Dafnord – virtual community of DaF teachers How to help teachers of German as a Foreign Language (DaF) to adopt the Internet © Ilpo Halonen, Biz Educlick, Rome 7th March2003Biz Educlick

Background initiated by Rainer Fußgänger, the Goethe institute Stockholm in 1999 developed in Nordic-Baltic seminars of experts of DaF presented earlier at ESP conferences in Rendsburg, Germany, 2001 and in Malmo,Sweden, 2002

Dafnord Finnland the first practical results of the Dafnord project in 2002: the Finnish Dafnord network: 27 schools and the Network of Upper Sec. Schools in North Finnland coordinating school: Vihti Upper Secondary the website Dafnord published together with COMPACT, a Comenius 3 networkDafnord financial support from the Educational Board of Finland cooperation with - OPEKO, State Teacher-in-Service Training Centre - the Goethe Institute Helsinki, and - the Association of Teachers of German in Finland

Aims putting new opportunities of ICT to good use in DaF teaching creating a model of development for networking teachers of one subject showing consideration for regional development in the country developing innovations and methodological reforms in collaboration with project partners

Activities of Dafnord 1/2 opening the website officially in Tallinn 11th Octover 2002, in connection with the 3rd Baltic German Teachers’ Day presenting the website to Finnish German teachers in Turku, 5th October 2002 introducing Dafnord in traditional ways in Tempus 7/02, the journal of the Finnish language teachers and in Aktuelles 32, the journal of the Goethe Institute Helsinki informing the board of the association of the Finnish teachers of German

Activities of Dafnord 2/2 teaching teachers of German to use the website Dafnord and its interactive services: - Learn Internet Projects by Doing, 3 seminars 2002 – 03, Tampere - seminar in Rovaniemi, Lapland 24-25th Feb seminar in Lappeenranta, 17-18th March Dafnord workshop, ITK conference, Hämeenlinna, 9th April DaF workshop, Tallinn, Estonia, 24-26th April 2003

Website Dafnord concentrates on interactive services to help DaF teachers in their project activities in the Internet: - eJournal - forums - mailinglist - calendar - chat - poll - online exercises - interactive forms - site intern search - web search engines

Projects of Dafnord 1/2 Nordic-Baltic projects: - Elch Edgar (Edgar the Moose, travelling buddy) - Goethe Netzcafé - Dreiländer-Portfolio, portfolio project of three countries

Projects of Dafnord 1/2 Finnish projects: - Learn Internet Projects by Doing (LIP) with partners in Italy, Poland, Holland, Lithuania, Russia, Sweden, Denmark, Hungary - Willkommen in Finnland... + Finnish Tango - Idiomatik Wettbewerb (illustrating idioms in two languages) - Finnish-Japanese project as an example of numerous projects of Das Bild der AnderenLearn Internet Projects by Doing (LIP)Das Bild der Anderen

eJournal a new Internet tool, especially for international project collaboration first published articles in the Internet after one hour training full command of the tool in one day training new eJournals can be made for groups of teachers and pupils

Further steps an editorial board for the website Dafnord publishing a brochure to promote the activities of the network permanent announcements and articles in professional publications information via the mailinglist encouraging researchers and students to study the impact of Dafnord as a virtual community linking the website to domestic and foreign websites