Jablonec in Global lounge!

Yesterday in the evening I landed in Prague, the Summer in Rotterdam is over. However, this is not the last post on this blog. In few days, I'd like to share my overall impressions from last 3 months spent in 5 different countries, mostly in the Netherlands.

Moreover, the project, the reason behind this all, is still not finished. As I've mentioned in the last project update, my CEED has been extended for next 2-3 months, maybe more, so it is fairly probable that I'll post something from time to time.

Well, maybe good question... why am I actually coming back to Prague? In 10 days I am taking my maths exam, which I need to get ready for. I'm attending an intense one-week preparation course (starting the day after tomorrow) to check the level of my readiness. Few days after the exam the semester starts (my last one on bachelor's degree) and so does my job. It is going to be tough autumn to manage school, Tempus project, job, AIESEC and other personal engagements at once, but let's give it a try;-)

Anyway, let me introduce Jablonec into Global lounge of AIESEC International!

Cheers!

Jordan revival (fresh post!!)

Huh, it's a good feeling to have my blog updated after 3 months! :D

And so as to enjoy this even more, now I'm writing this fresh post not describing what happened but what is happening right now! (Wednesday 29.8. 2007 11:00 GMT+2)

I'm sitting in the office, listening to Macy Gray on Fajn radio, just after my breakfast*, formally dressed, waiting for 11:20 when I'll go to pick up my colleagues from PSUT (Princess Sumaya University for Technology; wiki; web) in Jordan.

It is only 16°C but it is sunny with mild wind. I'll take my jacket.

My colleagues arrived in Rotterdam yesterday in the evening. The purpose of our meeting is obvious: to review the recent progress of the project on both sides, discuss related issues and precise the next steps. It is in fact the second round of our physical meetings after meetings in Jordan described before.

Everything is ready now, I've been preparing for this meeting on Monday and yesterday, I have also bought some refreshments (e.g. typical Dutch cookies "stroopwafels"), vacuum cleaned the whole office (OMG, that's work for one hour:)) and so on... I have to go now, I hope we are on the same wave! :)

*My today's breakfast: ham&cheese sandwiches, apricot Activia, vanilla tea, apple croissant, strawberry-orange juice and a tomato (I still haven't eaten it:))


They are leaving on Friday morning and so am I.
My plane to Prague is taking off at 8:50.

Biking in the countryside

Related to the previous post about bikes... it was very handy during my last weekend trip in the Netherlands to explore all hidden beauties of the country. What better place than the area of Zaanse Schans and what better company than a native Dutch and the most advanced traveller I have ever met. None other than Eva, my friend I met at the party in Rotterdam in June:) Actually she has never been here as well, so we both were exploring new areas.


We've seen traditional crafts, wind mills for flour as well as producing coloured powder, lot's of animals and a virgin nature. Just check the pics below...




Cheese, wooden shoes, herrings, wind mills, animals
We had various conversations with Eva, talking about the Netherlands and the Czech Republic, AIESEC and non-AIESEC, girls and boys... and most importantly about travelling. Eva has been backpacking for four moths across the countries in the South America and another four months in the central-southern Asia!! I'll have to think a lot about everything we've shared, I guess it will leave a trace for sure! I don't want to talk about it now, but the change in my plans may come relatively soon...
I'm not exaggerating at all if I say this trip opened new horizons for me and I'm looking forward to what will come.



Here I bring one more bonus picture... very creative, isn't it?! ;-)

BTW unbelievable came true!
My blog is U-P T-O D-A-T-E!!

This post has been uploaded only 2 days after the trip and there are no more posts in the drafts! :)

AIESEC International, Martin speaking

It is Friday and a relatively special working week has just ended. Why special? Because I tried how it is to be in an office keeper's shoes:) The whole AI team has left last Wednesday for the International Congress in Turkey, the rest of GN boards has left last Friday, Laura has left on Sunday and Sabine (AI office manager & salsa dancer) got ill...
OK, the more undisturbed environment I have the better, both for the "writing" phase of the project as well as for my studies of maths. What I realized very soon was that it wouldn't be as undisturbed as it had originally seemed.

Few things to arrange, e.g.:
> send UBS trophies to Turkey for the final ceremony on IC
> coordinate its transportation when it got stuck on Turkish customs (it wasn't just "one call")
> receive other parcels and office equipment
> search in financial papers and registration documents for one damned ID number:)
> explain a Dutch official that AI is not a VAT payer (after confirming this with people in Turkey, which sometimes took the whole morning/afternoon to get in touch with them)
> sort, pack and send a hundred of financial reports to Turkey
> fix Derek's flight ticket issue

... and of course, as expected, answering tens of phones. I can still remember some concrete topics:
> explaining a potential AIESEC member that if he wants to join the organization, he has to get in touch with local committee at his university first:)
> listening to two 30 min stories of dissatisfied students, in one case it was their problem, in the second one I really felt sorry with that person and advised them some next steps
> explaining our branding principles to people from one unnamed television and another agency
> solving an exchange quality issue of one LCP and explaining the exchange standards (IXPQS), where I found my previous occupation in AIESEC very useful:)
> and many other random announcements from SNs applying for global traineeships etc.

