Ensimmäinen Vierailu Koulu - First School Visit

 On Tuesday morning I went to visit the Salon Lukio - or Salo High School. The school is housed in a 10 year old building that is just beautiful! I visited two English classes there - an English grammar class for 2nd graders (a.k.a. 11th graders) and an oral English class.

First I had a tour of the building. It was obviously built with flexibility and technology in mind. In the halls there were spaces for kids to sit and work, and even closed, quiet study rooms. The central, common area was wide open and bright with sunlight pouring in and a view of the farmlands out the enormous windows. I'll let pictures do the talking now.

The library - they do not have a librarian, but have a library collection available in a common area

There were areas for students to work along the corridors - these are some quiet study rooms 

This is a newly furnished flexible classroom - it was amazing. I wish all our classrooms were like this. Tables and stools are all adjustable height. The cushions on the board stick up with Velcro and people can take them if they need or want them. 

Students working on the "Fatboy" beanbags - I saw these in almost every school I went to. The students really seem to like them. I'm going to look into getting some for the library! 

Students can do good work - even on a couch! 

The girls look a little more studious than the boys. 

Notice the white poles - these are just hidden cords dropping down from the ceiling so that students have places to plug in and charge. 

Perhe - Family

My grandpa and his Finnish family before the war

As I mentioned in one of my first couple posts, my grandfather was from Finland. He escaped during the Continuation War after he aided in the Finn's efforts to hoard and hide weapons from the Russians and the government. He was basically chased out of the country. Well, he left a family behind in Finland. 

My mom joined me on this trip, in part so that she and I could meet some of the family; my great aunts, my mom's half siblings and cousin and many others. We spent all day on Sunday (Easter) meeting family, some which we didn't even know we had. Then we spent Monday with other family. While it was difficult to hear the other side of the story that we had heard from my grandfather, it was wonderful to meet and get to know an entirely new branch of my family. 

The grave of my great grandparents

My mom with her half brother and sister

Most of the family gathered together for Great-Aunt Aini's (in the pink chair) 94th birthday

A new cousin for me! 

Saapuminen - Arrival

I left Seatac at 4:30 pm on April 25th and arrived in Helsinki at 1:00 pm on April 26th. I only slept about three or four hours on the ride so it's been a looooong day! It's now 5:30 pm on April 26th and I've lost all track of day or time. And to make matters worse, the time changes here (spring forward!) tonight! 

Upon arrival in Helsinki we dropped off our bags at the hotel and went to lunch (which I'm pretty sure my stomach thought was breakfast). We went to a traditional Finnish restaurant called Kuukuu.I got what we in America might call Swedish meatballs, but here they were just called meatballs. So delicious! 

After eating it was straight to sightseeing with the first stop being Temppeliaukion Kirkko or, the Church on the Rock. A church literally carved into the granite bedrock in the middle of Helsinki. The location of the church was chosen in the 1930s and the intention was to build a grand church on top of the rock. However, war got in the way, and the planned church was never built. So in the 1960s the city had a competition to decide on a new plan for the church. The current church was designed by Timo and Tumo Suomalainen and was completed in 1969. It was magnificent. Water still runs down the walls into drains around the edges and all the detail work is done in copper, including a ceiling made miles and miles of copper wire in a spiral. 

View from the church balcony

Copper wire ceiling

Details of the rock wall, drainage, and candles

Our next stop was the Sibelius Park and Monument. It is a gloomy, foggy, day, but it was still amazing to be look around the park and monument. 

Sibelieus monument

Looking up from inside the monument

After a damp, foggy walk in the park it was time to warm up (and wake up) with some coffee and a cinnamon bun at the quirky Cafe Reggata. 

The Baltic Seaside cafe on a foggy day, ice still covering the water.

Antiques hang from the ceiling and people pack into the tiny cafe.

My mom and I perked up after some coffee and cinnamon buns.

After this we did a quick driving tour and saw the Olympic Stadium and other sights closer to our hotel like the Parliament building (under renovation), a library (under renovation), and several other things that my jet-lagged brain can't remember right now. 

With that in mind, I'm going to sign off and try to reset my internal clocks and get some rest.

Vierailevat Kouluissa - School Visits

The primary reason for my visit to Finland is to visit and observe schools there. Since 2001 Finland routinely has some of the highest PISA scores in the world. Their educational system clearly is doing something right and is worth observing just for that reason.

