Student Abigail van Bercheyke found herself an internship in New York City, the very first student of the school of social work to do so (as part of her studies in Cultural Social Work / CMV). Although the road to New York was paved with obstacles, taking a lot of time, it's obvious from the picture that it has been worth all the effort.
The following is a short post that was published in the BCS newsletter; may it inspire other students to take similar steps. “I am happy to be at Brooklyn Community Services because it’s in Brooklyn, which is so vibrant and diverse. It reminds me of Rotterdam, where I attend University .” -Abigail
As a student at Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands studying to be a social cultural worker, Abigail was seeking an internship in New York City. A Google search led her to BCS.
Abigail feels her connection with BCS is a perfect match. She has been to NYC twice before and Brooklyn is her favorite borough.
Abigail’s final research paper at Rotterdam University addresses youth issues, and she is excited to be working with the Brooklyn High School for Leadership and Community Service. Abigail also enjoys being able to tap into her creative abilities by designing flyers for the volunteer program and helping out in the External Relations and Advancement Department.
“If you are a person who likes to do a lot of different things, BCS has a lot to offer. Because of the many of programs you can volunteer in different kinds of ways, which makes the work interesting and enjoyable” -Abigail.
What does learning without boundaries after 2013 look like? This was the theme of a conference that was announced a few months ago by the Dutch National Agency for Lifelong Learning. Looking back, I am glad I persisted in my attempts to attend it. Due to circumstances I had to enroll later than I wanted to, only to find out that even the waiting list was full for this free event. Undauntedly, I decided to turn up any way, expecting not to be sent home as I had come all the way to the venue. And indeed thankfully I was admitted approximately half an hour after the start. Having missed the first inspirational presentation I landed immediately in the elevator pitches for the upcoming round of workshops. A new format that worked very well as it gave a better than usual insight into what the different workshops entailed. From prior experience at other conventions I know workshops do not always turn out to be as the abstracts or written announcements suggest.
The focus for me this time was on the latest regarding virtual mobility, virtual teamwork and open course ware and I took away a lot from the sessions. One of the sessions led by Willem van Valkenburg (from TU Delft) showed this self-explanatory video to demonstrate why open education matters: Why Open Education Matters from Blink Tower on Vimeo.
This reminded me of a video I saw about 5 years ago under the title of Shift happens and which has since been updated a few times, the latest version here:
Crucial message for the education sector : "We are currently preparing students for jobs that don't yet exist ... using technologies that haven't been invented ... in order to solve problems we don't even know are problems yet."
One of the intriguing issues that came up during the workshop was: what is the surplus value of a university as we all know now that a university does not have the monopoly on knowledge any more....That really makes you think, doesn't it. Our workshop leader remarked that at the moment many boards of directors at universities are discussing the increasingly popular phenomenon of MOOCs, Massive Open Online Courses and what impact that will have. A recent blog even calls 2012 the year of the MOOC and puts the question: "“Will MOOCs spell the end of higher education?” Doomthinking like this however is not new. Already in 2003 I read somewhere that it would be game over for the higher education sector within the decade. I believe there is still plenty of room for play, but it's crucial to keep paying attention to the rules that are changing all the time, stay on top of the trends and adopt adaptive strategies. As an article in the Chronicle already seemed to suggest at the start of 2012: digital badges could well become the successor of credits, fascinating !
The other workshop focussed on blended teamwork and dealt with practical points of attention to any team that collaborates at a distance, based on their own experience of working together as a European team on a virtual handbook. One of the questions that was put to us was: how do you build up trust in your online team ?
All in all, the conference was a pleasant experience, not in the least because it put the spotlight on the way young people view and experience education and life at the moment, and most of all because it meant chatting and discussing issues with like-minded people, who can look beyond boundaries, very refreshing.
PS
More about MOOCS on Willem's blog here and a learner's reflective perspective here. And these are the recommended steps for students to make a MOOC count taken from Inside HigherEd.
Sala Alessi, Palazzo Marino, in the heart of Milan: that was the venue for an open seminar that our Milanese partner Ciessevi had arranged as part of the 3rd partnership meeting of the INVEST project on November 12th. In this majestic location all eyes were first focused on the mayor of Milan who welcomed the many participants as well as the INVEST partners from Spain, Denmark, the UK and our country. An admirable way of underlining the importance of volunteering and supporting European cooperation ! Capitalising on volunteer experiences: that was to be our theme, we had decided, much in line with the INVEST project objectives (described here). The open seminar provided an ideal opportunity to disseminate the European experiences with competence development and portfolios for volunteers to local stakeholders. A Grundtvig learning partnership makes EU cooperation accessible, focused and concrete, once you've drawn up a solid plan and got it approved. This type of European project facilitates face-2-face meetings, resulting in worthwhile talks and discussions enabling interaction that leads to new ideas and perspectives. During small scale workshops many issues can be discussed at a concrete and insightful level via focused and well prepared assignments, which is why everybody learns so much (see here what was learned at an event just like this). Moreover, it also supports a European spirit of solidarity in these difficult times in the Eurozone.This time the two workshops were implemented by our Cibervoluntarios partner from Madrid and our own university. Finally, the visits to three volunteering organisations in the Milan area made the meeting an overall success among the 28 delegates.Here's a picture of nearly the whole group at the end of day 1.
On our way back to the airport we got confronted with one of the many protest marches taking place all over Europe that day;
as it turned out, it was the biggest day of union-organised protests
since the crisis in the euro first broke out three years ago, with trade unions from 23 European countries joining in this day of action.
More photos of this 3rd European level meeting of the INVEST project on flickr via this link.
This
project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This
blog post reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission
cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the
information contained herein.
An interesting new development: graphics presenting complex information quickly and clearly, for example in journalism and on the web. These so-called infographics are graphic visual representations of information, data or knowledge and appear to become more and more popular to communicate complex concepts and illustrate information that would be unwieldy in text form.
Here's one I saw this week about studying in Holland:
It was Thursday October 18th when rector Glenn Thode of the University of Aruba and managing director Jeroen Oversier of our School of Social Work at Rotterdam University signed a Memorandum of Understanding in the presence of Juliet Chieuw, quality assurance officer, Peter Canrinus, educational manager, and Anja Stofberg, international coordinator.
The MoU establishes a common framework of cooperation, consultation and exchange of information to promote and facilitate exchanges. At the same time, it also underlines the importance of increasing international activity within our school of social work as well as within the department of Social Work and Development of the FAS (the Faculty of Arts and Science at UA).
The signature is a follow up of the talks and visits that took place over the last 12 months. Both in the Netherlands as well as in Aruba, talks always took place in a very positive atmosphere (see earlier blog posts here and here) and the closing statements usually expressed that future collaboration steps looked promising as both parties can benefit a lot from each other's expertise, approach and network.Interestingly, it was pointed out that small though the island of Aruba is, it can play a huge role as international hub in its surrounding area, a fascinating current development that is taking place in our increasingly globalising world that we are preparing our students for. So, now it's time to start planning in more detail !
As a student at Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands studying to be a social cultural worker, Abigail was seeking an internship in New York City. A Google search led her to BCS.
