapers in our and other participating schools appeared, and also in daily newspapers, which helped us a lot in promoting our work and joy.

Students, I and other colleagues were invited in many occasions in radio and TV shows, which again contributed a lot for promotion of collaborative work we did, achievements and to inform educational community about the pioneering steps we are making, always opened for collaboration.

In order to better promote our efforts, collaborative activities and outcomes, we made a lot of presentations on educational events and conferences in Macedonia and internationally.

Some links to on-line articles speaking about this initiative are:

http://www.mango.org.mk/mk_news.asp

http://www.unesco.org/webworld/news/2002/090102_infoyouth.shtml

We used opportunities to acquaint Ministry of Education and Science in Macedonia, National UNESCO Commission and other governmental and non-governmental organisations about our activities.

About our activities was always updated Presidential cabinet. This is occasion when group of my colleagues and students talked about our activities with President of Republic of Macedonia – Mr. Branko Crvenkovski.

After being finalist and wining on internationally recognized challenges we have organized presentations for media and all interested parties promoting our work, available information about the award themselves, and the significance of the and achievements.

Award Ceremony, Global Junior Challenge, Roma, Italy, 2004 http://gjc.gioventudigitale.net/2004/en/foto_cerimonia_premiazione_09.asp

There are different types of assistance my colleagues and I can offer to our colleagues and students.

In principle, we all trying to promptly do it, or at least in a timely manner, simply because if somebody is requesting something, it is logical that quick answer is expected.

In most of the cases we are sending regular updates, and circular mails – newsflashes, in order to keep the communication going on. Also we are asking our participants if any assistance is needed.

We are doing our best to keep regular communication because we believe that communication is helping a lot in establishing the contacts, friendly atmosphere and enabling the collaboration.

Also, information is posted/published on the project sites, or other reserved space for our activities, sharing latest information, news, requests and requirements.

Chats, discussion groups, forum discussions are also scheduled for the benefit of project activities, but also for the sake of the communication and collaboration.

All these activities are always in our minds trying to secure relaxed atmosphere and good environment for communication and collaboration.

People in Macedonia in general are communicative, but when we are speaking about getting in communication with a person who somebody do not know already, people are getting a bit reluctant in communication. I think this is the biggest challenge for us was this issue – breaking the ice and making the first steps in communication. Progress afterwards is coming much easier compared to the first steps.

Therefore, when doing workshops/training I was telling colleagues interesting and fun stories, anecdotes in how to join and make first steps in collaborative activities. Once they overcame those types of barriers, things were much smoother. There were many joyful moments in “kicking-off” activities with “newcomers”, but always we were all going forward because we found that collaborative activities are bringing lots of sense in our work, and are very motivating for students as well as colleagues.

There are also other things in empowering colleagues:

• Involving them in all phases of the project, starting from planning though reporting.
• Sharing information.
• Providing them with prompt feedback, support, assistance.  
• Showing understanding and appreciation.
• Delegating responsibilities and tasks.

Some examples of teachers being empowered in different projects:

“I, as school coordinator for VET Program had no contacts with my principal for almost 4 months. We have been communicating via our colleagues. We did not find strength or good enough reason to start to communicate.
 

Than, we were offered to get free line (that other GEMS school released it) and to have Internet access as a part of GEMS Program. In fact, I was contacted late at night about this possibility for our school. Our school applied for GEMS, but other schools were identified to part of GEMS.
  

Next day I went directly in the principal’s office, and put the interest of students, colleagues and school on top of my pride and tell principal what we are offered. Principal himself was very happy when heard news, and we started to plan jointly our upcoming activities. Ever since we are communicating much better and more open.”

Branko Aleksovski, Vocational teacher

“During school year 2000/2001, especially during the autumn period I was in informed about GEMS Program and about participation of our school in this Program. I was glad and enthusiastic to participate in those interesting activities together with students in the 1^st year where I teach Physics.
 

My knowledge considering computers was really modest. That is why just opened GEMS ILC w as an opportunity for me to improve my ICT knowledge. The courses which I participated and which were guided by teachers Jove Jankulovski, Mimoza Anastovska-Jankulovska, Petar Boskovski, Julija Krstevska, has enabled me to perform continuous on-line project work on computers. In the same time this was a unique opportunity to improve the knowledge of English Language since I had been studying French at school.”