It was worth experiencing, at least I know one more job I wouldn't be able to do:)

Sometimes I worked in the library
Daily agenda of this week
Although I got unexpectedly busy with office administration, I tried to get some order in my daily agenda so as to be as efficient as possible. Of course, I have never managed to follow it in this order because I didn't have it written down, but when I think about the week, it would be something like this:

> 8:15-8:30 wake up & get up
> at around 9 a.m. arrive in the office
> 30 min of office maintenance (watering the plants or cleaning or hoovering or washing dishes etc.)
> 9:30-10 breakfast, reading news and blogs etc.
> 10-10:30 still breakfast, morning mail
> 11-19 work on the project with lunch break and social break along with office administration tasks (see above)
> 20-21:30 dinner, LC/MC related things, updating blog etc.
> 22-2 a.m. at home, studying maths, PC prohibited:)

Let's hope I'll manage keep to it in the next week as well. It will be my last week in Rotterdam and there is still so many things left. And the maths exam is closer and closer...:(

To buy a bike or not to buy a bike?

Good question... the Netherlands has a reputation for being the land of bikes and so it is. I have been thinking about this dilemma since the beginning of my stay, but I still haven't made the final decision.


No doubts that it is very fast and convenient means of transportation (especially taking into account the flat countryside, wide-spread cities in general and many other aspects), but on the other hand, if you are going somewhere in a group and most of people don't have a bike, it creates kind of a social gap.
Moreover you need to keep your eye on it all the time, because bikes are the most commonly stolen commodity in the country:)


Maybe it was these pictures that made me hesitate:)



My question for wise guys... which of these pictures wasn't taken in the Netherlands and why? ;-)


Last picture is from Montmartre in Paris and it speaks for itself:)

New IS platform ready!

Today has been very significant day! First of all the AI team received their sweatshirts, which caused lots of enthusiasm itself and secondly, in the afternoon the new IS platform was announced to be ready. Since I'm now documenting its development, I cannot omit this milestone!

Members of AI 0708 (and lucky me:)) received logins to the new platform. The testing period starts. And it will be necessary! Just during the registration I have encountered many small bugs to be fixed. It is absolutely understandable in such a complex system and it is actually the reason why it is being tested.

Ernie's time is counting down :(

Tomorrow, the IS Musketeers will enter the system and it will be revealed in front of the IC plenary in the morning of the last day.

Project update

Right after I returned from Brussels, I did another evaluation of my stay in Rotterdam, because it has been already more than 2 months since I arrived.
I haven't shared with you how is my project progressing for a long time, so here is the update:

It took me 1 whole month to get acquainted with the Tempus project, to understand its history, prerequisites, AIESEC's contribution, expected outcomes, overall scope, timeline and budgeting, to get to know my colleagues and be familiar with their roles in the project etc. etc.
I don't think I may describe all of this in one post, moreover I wouldn't see any sense in doing so. I will try to describe my work on the project on general level:

Tempus project
> official description of the "sub-project" I'm working on:
It is a large scale, long term project called Open Learning Models and Technologies, funded by the EU Tempus Programme, organised in a consortium model.
> more user-friendly description related to my job can be found in my previous post
> you can also visit the official website of Tempus here

Consortium partners
There are many parties involved in the Tempus project (as mentioned on Tempus website introduced above):
> University decision-making bodies
> University administrative staff
> Teachers
> Ministerial officials
> Student organisations (e.g. AIESEC)
> Social partners
> Public and private companies having links with higher education institutions
> Non governmental organisations

These are the entities I'm cooperating with:
> universities from Spain, France, Jordan and Bulgaria
> student organizations from the Netherlands and Greece
> external experts from Germany, United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Jordan and Oman

OK, this is the overview, but what do I do?
Outcome of my work (as a project manager, not a teacher:)) will be a master's course focused on Information Management. Also, we (AIESEC) are supposed to provide feedback and online support for the second course focused on E-commerce.
All courses (there is 8 of them to be created in the whole consortium) will be designed in the online e-learning platfrom Moodle.

Cool, but the course isn't ready, is it?
No, not yet:) It requires several major steps, in order to have the course available online for students:
> prepare the Course plan (what it will be about)
> design its structure
> get/create the content of the course:
1. generic theoretical foundation from our university partners
2. case study of how has AIESEC International executed similar revolution in practice
3. specify assignments methods for tutors
> get everything feedbacked (this is rather continuous)
> edit the content into comprehensive and logical form
> create and setup online template for our course in Moodle
> upload the contents online
> deliver training materials for students and tutors
> take part in overall course assessment

Many of these steps are progressing simultaneously, so it is hard to describe in one bullet point or one sentence where we are right now... Simply said, initial predictions of our experienced colleagues from Jordan, that a course development takes at least 6 months (what is more, to the people who have previous experience with the topic!) came true, so my CEED will be extended for next 2-3 months. By the end of November 2007, it should be ready! :)

Challenges & achievements
I've found it all challenging:) What makes most of my concerns is the flexibility of our foreign partners which isn't always as prompt as should be, so for example the final approval of our Course plan happened the last week, one month later than expected. Meanwhile, there have been lots of things to work on so we weren't prevented from advancing.

My notes taken during the first days