German Schools and Modern Teaching Methods

March 5, 2011 By 6 Comments

School blackboard - ©iStockphoto.com/kyoshinoI suppose it was inevitable that once my daughter started school I would be comparing the school system in Germany with that in England – at least with the one I experienced at the end of the 1970s and throughout the 1980s.

But I wasn’t quite prepared for the cultural shock that followed, and am still often left trying to work out whether it is a difference between the national systems that I am observing, or whether times have just simply moved on.

When I went to to primary school in England… [Read more…]

Filed Under: School Tagged With: , , , ,

Blogging in Germany: the final straw?

March 1, 2011 By 2 Comments

A man holding his head in despair - ©Can Stock Photo Inc. / alexandrenunesBloggers in Germany have only just recovered from not having to classify all of their posts.  Yet other Government officials are still finding ways to make our life difficult.

Last week, data protection officials in one part of Germany decided that using 3rd party advertising on a website constituted an unauthorised passing on of personal data, ie. the IP address.

In a similar issue to the use of Google Analytics, this would mean that unless you host all of your banner adverts on your own server or webspace, you would need permission to show them from your visitors.

Can you imagine visiting a site and being asked if you would like to see it with or without banner advertising?  What would you click on? [Read more…]

Filed Under: Blogging Tagged With: , , , , ,

Blogging in Germany: Videos and Podcasts

February 28, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Mikrofon - ©Can Stock Photo Inc. / devonIf you have read my last few posts about the problems of blogging in Germany, then you will probably not be surprised to learn that making a video or an audio podcast to put online is not easy.

Let’s start with the easy part: filming something and then publishing the film, is basically no different to the situation with a photo.

But with audio, things get even more complicated.  As you might imagine, you cannot just record something and then use it.  If I record an interview for a podcast then I either get written permission to use the recording, or – if the interview is conducted by telephone – ask the interviewee to confirm their agreement once the “record” button has been pressed. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Blogging Tagged With: , , ,

Please click on ACCEPT to give us permission to set cookies [more information]

This website uses cookies to give you the best browsing experience possible. Cookies are small text files that are stored by the web browser on your computer. Most of the cookies that we use are so-called “Session cookies”. These are automatically deleted after your visit. The cookies do not damage your computer system or contain viruses. Please read our privacy information page for more details or to revoke permission.

Close