For the last day of our amazing trip we went to Disney World. It was the highlight of our staying in Orlando and I'm sure we will remember it for a very long time. Not only because oft he amazing Disney World but also because of the fact that we are all aware that it's time to say goodbye, which wasn't so easy after the amazing 10 days there. We spent the whole day together, talking about random topic. The ending was Disney Electrical Parade, huge light show of all the Disney characters.
Taking in the consideration that everything we've done there was done with purpose, it is important to mention that even in Disney World we managed to learn something. Once more time we were able to see the quality of their Hospitality Management, and how much they appreciate cleanliness, ecology and how much they are raising awareness about volunteering, even in this kind of places. They had corner for volunteers there! At the end of the day, streets were clean as int he morning, trash was separated, organization was on very high level and we concluded that we can learn really a lot from them.
As the end of every fairytale comes somewhere around midnight, our fairytale was also at the end and it was time to go home.
I would like to use this opportunity to thank to all the people and institutions who made this trip possible for us: University in Zagreb, Faculty of Organization and Informatics, McNair scholars program. I would also like to thank to all the people who were investing a lot of energy and time to make our trip so magical: Michael Aldarondo-Jeffries, director of McNair program, Natalia Sepulveda, student and coordinator oft he project, and a lot of McNair Scholars students who spent their time with us.
One more surprise on Saturday- great trip to Kennedy Space Center. This time we even reached the Moon! J We explored everything what was there, found out a lot about famous flights and got a chance to try one virtual flight, which is only one of the possibilities this Center is offering.
The day was full of photography and hanging out together. We're all sad because we're leaving very soon.
As a part of intercultural learning and award for the successfull working week, our hosts prepared amazing surprise for us. Saturday in Miami! Sleeping during the whole trip due to the exhaustion has changed at the moment we entered Miami. We were all enjoying the relaxed atmosphere with a lot of photography and new information about the city, people, University and cooperation.
Good morning! We are ready for the rest of Information Fluency conference and preparation of our presentations. It was hard-working morning in McNair office. We were all doing our rehearsals and trying to make the last change in our presentations.
After the lunch we went to the Classroom 1, where the rest of McNir students were waiting for us. First we went through short introduction, then we came to delivery part. First three presentations were about Croatia and Varaždin, Faculty of Organization and Informatics, University of Zagreb and our educational system. Second part were presentations of our research papers. Audience has shown the huge interest tin our presentations with a lot of questions and long discussions.
My research paper was connected with the topic of the conference – Information Fluency and multiculturalism. The questionnaire was distributed among the students from different parts oft he world and they were supposed to answer on set of questions based on self-evaluation and the topic was their participation in multicultural environment and how this is developing their IF skills. Taking into consideration that this topic is very broad, I would say that this research was only first part of the whole process which is going to be continued in future. After the research final result was showing that students are not so familiar with the IF skills, though they are already using some of them.
After few working hours, we continued our discussion in more relaxed atmosphere with sandwiches and juices. Our conclusion was that we already miss those people and there are still few days left here.
Wednesday morning. The weather is sunny, and we are happy again, waiting at the same bust station for the bus which is going to take us to the main campus. First thing thait is waiting for us int he morning is literature with dr. Cecilia Milanes. McNair office is today small creative place where we are listening parts of the new book from amazing literate.
After the interesting morning – here is the moment which we were waiting for a very long time. We're spending the afternoon with Ambassador Harriet L. Elam – Thomas. With mix of excited feelings we were walking to the Madam Ambassador's office, where some of the students were already waiting for us, together with her. One hour passed in conversations about our wishes, plans, interests, country and education. After finishing our part of introducing, Madam Ambassador started to talk about herself and her life. She was talking about the attitudes, life experience, things that are on her mind, some of her successes and failures. Several time she emphasized how much she supports the cooperation between FOI and UCF, and that she thinks something like this is very valuable because students are getting international experience, chance to learn about the country and all the bad and good sides of it. She stressed out how she thinks that Internet can give us a lot of information, but those are only information which are coming from someone's perception and how the best way to learn is to develop our own perception through visiting the country and meeting the people. She was also talking about her perception of the world and how people are actually close to each other through the stuff they are using every day, that are made in other countries. She thinks how this is showing cooperation between countries and helping each other. Her final message was that we should think more with our hearts and less with our brains because that's the only way to bring the positive change in society. With this thing on our mind, she left us to enjoy the rest of the afternoon and wished us to have a great time in Florida.
After the amazing time with madam ambassador, we went on volunteer fair, where UCF students were presenting their volunteer activities. We also had chance to help through informing ourselves on how we could help but also putting the words into action and making the sandwiches for homeless people.
After the lunch time we were part of opening of Information Fluency Conference and some lectures connected to this topic. The last part was poster section where some of our students and professor where presenting the cooperation between FOI and UCF, mainly the last project – International Student Research Symposium.
Back to campus to prepare our presentations! Tomorrow is our big day!
