Opportunities for professional growth and renewal are plentiful, if you work as an educator but rarely does one have the kind of opening to a new world that has presented itself recently.

Carsten Søndergaard and I are exchanging our jobs for a term.

Carsten is a Pædagogisk Inspektor at Viborg Katedralskole, establish in 1060, in, of course, Viborg. This is a leadership exchange and Carsten will fulfil my role as a deputy principal and vice-versa.

My family is keen and Lucy, particularly, is looking forward to school in Denmark and learning another language.

I am a little concerned about struggling in my professional role due to my monolingual status. My school is getting a great deal though with Carsten being a fluent English speaker. I will start learning Danish these holidays. Anyone suggest a quality audio resource?

I am particularly interested in what the Danes are doing with online examinations and hope to make some good contacts and learn much from their experience.

Anyone already completed a teaching exchange in Denmark?

Also, there must be opportunities for some students in your schools to do some virtual exchanges with the contacts I make in the Danish education system. Ideas?

What else can my PLN come up with that could be exciting and beneficial to students and colleagues?

July 2011 is sooo far away but there’s plenty of time to prepare and learn and savour!

You may wish to follow Carsten on twitter!

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Comments(10)

  1. Congratulations Darcy! What a great opportunity. I’m sure you’ll revel in it. Maybe our Tasmanian Princess can help you with the lingo?

    • Troy

    • 14 years ago

    Excellent. I’d love to do this one day…Virtual exchanges?? Perhaps some discussion about the First and Second Schleswig War, (or in Danish: Slesvigske Krig)?!

      • darcymoore

      • 14 years ago

      We have 18 months to prepare and think of cool, stimulating ideas! You’ve made a great start – cheers!

  2. Wow, what an awesome opportunity! Nice work mate!

    I am envious of what an amazingly good experience this will be for you. I did a 12 month exchange to Toronto, Canada, back in 2006 and it was a totally life changing experience. Although I must admit I was interested in the exchange initially for the lifestyle change, and the career aspect was kind of secondary, I have to say that my 12 months teaching in a different school system was a turning point in helping me see education in a different way. I wasn’t looking for a revelation in how I saw education, but I found it anyway. You are going there particularly looking through an educational lens, so I can only imagine that the experience will be quite incredible.

    Looking forward to hearing your stories… the next 18 months will go fast I’m sure.

    Good luck!

    Chris

    • darcymoore

    • 14 years ago

    Thanks Chris! It just an excellent adventure to look forward too…

    I am not really certain how it will all pan out but we will have a stay in the UK beforehand and then spend some time in France and Germany too.

  3. […] link: Viborg, Denmark 2011 « Darcy Moore's Blog Share and […]

    • Thea Bollerup

    • 14 years ago

    Hi Darcy Moore,

    I am a student at DPU, Copenhagen, where I am studying IT-didactics. At the moment I am doing a paper on Online-coorporation and I have interviewed and “observed” a group of students (at the MIL (Master og Ict and Learning) who intirely communicate over the internet. When I was searching the net I found your blog about connectivism – thanks for the inspiration 😉

    I see that tou are moving to Denmark next year. My mother joined a similar programme in 1990 when I was 12 years old. My mother, my two sisters and myself moved from Aarhus to Seattle for a year. It was a fantastic time and gave us as a family some great opportunities to learn a new language and travel around and explore a new country. I still keep in touch with some of my friends from Seattle.

    I hope you and your family will enjoy your stay in Viborg. If you ever come to Copenhagen I will be happy to show you around.

    For further information about Ict and e-learning you can search at DPU.dk (some of my teachers are Birgitte Holm Sørensen, Karin Levinsen, Rikke Ørngren and maybe you will find interesting referenes in their work.)

    All the best,
    Thea Bollerup

  4. Hello Thea,

    Wow, what a wonderful surpise to see your comment here at my blog.

    My family is very excited about our trip which has been confirmed just last week. We will be in Denmak from late July ’til early August. Maybe we can catch up in Copenhagen, that sounds great.

    I am very interested in meeting collegues involved in education and the peopleyou mention sound great.

    I will send you an email, so you have my details.

    Once again, thanks for your generous comments here. 🙂

  5. […] many of you know, my family will live in Viborg, Denmark while I work as an ‘inspektor’ at the local school for three months. This trip […]

  6. […] I first posted about Viborg Katedralskole and our exchange almost two years ago. […]

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