Tampere University of Applied Sciences (TAMK)

Travel broadens – and especially visiting a university of applied sciences abroad. My first study trip to Holland made it possible to visit the main campus of The Hague University of Applied Sciences. The building impressed even if we only saw a fraction of it.

The ten-year-old campus building is located right at the centre of Hague. According to the staff, it is one of the most magnificent buildings in Holland.

I can’t deny that it stands out from the rest. The clean courtyard area and the round shape of the building make the first impression. Inside the building, the first eye-catchers are the glass roof and the terraces surrounding the light atrium. A couple of steps ahead reveal many interesting details: colours, shapes, spaces, sculptures, paintings, photos.

And people. More than 20 000 thousand people visit the campus daily, in the atrium and terraces people come and go to and from many directions all the time. But it does not feel crowded, groups are sitting here and there, and the atmosphere is convivial. The visitor tries to see what people are eating at the cafeteria. Next time I will also visit the campus shop and the library …

You can also visit the building on a virtual tour.

Text and photos: Leena Stenman, Head of Communications Services, TAMK

Our hostel crew with Namibian exchange students

The final exam of our third year was to carry out a project in Dream Hostel. Five students, who chose the hotel themed project, managed Dream Hostel for two weeks together with its own staff. Basically we took care of all the operations including the reception, housekeeping, customer service and event organizing. We named the hostel Pop Up Hostel, since it only operates for a short while just like Pop Up restaurants. It is a hostel inside of another hostel. The purpose of this project was to use all the things we’ve learned in practice. Ville Virkki, the owner of Dream Hostel, was glad to give us the opportunity to test our skills in a real work environment and see how a hostel is run.

Board games and popcorn in great company!

Evening events were mainly aimed at hostel guests but also exchange students who were at Tampere. We had three events per week. At game nights we played board games and had something tasty to eat, like pancakes or popcorn. The aim of game nights was to attract outside visitors to hostel and give everyone the chance to get to know new people.

During Finnish food cooking night participants had the chance to make and taste some Finnish specialties. For example Karelian pastries with egg butter, blood sausage and cinnamon rolls were on the menu. We thought the evening was successful, and we got lots of thanks and positive feedback from participants.

In events we also provided the opportunity to explore Tampere centrum by foot, and pub crawl took its participants to see city’s nightlife. We visited pubs such as Ohranjyvä, Café Europa and Bar K. Our project’s last night was spent at the hostel with playing a quiz and eating tasty goodies.

Karelian pastries and legendary Tapola blood sausage in Finnish food cooking night

Two Namibian exchange student girls had a great possibility to get to know Finnish working methods and develop their Finnish language skills. Dream Hostel staff was very helpful and we were given quite a free rein all around. We didn’t get as many guests to attend the evening events as we would have liked, but we were happy with the guests that we got. The main thing was that everyone had fun. Few free local papers (Tamperelainen and Suur-Tampere) published the press release we sent them about this project. We felt that this sort of hotel theme project is extremely useful for us, and we got valuable experience out of this.

Hanging out at the hostel’s public area

Students in this project: Anna Lipasti, Nelli Jokelainen, Jutta Kurkimäki, Heidi Välimäki, Tanja Valkama from Hotel and Restaurant management program and Natania Beukes ja Tellaneey Muriambihu from Namibia.

Text and photos: Jutta Kurkimäki and Nelli Jokelainen

While the degree students were still on holidays, the exchange students already started their semester with the Orientation on 3-4 January 2013. The Main Exchange Student Orientation gathered around 60 new students together to learn about studying and living here.

Exchange students in International Business, Tim Denissen and Valeriia Gorlushko, on snowy TAMK Main Campus

The new Erasmus students Valeriia Gorlushko from Poland and Tim Denissen from the Netherlands didn’t face any big culture shock when arriving to Finland. In their opinion, the weather is not too cold but the only thing Valeriia is missing is the sunlight. During the first weekend in Tampere, Valeriia and Tim were lucky to see the sun when having a walk on the frozen lake. They also saw people ice-fishing and the fishermen were proud to present their catch of frozen fishes for the foreigners. It was funny!

The first day of orientation with different forms to fill

The students taught each others some Finnish words they had already learned

The main part of the arriving exchange students are from Europe. This spring the biggest groups come from Spain, France, Hungary, Netherlands and Belgium. However, there’re students also from more distant countries like South Korea, China, Japan, Kyrgyzstan, Mexico, Mosambique and Canada.

