US exchange trip

On April 22, regular IREX Information Resource Center and ACCELS attendees cleaned up both banks of the Gokdere River.



Participants of Earth Day celebration piked up plastic bottle, food wraps, paper and other garbage left by irresponsible picnickers that harm our environment.



At the end of the day tired, but proud participants got a truck full of fat trash sacks.



Just one example how Americans guests behaved while being in Ashgabat with exchange visit in August. We were walking on Health Walk and drinking much water. After bottles came empty, our guests did not throw them away. Though many people have done it before (we saw a lot of empty plastic bottles), but pressed and put bottles into their bags. Why? Because they did not get used littering their cities, their nature and their Earth.

Dear teachers/friends, Very soon we open a new multimedia center for teachers and students to support for technologies in education. I call your attention to smart board



and brand new computers connected to fastest internet in our country.



Welcome to our opening ceremony. For details, keep in touch with me through comments.

This is just another proof that everything happens in our crazy world. Have you ever seen a cup, a pair of shoes and flakes neighboring close to each other on a table? I have. So have you, now.

In August I and my co-workers, including technology teacher and two high school students from Hatboro-Horsham, Pennsylvania, US who visited Turkmenistan on IREX exchange program, went to Health Walk which is famous to everybody in Turkmenistan. We started up at 4 in the morning when it was still dark and the walk path looked like this


Later after we climbed up about 150 metres, the park at the foot of the hill (it is hard to call it mountain, as it is more earthy than rocky) looked like


We continued our walk enjoying fresh air, wonderful view and silence of the dawn. Nothing broke the silence around except our steps and voices.


Later we met the sun rising.


Wow, even bug is health walking.

In July-August a technology teacher and two students from Hatboro-Horsham High School, Pennsylvania, US visited Turkmenistan to teach and learn as part of a cultural exchange with IREX and the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

In April-May ten students of the upper grades from Ashgabat and Turkmenabat participated in online Current Events Club discussion with students of Hatboro-Horsham. Each Turkmen student was paired with American peer what allowed to establish real friendship. Friends, Kenny and Ali from Turkmenabat met face to face in Ashgabat when Ali came to the capital to leave for US on FLEX program. Unfortunately, Anna from Hatboro-Horsham could not meet her friend Alice because Alice had left to enter university in Russia.

Together with a teacher American students conducted workshops on advanced MS Word, Excel, Photoshop and Movie Maker for 63 students, 20 teachers and 15 Tech Age Girls.

Between trainings, participants had been adding impressions about visiting Nohur Village, mosques, Health Walk and sights of Ashgabat to their blog.

Hello All,

I have not added anything since January. It is so interesting to moderate online projects that it takes all the time and efforts. After we finished online projects in late spring, I switched to Tech Age Girls project. This year we had 44 semifinalists from all over Turkmenistan who learned computer skills and led their own GYSD projects.

By June 20, all of them submitted their original website about local woman-leaders. The authors of the best 15 sites honored to be the finalists of the project and participate in two weeks Summer Conference in Ashgabat. Girls learned advanced computer skills, met important national level women and trained to organize projects to meet needs of the community in their regions.

Now girls enjoy their vacation from school and in fall they will start accomplishing projects. Let's wish them luck in all their beginnings.

Hello All,

I have not added anything since January. It is so interesting to moderate online projects that it takes all the time and efforts. After we finished online projects in late spring, I switched to Tech Age Girls project. This year we had 44 semifinalists from all over Turkmenistan who learned computer skills and led their own GYSD projects.

By June 20, all of them submitted their original website about local woman-leaders. The authors of the best 15 sites honored to be the finalists of the project and participate in two weeks Summer Conference in Ashgabat. Girls learned advanced computer skills, met important national level women and trained to organize projects to meet needs of the community in their regions.

Now girls enjoy their vacation from school and in fall they will start accomplishing projects. Let's wish them luck in all their beginnings.

On January 8 I led the first workshop on “Techniques to Create WebQuest” for a group of secondary school teachers in IREX, Ashgabat, Turkmenistan. Teachers practiced skills to edit quest pages according to the name and goal of the quest. They learned the content of such pages as introduction, task, process, evaluation, conclusion and teachers page. Through the debates we worked out ideas for interesting introductory notes which can “hook” the reader and better rubrics design. At this training I demonstrated my WebQuest “Turkmenistan” for students of grade 8.
Program Coordinator Elena Kotova made a speech on teachers page in the WebQuest. She told about differences and similarities of these pages and how they interact with each other.

On December 20 I and Project Coordinator Elena Kotova made a presentation on WebQuest in PAS of the US Embassy, Ashgabat, Turkmenistan. I presented WebQuest "Detective Story" designed by me for the students of grade 7. I shared my knowledge about webquest-as a new way of using technology at school, about the goals and aims of this innovative teaching technique with teachers of the secondary schools of Ashgabat. To make teachers experience questing I provided them an opportunity to feel like students when they went step by step through the pages of the webquest.

As a result all teachers liked webquest and signed up for webquest trainings in IREX, Ashgabat which took place during the winter break from school.

Dear colleagues, you may see my WebQuest on Educational Portal of Turkmenistan at http://www.gcetm.net/webquest/wqs/eng_wq1/

This summer I was in Lincoln, Nebraska for teachers development program. We attended Lincoln Public schools. Students went to summer school that time. Summer school is a two week study for those students who missed school by some reasons.

We found out that Lincoln Public Schools have some Mass Media sources to get community awared of challenges schools meet. One of the newspapers is Community News newspaper- a monthly newspaper about elementary and middle school students curriculum activities.
EdNotes is an e-newspaper of photos and articles about curriculum plan, study, students events, school staff and challenges educational department faces.
Educational TV program on 21st cable channel features on variety of topics and events. People also may know about the last updates from LPS website at www.lps.org