Jasminka Olić Ilčešin
A Serbian language and literature teacher in a small rural elementary school. The fact that the environment her students come from may not be the center of events does not prevent her from opening the doors of the world of culture and education to her students. She pays exceptional attention to digital teaching materials which she creates herself, and teaches her students, as well as colleagues, to do the same. She has launched the blog Gramatoigrolija (https://gramatoigrolija.wixsite.com/my-site) which allows the acquisition of grammar through play, as well as an Instagram page with the same name. She supported eighth-grade students in launching the YouTube channel “Od đaka osmaka” where they present their work. She encourages students to create in the digital environment, resulting in educational games, comics, digital stories, and an electronic magazine as products of project-based teaching.
She passes on her love for the written word to her students through the Reading Club she founded at the school. In an action supported by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, “Reading Marathon,” she is a member of the main jury and reviewer of novels. In the ZUOV project “Digital Classroom,” she also tried herself as a trainer and mentor for colleagues. She presented her experiences and examples of good practice at several public forums and conferences. She is the author of three professional papers (STEM skills and language teaching and the use of Escape room in language teaching) and an article on the IMO blog – Reading skills and the digital world.
She promotes digital textbooks, and during the pandemic, she also carried out this activity through presentations-webinars. She is a co-author of the seminar “Using Web Tools for Interdisciplinarity in STE(A)M Teaching”. She is the recipient of the Society of Teachers of Novi Sad Award, a finalist of the first national SONS festival that promotes STEM skills, a participant in the international educational project “Intelligence Day,” and her lessons have been included in the “Lesson for an Example” collection two years in a row. She is a national edu leader in the “Education for Serbia” Foundation… She writes plays and poems for children, which she brings to life on stage with her students.