In total, there will be over 120 exchange students at TAMK this spring. Almost 40 out of them will study in the Degree Programme in International Business. The Degree Programmes in Media, Nursing and Tourism will also receive more than 10 students each.

Text and photos: Kaisa Merilahti, International Services

Farewell Party for Social Work X-Change Students

Hi everyone! My name is Flo. I´m 30 years old and I have been a German Exchange student at Tampereen Amattikorkeakoulu in Finland. It was such a great time! If you like the colder regions, love the pure nature or want to challenge your sensibility of adoption then Finland could be the right choice for you! You get to know different people from different countries. There are a plenty of things you can do in Finland and I obviously have not managed to participate in every happenings or activities.

I met two guys from Africa, who also love music like I do. So we decided to found a band „Came 4 Exchange“ should be named. We practised a lot nearly every day. We also played a lot for Social Organizations, on birthday parties and also were invited to play on the Universities X-mas Parties.

Universities Student´s X-mas Party

Additionally the academic options here are really nice. I appreciated the way how the records will be evaluated. You have to do a lot of projects, presentations, essay´s and sometimes at the end there will also take place a small examination. It´s hard for me to keep it short because I am still impressed about Finland and the plenty of „faces“ and options there.

My conclusion is. I definitely had in Finland the best, nicest time and it was for certain the greatest experience in my life! I would love to do it again anytime! By the way if you are interested in watching some music of us find the links below!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gitnK4lvrk8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UikLV7RLdr8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dp8AWP4H4nc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Spu4Gkif2Mc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffgEyel2OvE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcLE9vHgGck

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQXJHZnXq4g

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Puw8GSG_XAk

Text and photos: Florian Gollwitzer, Nordhausen University of Applied Sciences, exchange student in Social Services in Autumn 2012

TAMK has a Double Degree agreement for students in Degree Programme in Paper, Textile and Chemical Engineering. On Tuesday January 15th a delegation from Shandong Polytechnic University in China visited TAMK with an intention to sign a Double Degree Agreement for the next three academic years.

The delegation had negotiations with Marja Sutela, Vice President (degree education), Ulla Häggblom, Head of Degree Programme and with Kirsi Tolvanen, Head of International Services. At the end of the meeting the agreement for Double Degree as well as for exchange activities was signed and now TAMK has another valued partner in China.

Shandong Polytechnic University (SPU) is a modern university with over 21.000 students and new university premises with modern laboratories located in the capital city Jinan in Shandong Province of China. For TAMK engineering students in Degree Programme in Paper, Textile and Chemical Engineering, the Double Degree agreement offers a possibility to attend an academic year in SPU and receive a Bachelor Degree from both universities, SPU and TAMK. The co-operation in coming years is set to be continuous and fruitful.

In the picture from left: Fang Zeqing from SPU International Offie, Vice President of SPU Wang Xiqui, and Vice President of TAMK Marja Sutela.

Text and pictures: Noora Kahra, International Services

Teambuilding activities with Aurelija from Lithuania

We spent almost one week in a Business Innovation Intensive Course Estonia in autumn 2012.

Director of Academic Affairs Maris Sagar and Project Manager Annelis Tomingas from Tallinn College of Tallinn University of Technology organised for us an intensive course of the Nordic and Baltic Business Innovation Network, together with the coordinator of the network Pirkko Varis from TAMK. Altogether 28 students and 8 staff members from Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Lithuania and Norway joined the intensive week. From TAMK, two students from Degree Programme in Tourism, Arja Niemi and Sauli Mamia and eight students from TAMK entrepreneurship programme Proacademy, Nina Granqvist, Joona Kapanen, Tommi Keränen, Joel Ojala, Saara-Kaisa Tenhunen, Juuso Uusitalo, Johanna Vuorenmaa and Pekka Äijälä took part in the intensive course “Business Innovation Focused on Experience-based Products/Services”. Veijo Hämäläinen was the staff member from Proacademy.

The following institutions are members of the Nordplus Nordic and Baltic Business Innovation Network:

- Tampere University of Applied Sciences (TAMK), Business, Finland

- University of Southern Denmark, Faculty of Engineering, Denmark

- Tallinn College of Tallinn University of Technology, Business, Estonia

- University of Tromsø, Business School, Norway

- Vytautas Magnus University, Faculty of Economics and Management, Lithuania

On Saturday, we travelled to Tallinn where we met other Nordic and Baltic students. We had a welcoming party at St. Patrick’s Pub, where we could get acquainted with each other and spend some time in not-so-official atmosphere. The next day, we had presentations of all the countries and study programmes taking part in this course. Afterwards, we had several team building activities in order to break the ice between us and learn something new about each other.