Violeta Alacheva, Physics teacher

“Hi,
 

I just wanted to report that thanks to the training I am conducting in my school “8-mi septemvri” within the project “Building Bridges over Borders by using ICT and PBL” I got several computers, modem and Internet access. It was not planned at all. This is very big step for us, not only within the project, but also for other teachers who have shown interest in computer and Internet literacy. I started pessimistically, but now I have hope. Something like this never happened before.

Regards from Natali”
Natali Trajkovska, Chemistry teache

Having Internet in the school allows student to use the language not only during the class, but in communication with other students from different countries too, by working on same projects with them. Seeing them happy and hard working makes we feel satisfied."

Zlatka Ivanovska - English Language teacher

"Few other teachers and I work with a group of students on the project Balkan Voices. Thanks to the equipment and connectivity that we have, they learn about Balkan countries, as well as about Macedonia, about history, geography, culture, language, and many other things. They get to know students from other Balkan countries and communicate with them, and do not see them as members of certain nationality, but as their friends."

Jordan Ilioski - History teacher

Direct interaction, communication and collaboration with teachers, listening to their impressions about benefits and values that are gaining from on-line collaborative activities are justifying to me that they are really empowered to continue, extend and improve work they have been doing.

First of all, I want to congratulate Global SchoolNet Foundation for having such initiative, promoting benefits and values that on-line collaborative learning (OCL) projects are bringing in the classroom and wider in the educational community.

It is definitely important to assist teachers and students in doing so, because OCL projects are very demanding and challenging, and some teaches can simply go in the stream of “smaller resistance” and live boring, but easy “life of teacher”.

We are all aware that recognition of work done and accomplishments achieved is always empowering and energizing project actors, promoting them in their environments, making them happy and proud.

Therefore, having such award celebrating OCL project work and recognizing successful practices and practitioners is very important contribution in having this concept promoted and reinforced in schools worldwide. I was, and I am happy to continue being part of such initiatives.

In Macedonian context, according my perception of things, the biggest challenges are poor and/or expensive Internet connection, lack of teacher motivation, lack of understanding among school directors about importance of this approach.

I think that technology part is challenging one, but it is easier to solve compared to challenges in relation to people. Reluctance and ignorance by some schools directors is preventing teachers to experience OCL and to practicing it. This is obstacle that is really hard to overcome/solve. If school directors are openly supporting OCL projects, then I am sure that teachers will be motivated more.

While internationally obstacles/challenges might be some cultural issues (occasionally, not by default), sometimes time zones, living standards – for poor countries especially.

I think that Global SchoolNet Foundation (GSN) can act on 2 levels.

Priority level - operational level, or providing support to teachers and students:

• Live link-ups are always welcomed be all teachers and students. GSN can try to develop low-cost software, or freeware for schools that will enable schools with low speed connectivity, or have old computers to be able to see their on-line friends. Benefits are multiple in such case and bonds created in this way are stronger.
• Offering free web space for OCL projects can be also very beneficial for many students and teachers that can not afford to pay for web space. I am aware that there exist lots of free web hosting servers. But, I think effect of having in same area/domain more OCL projects will have bigger impact.
• Providing tools and resources – free forum areas, discussion groups, OCL assessment directions, rubrics, other assessment tools, again can be useful instrument to have more structured and more empowering OCL projects, guide teachers and students, create pool of exemplary OCL project.
• Web based management service for OCL projects can be of great assistance to teachers and students, because sometimes they might not be proficient in doing so, or are beginners, and help, guidance, assistance and any support will be useful for them.

I think having all these things is beneficial for GSN and for schools and classes working on OCL projects.

The other level where GSN might act is strategic level – to work with governments in few directions:

• Raising awareness about the importance of introduction of OCL projects in education.
• Making efforts to update existing ICT strategies with priority to introduce OCL.
• Work with Ministries of Education on awareness and support to schools in ICT integration into the curricula and classroom.

I think I can work with GSN on-line in different phases of development and testing of resources, tools, or programs. However, I am not sure how much it will be time consuming and efficient for the development phase for me and GSN. But, on the other hand I am sure that for testing phase I, my colleagues and my students will be happy to take active part in testing, and report back with their findings.

I will use this opportunity to thank Mimoza Anastovska who nominated me. And, also I want to thank my dear friends who wrote testimonials for me. I am honored and proud to be nominated for this very important international award.

Jove Jankulovski