Visitors from Nigeria

We hosted a group of educators from Nigeria today. Did you know there is a city called "Jos" in Nigeria? I drove through that city in 1982..... (fun fact).

Dutch moment

Back in Canada and near a mall I noticed a small farmer's market where they were making a real Dutch treat: "poffertjes" (mini Dutch style pancakes). Yum....

Kahoot.it + workshop notes

During the past few days workshop facilitator Kevin got the group excited  by  doing some team quizzes using "kahoot.it". If you don't know it, have a look (it is open source and free to use).

You can have participants register as teams and then they have to answer questions and get points for the right answer and for how fast they send the answer. Really nice to get people going...

After every question you can show how the teams rank at that moment.
Here a few of the notes we made during the workshop on the themes of change management and project management.

At the end the participant got a certificate and we gave them follow-up tasks to stay active on the topic. We will follow up with them over the next few months with on-line surveys.

A good productive week at the MVTTC in Morogoro. Back in October for another workshop then to be hosted in Arusha for another group of college leaders.

Leading and Managing Change

After completing our first two days with trainers from the MVTTC teacher training institute, we had a bit of time to enjoy the surrounding mountains, before jumping into the three day workshop with 20 leaders from 4 of the 12 participating vocational institutions in this project.

Elsa from CICan started off the workshop with a welcome and an explanation of the larger ISTEP program in which we deliver our specific Seneca consultancy (educational management and leadership training). Afterwards Kevin started off with getting to know each other and our first part of the workshop: Leading and Managing Change.

Morogoro in Tanzania

From the Bogota airport back to Toronto and a week later via Zurich to Dar es Salaam...

In Tanzania for a consultancy project with the MVTTC (Training institute for teachers of the college system here) to work on new course materials for "Educational Management & Leadership".

My colleague Kevin works at Seneca"s Center for Teaching & Learning and works with his peers on the topic of preparing teachers who have aspirations to become managers at some stage in their career. I add value during the process with some case studies and role plays based on experiences.

Back at SENA for a few days

Last Friday some planning meetings at SENA (where I worked the full year of 2013) and this week a series of workshops delivered by one of my colleagues of Seneca (specific training on comparison of standards used in water treatment technician programs).

This weekend a bit of time to enjoy my favorite Colombian coffee again!

As well as admiring the Sunday morning cycling, running, skateboarding, rollerblading and walking on the otherwise busy roads of Bogota....

Lots of football (soccer) games on TV this weekend between the Euro 2016 and the finals of the  Copa Americana. It is nice to be a few days in this city again....

From Kyrgyzstan to Colombia

The past five days I was in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia. I assisted in the admission committee for the very first intake of students for the 5 year Bachelor programs of the University of Central Asia (UCA) which will start program delivery in September at one of its three campuses in the mountainous regions of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan. Seneca has worked with the UCA academic team to develop the curriculum for the first (preparatory) year.

Tonight I arrived in Bogota for work with our colleagues of SENA. It is nice to be back in the city where I lived and worked during 2013. The government of Colombia signed today the peace accord with the FARC which could be a historic moment to finally bring an end to 50 years of internal armed conflict in the country. The national football (soccer) team of Colombia lost last night in the semi-finals of the "Copa Americana" from Chile. You can't win them all. But it would have been fun to watch the Colombian team play on a TV in a local sports bar in the finals on Sunday....