A country presentation of the team from Denmark

On Sunday, we were divided into teams with a representative from each country and two representatives from Finland. We were given an assignment to observe the Old Town of Tallinn on our own and re-enact legends connected to the spots on a map we got for our tour. We had fun during this assignment and had to work as a team. This way we had more time to get to know members of our teams. We took pictures from every spot and had to come up with a creative idea how to show a legend in one picture. It was interesting!

A team working on the assignment

Presentation of a team

From Monday on, we concentrated on the assignment from the company Tallinna Vesi (Tallinn Water). First, we visited the company, where we had a tour around the premises and were given the assignment to work on. The same day, we had two lectures: one was about innovations by Rünno Lumiste from Estonia and another about presentation skills by Vidar Alvarstein from Norway. We knew that over the next two days we had to work hard, so we used our free time to relax and gather strength.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, we worked in our teams in separate rooms as there was a competition which team would propose the best marketing solutions for the company. I think we were all stressed, as we had only two days and we had to work with people we met for the first time. We stayed late in the evening at the college and did some preparation in the hostel, too.

On Thursday, our presentations took place. We were nervous and excited. All the teams did a great job: we presented our results and the judges visited each team to ask some questions about the process and how do we felt after all the work.

Judges Jane Libe from Tallinna Vesi, Aurelija

Ganusauskaitė from Lithuania and Leif Henriksen

from Denmarkdiscussing with teams

On Thursday evening, we had a wonderful closing ceremony with several appetizers and refreshments, offered by Tallinn College. We congratulated the winners, thanked the organisers and students, took a lot of pictures of each other and headed to Old Town to continue our last evening together.

Refreshments...

...awards...

...and fun!

We had a great time! It was like a small exchange in a short period: we met a lot of new people, worked and celebrated together. On Friday, our Finnish team was the first one to leave Tallinn – with a lot of great memories.

Text: Arja Niemi, student of TAMK Degree Programme in Tourism

Photos: Maris Sagar, Director of Academic Affairs & Annelis Tomingas, Project manager

Tallinn College of Tallinn University of Technology

The 3rd International Week for Engineering took place at the Main Campus of TAMK on 11-14 February. The week comprised classes given by the visiting professors, company visits, a Project Workshop, outdoor activities and social programme in the evening.

The Degree Programmes of Engineering, Technology and Natural Resources hosted 16 guest lecturers from ten partner universities of TAMK. The visitors came from Austria, Belgium, Germany, Russia and the United Kingdom. Many of the visitors attended the TAMK International Week for Engineering for the 2nd or the 3rd time, and we were happy to welcome also several new colleagues to the event.

International Week for Engineering 2013 participants and main hosts

The visiting lecturers gave 24 lectures in English to the students and staff of TAMK, and some 600 engineering students participated in the teaching sessions.

The thread of the week was to highlight the different learning environments of TAMK. On Monday, the round-tour took the guests to the labs, classrooms and the new library of TAMK which was followed by a visit to Demola later that same day. The Demola open learning environment for the local university students aroused a lot of interest among the visiting professors.

Bernard Garvey presenting Demola

Fastems, another off-campus engineering learning environment of TAMK, was visited on Wednesday. Product Manager, Mr Janne Konttila hosted the guests and told about Fastems and its long-standing cooperation with TAMK. Senior Lecturer, Mr Tomi-Pekka Nieminen from TAMK presented the training centre of Fastems and the facilities that it offers to the TAMK students in Mechanical and Production Engineering.

Janne Konttila telling about Fastems

The guests had a chance to experience the Finnish winter by attending outdoor activities organised by Mr Esko Tirkkonen. Many of the visitors tried Nordic walking and skiing in the snowy landscape of Kauppi sports park and its surrounding forests.

Joan, Jan-Philipp, Pamela, Hans, Sophie and Franz admiring the Finnish winter scenery

Meeting new people and professional networking are an important part of International Weeks. What could be a better way to get to know a new colleague than to cook and dine together? Senior Lecturer, Mr Petteri Tikkanen and his brilliant team of 1st-year students in Hospitality Management steered the group of visitors in their preparation of a three-course meal at the Åkerlundinkatu Campus of TAMK. The dinner menu featured some Finnish delicacies like zucchini soup, marinated perch filet and local cheeses.

