Skills for Kids - a place of great value

Randomly, one day browsing over facebook, I saw a post from Skills for Kids. Their post was about their new classrooms, I got curious, saw the pictures, checked out their facebook page and wrote something like: "Great initiative - would love to see the place one day. Good luck". Before I knew it I was invited.

Skills for Kids is a new school with the beautiful mission of educating special needs children in group sessions as well as in one to one therapy sessions, all taken care of pertaining to the individual child's needs.   

"We empower children who face challenges at school and in their daily lives, and prepare them for inclusion in the community and mainstream education." From skillsforkids.ae

It was the most fantastic villa, furnished and decorated as a mini school. Even though I was visiting outside school hours, I could easily imagine a creative, non stressful atmosphere creating a fantastic learning environment for special needs children. I was impressed by the education quality I felt prioritized in the different rooms and clear ambitions for the future.

Skills for Kids is unique especially of its size, since the center will only host a minor numbers of students at the time. Other than that they have a high priority of letting students learn in a group, if at all possible. I my opinion the best part is the focus on including the students, maybe it will not happen in a mainstream school, but that will not stop this place from including the students in the society.

"From a world of exclusion to wonderful participation"

Skills for Kids webpage - Please have a look www.skillsforkids.ae/

I wish Skills for Kids the best start in their first school year and look forward to follow your journey.

Energizer - the most important activity

5 minutes is everything you need to wake up your audience - 5 minutes is decisive to the concentration level and amount of focus in the classroom, staff meeting or Thursday afternoon workshops.

We all now it, we have all seen ourselves almost fallen a sleep to a "death by PowerPoint all day long- kind of workshop".

Energizers is the key, the key to a higher level of concentration, a significantly presence, a break that gives energy instead of reminding you about how tired you are. Move a little, have a laugh and if it's important you can actually learn something in the mean time.

While planning a workshop for my colleges at school i found this catalogue with 100 different energizers. They are easy to understand, simple to implement and it's possible to find something for all different kind of purpose and audience. It's the best catalogue I have seen for a long time so have a look next time you have to plan find it here.

Thanks to the International HIV/AIDS Alliance for publish the catalogue online and for the well animated, easy accessible inspiration.


Often energizers are well functioning on their own, and in meetings or workshops at a workplace the purpose is often just to raise the energy level/move a little and have a laugh.

I thought that in school environment we can use energizers as part of our teaching and let the students learn and move around at the same time.
So I'm planning a workshop with energizer involving learning as well and I would like to share my favorite one so far, as a little inspiration:

Matching phrase and definition – class activity 

Write a phrase and its definition/example on two different pieces of paper. You need as many pieces of papers as you have students, so each person has either a phrase or a definition/example.  All papers get fold and placed in a box,  each student pull out a piece of paper from the box. Now everyone has to find their match.

Don't be afraid of planing 5 minutes of a moving activity next time you are responsible for the agenda. It makes your audience way more aware of the things going on simply because energizers give energy to the brain and system. People will remember better and be more focused - I promise;)

Edmodo - the new Facebook

I just got to know about Edmodo.com - Facebook for schools is the easiest description.

Every school have to be registered, every teacher creates a profile and a group for their class e.g English 7a. The teacher simply give a code to their students and they can easy join the right group.

You end up with a group very similar to a Facebook group, where teachers can post homework or other information as well as a quiz and register assignments with a due date. Students can post a question or write a comment.

My school has replaced their own (and a bit old fashioned) intranet totally and are now fully using edmodo.com for homework posting supplied by email newsletters.

It is possible for more than one teacher to join the same group, even possible to create groups with teachers only. Parents can create their own profile as well and be able to look at their child's homework or comments. 

Edmodo also allows teachers to share articles or 'favorite' teaching resources with other professional. 

Uddannelsesvidenskab IRL

For English version see below

Jeg er blevet kontaktet for at høre om jeg kunne tænke mig at bidrage til et arrangement der skal give "nye" uddanelsesvidenskab'ere inspiration til, hvordan man kan bruge en BSc i UDV.

Og selvfølgelig har jeg lyst til det.

Oplæget fra arrangøren lød på følgende refleksionsspørgsmål:

- Hvad har jeg lavet siden jeg blev bachelor i Uddannelsesvidenskab? 

- Hvordan ser jeg mine uddannelsesvidenskabelige kompetencer i spil på arbejdsmarkedet? 

- Hvilke overvejelser har jeg gjort mig i forhold til ikke at tage en kandidat? 

- Hvilke drømme har jeg for fremtiden? 

Og nedenfor kan du så se resultatet der blev til et synes jeg selv ganske godt første videooplæg. 

English:
I was asked to do a video presentation about my work experiences after graduating. I'm one of the few who started working instead of studying and therefore i'm able to inspire some of the current students on the bachelor education in educational science. The above video is my result. Unfortunately there is only a danish version.