Multiplier event in Zaragoza – July 21st
21
Jul
Author Archives: beautifulmind
05
Jul
“Beautiful Mind” manual
”Beautiful Mind” manual is the fruit of an interesting project, oriented on activating, development of selfawareness and physical fitness of adults interested in improving their assets – most of all cognitive ones, but also physical and emotional – which inevitably decrease with age. Unless the degeneration, especially the premature one, is opposed by active lifestyle and engagement in intellectual work, which the title of the book relates to. (…)
The manual extends the offer with the set of active exercises included, dedicated to discovering one’s own body and mind, as well as providing them with new experiences and skills that prevent the premature ageing. This is one of the first such propositions on the Polish publishing market. It does indeed employ other strategies of psychophysical trainings that have been described earlier (from relax, through physical activities to exercises concerning sensual sensitivity, memory, language functions, speed reading techniques; and additionally it encourages using new technologies in the process of learning and social inclusion), so the subject isn’t entirely unfamiliar. This manual is dedicated to adults interested in using the increasing resources of free time in a way that makes it more valuable, as well as – as long as it’s inevitable in further perspective – in keeping awareness and positive attitude while ageing.
The selected subject area and range of exercises are very much adequate, as far as this age group is concerned. The added value of the book is its internationality. As it is a result of work of Authors from Poland, Italy and Spain, it encourages overcoming local stereotypes concerning opinions on ageing, and exchanging experiences in practice in that field made it possible to find culturally universal ideas for activities.
I’d like to recommend the manual to facilitators of nonformal education working with adults, including seniors, as well as to individuals who find the goals described above to be worthwhile and who want to manage their intellectual assets, regardless of their age.
prof. Dorota PodgórskaJachnik
Chair of Special Education and Speech Therapy Department
Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz
17
Jun
12
Jun
12 June 2016 – “BicyCOOL Library” – Lodz, Poland
Centre of Business Synergy attended a very popular Polish event – “Bicycool Library” (http://bicycoollibrary.org). One of the attractions was bookcrossing – that is why we distributed project materials among the participants. There were about 150 people at the event – also seniors that found our idea very interesting.
06
Jun
Beautiful Mind final conference 6th June 2016
The conference has been held at Università delle LiberEtà del Fvg on the 6th of June 2016. Invitations have been delivered time before to all relevant stakeholders and interested persons. Participants have been around 100 and the timetable from morning 9.00 a.m. to afternoon 16.00 p.m. has been kept.
The title of the conference was BEAUTIFUL MIND both to focus on the project issues and to recall all issues related to mind and body wellness in many of their aspects.
People from local, regional and national relevant institutions have been invited , but the majority of participants came form the city and the Region Fvg.
The programme was organized as follows and it has been fully kept:
– Regional and City authorities regards
– Presentation of the conference by the president of Università delle LiberEtà Giuseppina Raso
– Presentation of the Project Beautiful Mind by the referent person Alessia Fabbro and by the project manager Raffaele Perrotta
– Contribution on the subject of the project by the Mayor of Udine prof. Furio Honsell titled Healthy and Active Ageing
– Two speeches by regional authorities about the Regional Laws on active ageing and their actual results
– A speech titled ‘ From Mind to body; a life project for adults and seniors’ held by prof. Gianna Prapotnich EPALE Stakeholder
Then after the lunch break we have thought it was interesting to listen about other points of view about the topic. So the programme was:
– A speech about the informal system and the role of Pharmacies with adults and seniors, held by the president of the Order of Pharmacists of the Province of Udine Prof. Michele Favero
– A speech about ICT and Internet for adults and seniors; ‘From a risk to a driving force for a better quality of life’; held by Doct. Eng. Raffaele Perrotta, vice president of Università delle LiberEtà and Project Manager
The Conference then continued with a moment reserved to questions and answers regarding the issues that have been treated. After this discussion, the workshop started.
During the workshop all project material has been deeply presented and all participants could see in depth the modules and their contents as well as discuss about them with the participant colleagues.
25
May
Physical well-being
On May 25th, CIDET organised an activity to apply and test the module about physical well-being. It included theoretical introduction about the benefits of an active life and later the opportunity to share a nice walk in the surroundings of Castellón.
We aimed that after the implementation of this activity, seniors get more interested in this kind of activity so we will keep offering them.
17
May
Beautiful Mind event on 17th May 2016 in Lodz
On 17th May 2016 Centre of Business Synergy in cooperation with the Chair of Library and Information Science at the University of Lodz (Poland) organized a multiplier event, which main aim was to popularize the Beautiful Mind project results. To encourage the participants to use our materials in everyday work or life, we presented them with the results and gave speeches. Other lecturers presented their point of views on adult education and the role of permanent development.
The first speech was given by prof. Dorota Podgórska-Jachnik (University of Bydgoszcz, Poland). Beautiful Mind project has inspired her to express how important it is to be active (physically and mentally) during our whole lives. The active attitude helps us maintain human relationships and avoid depression – what is especially important for seniors.
Dr. Alina Brzuska-Kępa (University of Lodz, Poland) emphasized the role of grandparents in creating grandchildren’s reading tastes. Monika Wachowicz and Piotr Szeligowski (Pegagogy Library in Lodz) presented the ways to get seniors involved in Information and Communication Technologies. They suggested some mobile application that may be interesting for adults – e.g. those that can help them with everyday routine.
Aleksandra Marciniak, Beata Wawrzyniak-Chrzanowska and Adam Chrzanowski (Centre of Business Synergy) presented the manual, movies and on-line platform that were created during the project. All participants got the manual and links to e-materials. They were encouraged to provide feedback, concerning whether they are going to use the products, and also suggestions of any changes.
The last part of the meeting were the workshops with Marek Szurawski – very famous Polish mnemotechnics trainer. He is the person who translated the most popular books connected with Speed Reading and memory techniques (e.g. by Tony Buzan or Harry Lorayne) into Polish. The participants were involved in learning mnemotechnics and ensured that using the Beautiful Mind manual will help them in everyday lives.
14
Feb
Projects materials soon to come
Since the beginning of the project (August 2014) we have worked on “Intellectual Output” results: the manual, online course and training videos. Thanks to the discussion we had during the partners’ meeting, we’ve got an updated schedule of completing the materials. Coming soon!
02
Feb
“Understanding, discovering, learning”, in Castellón, Spain
On 3rd February 2015, we offered the activity “Understanding, discovering, learning” related to first products of the BeautifulMind Project, we wanted to know the learners expectation, experiences and the best approach for learning. The materials will be applied to the learners in future activities.
While the education done in young students is usually directed and aimed to get a degree or a better job, education on the elderly is self-motivated, adults wan to learn because it can be useful for them, also it is a pleasant activity, with the final aim for increasing the well-being.
We wanted to present the Beautiful Mind project and motivate them for using. Trainers will apply the materials, while we test and asses the impact.
28
Jan
Second partners’ meeting, Udine
The most important issue was to sum up what we have already done and also talk about the remaining work. All tasks were successfully divided. Thanks to using the brainstorm method, we had the inspiring discussion about the title of the manual.