Inter-university cooperation at its best: Hedda, Mike and Jan-Philipp cooking and having fun

It's already a tradition of the TAMK International Week for Engineering that the Wednesday evening is spent at Hangaslahti. The guests enjoyed the smoke sauna and ice-swimming as if that was a part of their daily life! Many dipped into the lake more than once. The evening was concluded with a multi-national sing-along in Flemish, German, Russian and Finnish.

What shall we sing next?

All in all, the week was a success, and the guests' first impressions very positive. The ideas for the further development of the TAMK International Week for Engineering were much appreciated by the hosts. The feedback will be taken into account when planning a similar event for the next year. See you back at TAMK for the International Week for Engineering 2014!

Text: Riku-Matti Kinnunen
Pics: Tuomas Mikola & R-M. Kinnunen

The TAMK Kuntokatu Campus was like asleep during the holiday week, but the vibrant discussions started immediately when the group of Student Council members from Delft University of Technology arrived here yesterday morning. The Dutch engineering students were on a benchmarking trip in the Nordic countries in three destinations: Copenhagen, Trondheim and Tampere. The core question of their visit was how to improve the study success.

The President of Central Student Counsil - ORAS, Enne Hekma, explaining the aims of their research during the trip

In the Netherlands the current demands for reforming the higher education are similar to ours in Finland. Decreasing average study duration and changing the student state funding system are hot topics in both countries. Also the governmental budget for Dutch universities is more and more performance based, measuring education quality and study success.

However, in the discussion with Student Union Tamkorepresentatives, Henri Mäntysaari and Kristian Staack, we noticed also differences in the students’ situations. Students have different attitudes towards the study loans and the costs of studies also vary between the countries.

The sunshine and lovely scenery over the Lake Näsijärvi made our guests to smile

The other important topic of the day was the working life connections. TAMK Student Recruitment Services presented what kind of support and options TAMK offers for the students. Also the concept of New Factory with Demola and Protomo environments was introduced. Our guests seemed to be thrilled with this unique combination of multidisplinary team work, creativity and working life contacts. Hopefully they got some new ideas to bring back home! Best of all, sharing experiences helps the hosts to see the own system from a new perspective as well.

During the week in Tampere the group visits also University of Tampere, Tampere University of Technology, Nokia and enjoys the winter activities.

Stylish way to promote Student Council's theme colors

Text: Kaisa Merilahti, International Services

Photos: Tuula Härkönen & Kaisa Merilahti

It's our pleasure to welcome you to attend TAMK’s 2nd International Week in Research, Development and Innovation which will take place in Tampere, Finland on 22-26 April, 2013.

The theme of the week is "Future Calls for Funding – Living Labs in Horizon 2020".

The international week is aimed at RDI staff of TAMK’s partner universities as well as for other partner organisations involved in RDI activities with TAMK.

The programmeof the week will include interesting study visits as well as sessions and workshops on focus areas of EU’s future RDI agenda based on the interests of the participants, e.g.

health and demographic change, senior services
resource efficiency and sustainability
intelligent industrial vehicles and machines
inclusive, innovative society, including ICT, media and culture
entrepreneurship, including wellbeing entrepreneurship.

The registration is still open until 15 March 2013.

Warmly welcome!

R&D and Education Services at TAMK
Contact person: Ms Ursula Helsky-Lehtola, ursula.helsky-lehtola(at)tamk.fi

"Finnish people are open, and nature is beautiful", "Prices are too high", "The best country to study"

These were some of the answers when the students from Ylöjärvi Upper Secondary School did a small survey of exchange students' experiences. The survey was a part of their English language studies and around 20 TAMK exchange students were interviewed. The answers are presented in greater detail below.

Local students got a good opportunity to practice English language when interviewing Oanh Hoang and Bram Cooreman (behind).

Why did you choose Finland / TAMK?

Finnish people have good English skills
Likes cold climate
Finland was the most interesting option
A Friend was in Finland 5 years ago
Change to home country (2 answers)
Likes drinking alcohol and sauna
Finland was the best country to study IT engineering
Nature
Never been in Finland
Had been previously in an exchange in southern Europe and wanted to go to a different kind of country
Tampere was the biggest city in the alternatives

Have you found any positive sides about TAMK?

