Moodle - the bridge across the Atlantic

Moodle - the bridge across the Atlantic

by Ulrike Montgomery -
Number of replies: 9

I just want the Moodle community to know what wonderful things Moodle can do for international relations. At the moment, 13 of my students from Germany are staying with Art's students in Aiken, South Carolina. Our schools met through Moodle and now we have an official GAPP partnership. My students are having a great time. They keep me posted in our Moodle forum telling me about the fun things they do.

We are the envy of all the other schools in our district - they have been trying to find a US school for years, contacting school boards, universities, government officials etc. and we (an inner-city school) are the lucky ones to have a partner school because some guy in Australia programmed a software, told his American friend from Aiken about it - who liked it so much that he became one of the first US Moodlers and I just happened to stumble across the Aiken High School Moodle site while surfing the net 3 years ago.

I'm sure that this exchange will have a lasting impact on our students and I hope that we'll have more exchanges in the future.

Art, thanks a lot for being such a wonderful host smile

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In reply to Ulrike Montgomery

Re: Moodle - the bridge across the Atlantic

by Art Lader -

Ulrike,

It is a pleasure hosting your students and your colleagues. I hope they are enjoying themselves as much as we enjoy having them. smile

For those who are not familiar with the German American Partnership program, I will simply say that the motto of this highly-successful high school student exchange program is as follows: Damit die Welt friedlicher wird. My translation would be this: For a more peaceful world.

Let's all hope for that. I am sure that we are all doing what we can to make it so.

-- Art

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In reply to Art Lader

Re: Moodle - the bridge across the Atlantic

by Art Lader -

Here is my favorite picture so far. (Log in as a guest if necessary.)

Nice snake! We have lots of snakes and spiders in South Carolina. And yes, some are poisonous. wink

Regards,
Art

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In reply to Art Lader

Re: Moodle - the bridge across the Atlantic

by Dr S Bhatia -
Hi Art
1. the picture is freely visible, no need to login.
2. it took me a wgile to realise what they are holding. Initially it seemed like two women sharing something eatable.

I'd like to share this incident with you, pertaining to snakes.
In 2001-02, when we were having a military stand-off with Pakistan, I was at a post in the desert and had set camp of my unit in the middle of a quasi-desert field. Another unit of infantry was sharing some area with us. They belonged to Eastern parts of India.

One night, while I was dining with my officers, my cook came running into the dining hall(VERY unusual) shouting snake, snake! We all ran and discovered a King cobra, thick as my arm and about 5-6 feet in length. Since it had managed to cross our snakepits, he was obviously a threat to troops and we immediately killed it with sticks. By then few sepoys from neighbouring unit came running asking us not to kill it. I tried to explain to them that normally even I normally don't kill any snake but if my troops are in danger, I'll kill it.

Their sergeant looked crestfallen. "That's not what I am saying ,Sir" he said. "What I meant was, had you waited a bit, we would have killed it with precision so that we could eat it then. You don't know how to kill properly and you have spoilt a perfectly good meal".

Life's like that.smile
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In reply to Dr S Bhatia

Re: Moodle - the bridge across the Atlantic

by Art Lader -

That is a great anecdote! Thank you for sharing it. I will be sending it to a couple of my naturalist friends today. smile

Regards,
Art

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In reply to Art Lader

Re: Moodle - the bridge across the Atlantic

by Art Lader -
Ulrike,

Your group left Aiken a little while ago. There were many tears as they boarded the bus.

Thank you for "lending" us such great kids and chaperones for three terrific weeks. We will miss them.

Please know that they represented themselves and their families, your school, your community and your country very well and made a wonderful impression on everyone here.

Regards,
Art
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In reply to Art Lader

Re: Moodle - the bridge across the Atlantic

by Ulrike Montgomery -

Art,

Thanks for being such a great host. My kids enjoyed it tremendously as you can tell from their forum posts on our site. I'm sorry I couldn't come with them - I know you understand that Moodle needed me in Germany during the last three weeks - we really made a lot of progress and by the end of this school year most of the schools in Baden-Württemberg will be using Moodle - and everybody knows that a lot of credit goes to you.

It's just amazing that a software like Moodle can bring people together - I do hope that we'll have more exchanges in the future and we are looking forward to the Moodlemeister's return to Germany smile.

Thanks again,

Ulrike

Average of ratings: Very cool (1)
In reply to Ulrike Montgomery

Re: Moodle - the bridge across the Atlantic

by Art Lader -
Well, I think the credit goes to you and Ina, but thanks. I will always take any stroke that I can get. smile

Continuing the relationship would be very cool. After all, it was wonderful for our American kids, too.

Let's talk about it.

-- Art
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