Ecuisine and IdA in the newspapers !

At the begining of Ecuisine was IdA, a program meant to enable german students from TGz, our partner in Neuruppin, to spend one month working in the kitchen of some top notch french restaurants in Bayeux.

Last month, 8 new students came to France to live the french experience. This experience proved once again to be a life changer for these students and the people that worked with them.

Last week was their "graduation ceremony" and it was very moving to see those kids surrounded by their host families and new co-workers : you could actually grasp how grateful everybody was in every word.

As we mentioned before, their coming was for the Ecuisine project an opportunity to run a few test on some of our products and their graduation ceremony was a great opportunity to say a few words about Ecuisine and explain how this will become an essential tool for the forthcoming editions of the IdA exchange program.

Here is the support we used for that presentation. We made using one of my new favourite tools : Prezi. It's a clever way to spread a message using pictures, text and videos. Nothing too exceptional it seems but just try it and you'll never open Microsoft Powerpoint again.

Ecuisine, apprendre la cuisine et les langues en ligne on Prezi

EcuisineBuddy - The social network

We recently started working with Ingenium, a Caen based compagny that specializes in Elearning.

They've been very helpful and suggested we use a social network since it combines ease of use (for students to find the courses but also for teachers to reach their students) and adds a social layer to the learning experience. Also, we just love the hype, and what is more trendy than having your own social network ^_^ ?

Here's a preview of the website as it will be. We received it this morning.

I don't want to go into details, but it comes with many features that we really like. For example, German students will be able to connect and interact with French students wether it is to practice French or make enquiries before visiting France.

The site will also enable students to publish blog posts or pictures of the recipes they made.

There will be a special section devoted to the chefs who worked on the project where they can publish their details and advertise for their restaurants if they want to.

Of course, the page redirects to our LMS, this blog and a special snakes and ladders boardgame that we will soon tell you about...

From a technical point of view, it is made using Buddypress, a Wordpress offspring.