Good equipment
Good organizing
Food (x 3)
Library (x 2)
New friends
Modern
Good opportunities
Good team spirit
Cheap
Teaching is good
Studying is relaxed
Classrooms are nice
Good transportation probabilities
People are open minded (x 3)
Good apartments

What negative sides have you found about TAMK?

Everyone isn’t ready to talk with exchange students (x 3)
School is unclear
Library gets closed too early
Food
Not yet (x 6)
Some of the teachers don’t understand everything

What is the most valuable thing about studying abroad?

Experiencing other cultures
Learn to live on one’s own
More choices to major in
Culture
New people
Now I can compare my own country to other countries
Gets more motivation on studying

What kind of differences there are between Finnish culture and your own?

Almost the same
You have to stop the bus to get off
Finnish people are friendlier
Finnish people need more space of their own

Could you consider working in Finland?

Yes if it wouldn’t be so cold
Yes
Yes, but darkness scares

How would you compare the Finnish education to your own?

In Finland it’s more independent and more comfortable
Can’t compare
Doesn’t study so much because she is on-the-job learning
Studying in Greece is different because of the economy crisis
In Finland studying is more practical
In Finland studying is economically supported
Much smaller studying groups in Finland

Grilling sausages in Seitseminen National Park

The last two weeks we had extremely nice and instructive time during the project course about Sustainable tourism management! Course’s aim was to analyse three different destinations in Tampere from sustainable point of view: city centre, Pyynikki and Seitseminen national park. So we had a great time by making these destinations familiar for our visitors from Spain and United Kingdom! Based on our experiences and lectures we had to make a presentation in mixed groups about our proposals for those destinations.

On a first day all three nationalities had presentations about their culture which was really interesting and good opening for the weeks. The visitors could even taste a little piece of Finland: Finnish salmiakki, but it didn’t get so great admiration. I just have to wonder why!;) We Finns also arranged a welcoming party where everyone had a good chance to make new friends and enjoy their time.

Our first destination was city center where the majority of students went to see Tuomio church, the Main Square, Finlayson, market hall and Vapriikki-museum. There was a little snow storm during our walk, but we solved the problem by drinking hot cup of coffee in Vapriikki-museum till snowing was over.

The trip to our second destination, Pyynikki and Pispala area, was a whole new experience for the majority of our visitors! They were thrilled about wooden residential area of Pispala, tasted the best donuts of Tampere in Pyynikki observation tower and walked on an icy like for the first time. In addition the weather was lovely because sun was shining.

Walking on a lake in Pyynikki

City Tour and Tallipiha

Our final destination was Seitseminen national park where we Finns arranged different kind of activities outdoors. First there was a short document about the nature of Seitseminen and after that we had a walk in a forest. Few people took a sled with them and there was a lot of screaming when they went down the hills! After our nice walk we grilled some sausages on a campfire and enjoyed our delicious picnic lunch. Before leaving we played football in the snow, skied a little bit and played Finnish game mölkky.

Team working

After long days of teamwork finally every team succeed and made good presentations. Now it is time for the final party and we have to say good bye.

Writer: Niina Väisänen, student in Tourism in Ikaalinen Campus

Sixteen students from the three universities in Tampere took part in the Hungarian cooking course at TAMK on 19 March 2013.

The teacher, Zita Székely, taught the students how to make goulash, a Hungarian meat soup, and Somlói galuska, a cake-like dessert.

After long preparations, cooking, baking and waiting, two huge pots of goulash went down in minutes – and the dessert in seconds!

The cooking course was a part of the Hungarian theme week of TAMK, University of Tampere (UTA) and Tampere University of Technology (TUT). The cities of Tampere and Miskolc have been twin cities for 50 years.

Köszönöm (= thank you) everyone and especially Zita the Master Chef!

Text: Mirja Onduso, Social Counsellor

Photos: course participants

On Wednesday March 20, Pakkahuone (Old Customs House) was filled with hundreds of people interested in entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship - In Your Dreams? -event was meant for people who want to figure out their opportunities, consider their goals, look for the following step or find the partner they need to bring their business idea to fruition.

Photo: Outi Puhakka, TaY

The event was especially meant for students and staff in higher education institutions. The organizers evaluated that around 80 % of the total enrollments, which the event had around 400, were students and the rest 20 % were staff of different institutions. By these numbers we can assume there’s a need for a new channel of networking for young entrepreneurs in the Tampere region.

