As one of the moderators of this forum I'd like to set a good example and start with a short presentation of myself:

My name is Jochen Dietz, I'm 32 years old, an university trained teacher for economics orientated vocational schools and working currently at the Freie Universität Berlin within two projects:

1. Project FUeL, which aims at implementing e-Learning at the Freie Universität Berlin. I'm consultant of the economics department and contact person for all questions around e-Learning and the central learning management platform Blackboard.

2. Project ELISA, which you (hopefully) already know. Together with my colleagues from Berlin we are responsible for the evaluation of the learning management platform Moodle and that you all gain lots of usable (e-Learning) experiences before, during and after the train the trainer seminar.

Before this job, I was an academic research assistant at the Universität Leipzig (Chair of Business Education and Educational Management) and worked together with pedagogues, business economists and computer scientists on the development, implementation and evaluation of an online e-Commerce course. And before that I worked as an ad viser for Electronic Data Processing and Information Technology at the Eastern German Savings Bank Academy in Potsdam and was responsible for the according educational training program, including calculation, marketing, organization, coordination and evaluation.

Apart from my working life, I’m spending quite a lot of time with my son (playing football !) and the rest of my free time I’m surfing the internet, and reading books.

If you’ve got any further question to me, my life and especially to e-Learning, Moodle, deployment scenarios etc., please don't hesitate asking any question. I’ll try to answer within a few hours.

Jochen Dietz

Dear all,

My name is Stanislava Ezekieva. I am 28 years old and I am responsible for the coordination of ELISA project from the Bulgarian State Agency for IT and Communications' site.

Two days ago I was a junior expert in Innovations and Project Management Directorate. Now I am a junior expert in Information Society and IT Directorate.

I am a MSc in Information and Management Technologies, Engineering Economy and Management.

I wish you all a good luck and a lot of success in the future,

Stanislava

Hi everybody,
My name is Nikolay and currently I am an assistant professor at the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration. I have some e-learning experience  since 2002 through the Sun’s Academic Initiative (SAI), a collaborative program between Sun Microsystems and academic institutions. As a part of this program our faculty becomes authorized to deliver training on Sun technologies. In addition, Sun provided as with free access to selected online courses through the Sun Learning Center. 10s to Sun Microsystems, I am teaching my courses in a “blended learning” model. In practice “blended learning” model is a flexible term that means different things to different people.I hope this forum is good host to find out what people in training and development currently understand by the term “blended learning” - and to hear about work that is currently being done. Who drives the use of technology in learning?

Nikolay

Hi, dear colleagues.

My name is Olya Harizanova. At present I am associate professor at Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski and I teach ICT in Library and Information Sciences Department. My basic courses are Web design and Automated Information Systems. I have a second position as a director of the Center for Educational Services. (CES is a service oriented unit of Sofia University whit main goal to ensure the necessary organizational and methodological conditions for parallel and continuing education, specialization and re-qualification of learners from various spheres of social practice.)

From 8 years ago till now I research the status of IST in different Bulgarian sectors (education, business, telecommunication, libraries ...). My last publications are “Readiness of the Bulgarian SMEs for the Information Society” and “E-readiness and E-activities of the Bulgarian SMEs (Results of empirical research)”.

Now my special interests concern Bulgarian Libraries as Information Society Centres of Knowledge but as before continue research SMEs in Bulgaria and their ICT-level, their readiness to participate in the e-market and possibilities to create e-business.

My expectations of the training are to know more about e-learning platform (teaching methods, how to publish new materials…) and some differences from other platforms.

Wish you pleasant  day,

OH

Hi everyone,

my name is Ljubomir Zhivkov, I am studying macroeconomics at the Economics Department of the Free University of Berlin. I came to Germany as a student in 2001 after studying business administration for 2 years at the Sofia University. I’m looking forward to seeing people again who I already know as lecturers from the “St. Kliment Ohridsky”-University. Now I’m almost finished with my study in Berlin. I’m currently writing my diploma paper about my native country, Bulgaria.

I have collected much experience in e-learning during my work in Berlin. I’m part of the university’s e-learning team which supports all departments and faculties and maintains the e-learning platform “Blackboard”. We are also maintaining the university’s content management system, which is the main internet presentation tool of the Free University Berlin.

Additionally, I work on the Elisa-project. When I first heard about it in march 2006, I decided to take part in it, because of the project’s strong focus on the East-European countries, which Bulgaria belongs to. I’m very happy to feel like being connected to Bulgaria on this "strange" way.

I’m looking forward to the seminar week, when I can meet everyone of you personally.

Ljubomir Zhivkov

Hello everybody, my name is Wolfgang Neuhaus. I am e-Learning consultant at the FU-Berlin for the departments Biology, Chemistry and Pharmacy. My expertises are:

1. Authoring / creating e-Learning Content
   This means: I am testing different tools designed especially to create webbased learning modules, which are available on the market. For example Lectora, Breeze, CourseGenie, Lecturnity and others. If you have questions in this context feel free to contact me on this forum.

2. Didactic / organizing learning arrangements
   Originally my profession is teacher for mathematics and music. So I have a lot of experiences how to arrange learning. There are two webbased learning projects I realized, which are available in english language: The World Tune project  http://www.worldtune.com and the English Online Lesson: http://www.online-lesson.port07.de/home.htm  Contact me whenever you are interested in any questions concerning the didactics of learning via the web.
  
So I wish you a lot of fruitful experiences during this seminar.

Best wishes from Berlin

Wolfgang

Wow! I'm realy impressed from your rapidness in presenting yourself. Thanks. I take this as a great interest from you all in the upcoming teleseminar and (hopefully) in Moodle. So let's go a bit further and talk about e-Learning or, how Nikolay stated, blended learning. Do the others have any hands-on experience in e-Learning or blended learning? Have you been working with a Learning Management System like Moodle? Do you agree with Nikolay that blended learning is a “flexible term that means different things to different people”? What is your opinion?

Greetings from Berlin

Jochen

Hello everyone,

I am Milan Kuzelka from Belgrade, Serbia. I am employee of the University of Belgrade - Research&education network of Serbia. Even I am not on the list of the participants, I would like to be a part of this forum.  I am the coordinator for ELISA project in Serbia. Here in Belgrade, on our tele-seminar which has been organized in July, we had a great time. I am not sure who your lecturers are, but our were fantastic.

I hope your seminar will gone smoothly as our. If you have some question or if I can help you somehow, I am at your disposal.

I wish you all a lot of success.

Milan

as the teleseminar is approaching I'd like to focus the aims of this forum, stated from Ilias:
· Get to know each other
· Find out the expectations of the training
· Find out what is your current level on informatics/ e-business/ e-learning
· What questions/problems should be discussed during the seminar 

We all presented ourselves, so we tick the first point off. Nearly all of you are working in some higher or lower level within the IT- and e-Business sector and at least two of you have experience with e-Learning. So we can also tick the third point off. But still missing are your statements to the other two points.

So please keep in touch by using this forum.

Jochen