The school where I work has been putting together a plan to move to a 1:1 technology model - meaning that each student will have their own personal laptop that they use in their classes. As a part of the 1:1 planning committee I have been reading about and observing how other schools use technology, particularly how they integrate it into their larger curriculum.

My school is very close to the Microsoft main campus in Redmond, WA. Many of our students have parents or other relatives that work for Microsoft, Amazon or other technology companies that have sprung up in this area.  We have had ample support from the greater Microsoft community in many ways. Because of our ties to Microsoft, our technology plan uses primarily Microsoft products.

In the research I did writing the proposal for my trip, I learned that two cities in Finland, Espoo and Oulu, are also "Microsoft towns" like the Redmond area. Nokia had a large presence in both of these cities, and when Microsoft bought Nokia, they moved right in. As a result, many of the schools in these areas are Microsoft Showcase Schools. I used the Microsoft Educator Community (which you should sign up for if you are in education) to find names of people in the schools, then a just did a general search for the school's websites and tried to find contact information for people there.

In addition, I connected with a few schools through personal connections and recommendations.

Here is the list of schools I will be visiting (in the order I'm visiting them):

• Salo Secondary High School - The local high school in the town where I have relatives.
• Espoolahti School  - A Google school that works very closely with the tech community. They have a BYOD program. They are also hosting a Google Apps for Education Summit there this fall. In addition, this is one of the few schools in Finland with a school library. 
• Koulumestari School - A Microsoft Showcase School
• TYK - Tampere Arts-Oriented High School - An upper secondary school focused on courses in the arts, in addition to the core courses. 
• Oulu River School - A Microsoft Showcase School where each student has their own laptop.
• Metsokangas Comprehensive School - A Microsoft Showcase School where students use various mobile and tablet devices throughout the curriculum. Also, one of the few schools in Finland with a school library. 

Kartta - Map of my Travel Destinations

You can click on the icons marking the locations I'm traveling to below. Each location has a brief description and either a picture or a video.

Click on the square on the top right of the map to make it full screen and see the list of everywhere I'm going.

Tervetuloa! Welcome!

As I prepare to travel to Finland in...yikes!... just two days, I've set up this blog so that people can travel along with me from the comfort of their computers. I'll start with the story of how my trip to Finland came to be.

My maternal grandfather was from Finland. He was chased out of the country in 1945 while fighting in the Continuation War - a war between Russia and Finland for territory. He made his way to the United States where he joined the US Army Infantry and met my grandmother. I knew about the story of his escape from Finland (pretty exciting, chased out the door fleeing on cross country skis to a boat for Sweden) as I grew up.

I was very, very close to my grandfather. He often picked me up from school, and I stayed with my grandparents while my mom was at work. We ate some Finnish foods like "little pancakes" and pulla. He taught me some Finnish words, like "mina olen pieni tytto" which means "I'm a little girl" and how to count. I was always proud of our Finnish heritage.

Fast forward to my adult years. I worked at a school in Baltimore where all faculty members were given a grant to travel over the summer after seven years at the school. I had every intention of staying at that school, and so I regularly daydreamed about how I would spend my summer grant. I wanted to go to Finland where they have very innovative, cutting edge libraries. But, it was not to be, I left the school after only five years and never got my Finnish trip.

Last year, the school where I now work raised a significant amount of money for teacher professional development. We were encouraged to think outside the box and be creative with our proposals to use these funds. Several faculty members were using the funds to travel internationally. I saw a window opening for my trip to Finland! I did some research and talked to a school librarian in Lacey who had a Fulbright grant to Finland several years ago. My focus shifted a bit based on what I learned.

1) Finland has one of the top school systems in the world.
2) In the summer no one would be around in the schools.
3) Very few schools have a school library.
4) Many schools are using Microsoft technology, especially since Microsoft bought Nokia several years ago.

I wrote up a proposal to visit Finland during Spring Break to observe their use of technology in the classroom. And it was approved! So here I go! Off to Finland in two days. I'm visiting schools in Salo, Espoo, Tampere, and Oulu. I'm also visiting the public library in Salo and Helsinki. Several of the schools I'm visiting have been recognized as Microsoft Showcase Schools and/or have Microsoft Innovative Educators working there. One of the schools has a public library housed right in the same building as the school. I planned the entire trip myself, it is not part of a tour. I found many of my contacts via the Microsoft Educator Network and emailed them to see if I could visit.