Entrepreneurship - In Your Dreams? was organized by ENTRE, a cooperation of
- Y campus of Tampere University of Applied Sciences (TAMK)
- TALLI support center of new entrepreneurs and innovations of Tampere University of Technology (TUT)

- Service Innovation Centre of University of Tampere (UTA)

ENTRE is part of Unipoli Tamperecooperation between the three universities.

This was the first entrepreneurship event organized by ENTRE. The event consisted of keynote speakers including Mr. Timo Vuorensola who is a director at Blind Spot Picture. He shared his experience as an amateur film maker in the business. He encouraged everyone not to always think about the impossible but the chances you have as entrepreneur. He took an example of his own cooperation with fans and internet societies when funding his films such as Iron Sky andStar Wreck.

Audience listening to Mr. Timo Vuorensola's talk, "Sky is not the limit". Photo: Outi Puhakka, TaY

Entrepreneurship - In Your Dreams? also consisted of Start-up Cafés, Case Cafés and Free Zone networking. Start-up Cafés offered useful knowledge and tips for everyone interested in entrepreneurship or running a business. In Case Cafés you could hear stories and experiences from successful entrepreneurs. Free Zone offered refreshments and free networking with participants and entrepreneur’s best friends at info stands.

TAMK, UTA and TUT signed the Unipoli Tampere Agreement in 2006. Recent years have expanded and deepened collaboration between the three institutions, which is also the main purpose of the agreement: to establish closer ties, support an efficient use of resources and promote the city's development into an international hub of expertise.

Host Simo Frangén interviews Harri Melin, the vice principal of University of Tampere, TAMK's principal Markku Lahtinen and TUT's first director in charge of PR and partnerships Anne-Mari Järvelin about their piece of art they just created. Photo: Outi Puhakka, TaY

Entrepreneurship - In Your Dreams? was just a kick-off for ENTRE’s function in Tampere.

Stay tuned for more activities of ENTRE in the near future!

Timothy Phelan, Executive director of International affairs from Miyagi University in Japan is visiting Finland and Tampere University of Applied Sciences this week. During the visit Professor Phelan meets the TAMK International Services staff as well as current exchange students from Miyagi University, Ryoko Sasaki and Ryo Tominaga.

Ryoko Sasaki (left) and Ryo Tominaga (right) were warmly welcoming Professor Timothy Phelan to TAMK and Finland

During the stay Professor Phelan will also visit The TAMK Finlayson campus of Art, Music and Media studies and meet personnel from the TAMK Research and Development department to discuss and plan the cooperation in the future. He will additionally pay a visit to the School of Health Care and meet the President of TAMK, Markku Lahtinen, as well.

In their meeting Professor Phelan surprised his students by testing their knowledge about facts of Tampere and after the official program the students were happy to introduce the campuses and the city of Tampere to him.

Professor Phelan asked the students couple of tricky questions about Tampere

Text: Panu Alanko, Trainee, TAMK International Services
Photos: Kaisa Merilahti, TAMK International Services

International cooperation course in Erasmus Intensive Program on forests and storms ends in good but wishful spirits. The Program was organized at Tampere University of Applied Sciences lasting from March 14th to March 27th.

Portuguese students enjoying Finnish spring weather and trying out the snowshoes!

A two-week intensive course on forests and storms at TAMK came to its end yesterday. Almost 40 students and 15 teachers from 5 different European countries had a busy time learning and lecturing about things like climate change, storms and bioenergy. Besides the lectures and group-working, the participants had the chance to see some forestry activities in practice and visit e.g. the SMEAR (Station for measuring ecosystem-atmosphere relations) –station of Helsinki University 60 kilometers north of Tampere.

Forests and Storms field trip – Logging excursion

Although the weather was exceptionally cold for this time or the year the students and teachers really enjoyed the activities on snow on free-time. Everybody tried cross-country skiing and walking with snow shoes. One Romanian student proved to be a real fisherman – his catch was five perches from a hole on the frozen lake. The Spanish young men were brave enough to try ice-swimming - in water with temperature close to zero degrees Celsius!

Visiting teachers testing another very Finnish thing to do, cross-country skiing.

One of the unforgettable experiences for the visitors was undoubtedly the northern lights, aurora borealis, which they could observe on the night of March 17th. At these latitudes it is very exceptional to see so impressive electromagnetic activity.

The IP Forests and Storms was realized for the third time. Previously it has been in Bazas, France in 2010 and in Palencia, Spain in 2011. The IP was coordinated by ELEPFA de Bazas and the other participating universities were University of Valladolid (Spain), Transilvania University of Brasov (Romania), Polytechnic Institute of Bragança (Portugal), Polytechnic Institute of Castelo Branco (Portugal) and Tampere University of Applied Sciences.

The Erasmus Intensive Program: Forests and Storms participants.

Text: Ari Vanamo

Photos: Ari Vanamo, Manne Viljamaa & Raul Araujo

Another TAMK International Week has begun! This time the week is about Research, Development & Innovation and the theme of the week is "Future Calls for Funding - Living Labs in Horizon 2020". There are more than 20 participants for the week from 14 different countries. For more information about the RDI international week, make sure the check the website of the week at: http://iwrdi2013.tamk.fi/

R&D Director Perttu Heino (left) and Service Coordinator Ursula Helsky-Lehtola (right) welcoming the international guests

During the week there will be interesting visits like the reception at Tampere Old City Hall and a visit to Demola for example. There are meetings and workshops in the programme as well and even some special Finnish culture activities. The full programme of the week can be seen at: http://iwrdi2013.tamk.fi/programme/

Introduction event at Y-campus, TAMK.

International week for Research, Development and Innovation 2013 participants

Text: Panu Alanko
Photos: Tuula Härkönen

It was once again time for engineering students to leave on our annual field trip to Hannover. The main reason for this trip was to visit the largest technology fair in the world held in Hannover. We also got back together with our German friends who visited us in January. During the week we also had an opportunity to visit Herrenhäuser brewery, Komatsu Hanomag’s factory and Volkswagen’s factory. And as the student life requires, parties were not forgotten.

Photo: Antti Hyyppä

The fair, Hannover Messe, was something incredibly huge. Even when we walked there for hours, you could always find something new to see around the next corner. There would easily be something to do for the whole duration of the fair and it is very much advisable to familiarize yourself with the selection of exhibitors. In the evening there was a party organized by the local engineers’ union and unlike last year, this year our hosts were able to get us in to the party.

Active participating during the fair. (Photo: Tiia Vaattovaara)

Photo: Toni Peltola

Altogether the week was awesome and full of interesting activities. We had great new experiences, made new friends and ended up with very sore feet.


The Hannover field trip participants (Photo: Essi Ihalainen)

Text: Essi Ihalainen
Pictures: Tiia Vaattovaara, Antti Hyyppä, Toni Peltola and Essi Ihalainen

TAMK's IT designer, Anna-Liisa Karjalainen and Head of Degree Programme, Sari Mettiäinen, were awarded for their research during the e-Case & e-Tech 2013 conference organized in Kitakyushu, Japan. The conference was about the role of technology in different aspects of life and the topic of the award-winning research was "Teachers as Users of New Technology - Experiences of Using Electronic Assessment and Feedback System in Supervision of Clinical Training".

You can read their travel report below:

e-Case & e-Tech 2013 Kitakyushu Japan

We participated in an international conference on 3- 5 April 2013 in Kitakyushu, Japan. The event had more than 400 participants from 20 countries. The conference focused on the role of technology in different fields of life. We participated in e-Education sessions and our presentation was also part of those sessions.

We networked with several participants. We discussed with e.g. Tom Galea, who is the principal of Rosebank College in Australia. We found that Finland and Australia are at approximately the same level in using ICT. Based on a discussion with Japanese Dr Chien-Kuo Li, we found that Facebook is still very popular in Japan and it is also studied from the viewpoint of education. Professor Michael Stoica from Washburn University in Kansas told that use of ICT in education varies a lot in different parts of the United States.

In particular, the studies on game-based learning made us thoughtful as did the presentation on how use of tablets intensifies learning (Yu-Feng Lan and Yu-Feng Jheng, National Formosa University). Several presentations we heard focused on students’ online discussions. The discussions had been studied from different viewpoints. The presentations did not contain anything outstandingly new education technology pedagogy, and thus according to our conception the same methods are used and studied abroad as in Finland.

From left: Anna-Liisa Karjalainen, Sari Mettiäinen, Tom Galea and three other conference visitors from Taiwan

The title of our presentation was “Teachers as Users of New Technology – Experiences of Using Electronic Assessment and Feedback System in Supervision of Clinical Training”. Our research report was rewarded as the best in the e-Education category. The award criteria included e.g. the scientific quality and practical exploitability.

The award was valued, which we noticed immediately when we registered at the conference. People came to congratulate us and wanted to take photos. When our own presentation started, a group of cameramen arrived and we were congratulated once more.


Anna-Liisa Karjalainen (left) and Sari Mettiäinen (middle) receiving the award on April 4th, 2013.

Japanese people seemed very friendly and helpful. Technology is advanced there and we saw in many everyday situations how automation and engineering competence were utilised. There were many skyscrapers in the city but we also managed to see some idyllic peace and old culture of the countryside. We learned to eat with sticks but it was partly thanks to the friendly Japanese as they came to help us hands-on. We came to the conclusion that they do not often see blond people in Kitakyushu as they paid much attention to us. People stopped us in the street and asked where we were from and why we were in Japan. Their first image of Finland was often the cold climate, some immediately remembered Nokia, Angry Birds were not as familiar in Kitakyushu as we assumed. Marimekko and the Moomin characters were well-known in Japan and the products were available in some shops.

On the terrace of a traditional wooden Japanese house. Kokura Castle and a Japanese garden in the background.

We both think the trip was successful. Our presentation was enriched by a Youtube video we had made in advance. In the video, Senior Lecturer Eija-Riitta Alho told about her experiences of using e-Taitava in supervision of clinical training. In our opinion, our presentation went well, and the listeners were so interested in use of mobile technology in supervision of clinical training that they even made us questions and asked the contact information for the software supplier. We received several contacts and had the chance to tell about Finland and TAMK to our colleagues from many different parts of the world.

Text and photos: Anna-Liisa Karjalainen and Sari Mettiäinen

Tampere University of Applied Sciences (TAMK) and JAMK University of Applied Sciences organised together the first International Week for Language Teachers with the theme "Innovative Methods in Language Teaching and Learning". The week took place on 15-19 April, and the programme was divided between the two cities. This way, the international participants got to see two UASs and Finnish cities instead of only one, and also the organisers were able to share the responsibility and collaborate on several levels.

The participants were university-level language teachers from 12 different countries. The programme included extremely interesting and hands-on workshops and presentations on a wide range of topics and visits to different companies. Students were heavily involved in the programme: business administration students hosted the sessions, took care of the decorations and gave information to the participants; tourism students organised a city tour, and hotel and restaurant management students planned and prepared excellent dinners and served refreshments during the coffee breaks.

The week was very successful, and the participants received lots of fresh ideas and broadened their network of international colleagues. The organisers' experiences were also very positive, and we may possibly organise something similar in the future as well, so stay tuned!

Text: Henri Annala
Photos: Tarja Haukijärvi

Geting Zhu from Nanjing Forestry University discussing with the pupils in their English class.

A group of curious exchange students left TAMK for one day to visit Ylöjärvi Upper Secondary School. The exchange students took part in lessons, gave presentations to the pupils in different subjects and got familiar with the Finnish school life.

Nursing student Juan Riesgo Martín presented his home country in the Spanish lesson.

The exchange students appreciated the possibility to see how the school system and teaching methods differ from their home countries. The Finnish education system has been ranked among the best ones in the world but the students were critical enough to make their own opinions. Here you can find some comments from the feedback after the visit:

"I learn that study is not limited into some teaching ways .We should try more open methods that inspire students to learn instead of pushing them."

"Through the class, I felt Finnish school is too free but Japanese school is too strict and both of them has weak point to teach social rule."

"The most surprising thing for me became an appearance of this school. I understand that for Finnish people maybe it's ordinary but I was really amazed by the size, externality and facilities of school. Comparing to the Russian usual secondary school it is a palace. Also a big difference lies in relations between teacher and student. In your country teachers always refer to children and youngsters as to equal persons, don't show any superiorities and special rights which students don't have."

"The way of educating is quite different then in Belgium. We have lessons of 50 minutes and the students have their own classroom. Everybody follows the same lessons but if you want to do more science or more languages then you can change it."

"Next time I wish I can go to the sauna in high school with students there, haha..."

Ylöjärvi Upper Secondary School students were proud to present their brand new premises to the visitors.

The visit was a part of Erasmus in Schools project that implements CIMO's (Centre for International Mobility) national program. The goal of the project is to offer the exchange students a chance to get to know a new aspect of Finnish society and culture, but also present their own country. Same time the visitors offer an international experience for the local pupils and encourage them to speak foreign languages.

Text: Kaisa Merilahti, International Services
Photos: Panu Alanko, Kaisa Merilahti

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TAMK's Anna-Liisa Karjalainen and Sari Mettiäinen awarded for their research on E-education in conference in Japan

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