History

  Gone back to Creative commons and playing there. Found a photo (well, half a photo) of myself at a workshop that Alan Levine did for us in 2004 at Unitec (where I work). This is memorable as it started me on the journey of blogging – so for me this is a little bit of history.

Getting multimedia…

Yesterday I did a session for our staff on Web 2.0, the concepts behind it and what it means for language teachers. Amazing how little they seemed to have come across. One admitted to having heard of Web 2, two thought they knew what del.icio.us was and a few nods of the head when I mentioned Bloglines. 

Link for photo (which is licensed under CC!) 

I prepared the session at the end of last year (when time was a bit more available) and going back to my Ppt realised that my pictures from off the web were all unacknowledged. Ouch! Found most of them so I could give the URL. Would like feedback as to how people deal with the copyright issue of using other people’s photos. Do you put images in your blogs from off the Internet or is that a no-no? I have done several sessions using a Ppt where I went out and took the photos that I wanted myself. But some of the Web 2 images I found were fun and interesting and I couldn’t have done them in a million years. Should have looked at Flickr’s CC licence – will go and do that now!! Also need to sign up for a Flash course I think. I can see everything becoming more visual/sound oriented – if it hasn’t already.

5 things about me

Sounds like a movie title! I tend to ignore anything I’m sent that has ‘and pass this on to x other people etc’ but I am intrigued by this one, because the purpose is to find out about other people that you are interested in. So thanks Valentina for your invitation. I found it quite hard to think of things that people don’t know about me. Which people? Hmmm…

I have lived more than half my life overseas. Was born and brought up in India, lived for two years on Niue (a tiny Pacific Island) and in Brunei for six years, plus travelling time – the classic Kiwi OE (overseas experience). For some of you this will be normal, for Kiwis at the bottom of the world, it’s not particularly…

Scratched my head for ideas.

Pause… 

Asked my kids for suggestions.

Daughter (18) said that I should write that not many people know that I have this wonderful amazing daughter. Not much wrong with her self-esteem!

Son (15) said that if he wanted to be nice to me, he would say that not many people knew I dye my hair : ) !

Son (13, the literal one) said that he didn’t think many people would know my middle name. Which is, BTW, Joy.

Web 2.0

Enjoyed this clever use of text. Not new for us (Graham recommended it), but I wanted to put it somewhere…

Reflections on week 3

I’m a Dekita fan – I think that one of the things these tools do is allow our students to connect. So I enjoyed having time to browse both Dekita again and the Orchard. Also finally caught up on the recording of Aaron’s session – from last week? Being down under means that often these sessions end up being in the middle of the night – when I am NOT at my best! So apologise to all for my absences…

I’m a structure-loving person, so I guess I like the idea of structured environments for my students. I find it difficult to walk into a class having no clear structure in mind for the next hour or two – so being open and hoping to be participatory feels pretty scary. I’d rather make sure that there were participants out there waiting to link up.  I admit that I can’t control everything that happens in an OPE, and that in fact, some of the best learning moments may come from something completely unexpected – not a problem. But I like to have a structure in place for if it is needed. To rely on serendipity all the time feels uncomfortable, hence I like the opportunities that Dekita has offered. 

 However, I am trying to develop more open approaches to what happens in my classrooms, and I’m probably thinking f2f here as much as online. My challenge for the year… : )

Helping students to find an authentic voice requires

• knowledge of students
• opportunity for them to experiment
• a ’safe’ place – relates to the next one…
• possibly a lack of assessment – being able to ‘talk’ without fear of being judged – by others or by their teacher
• media that is appropriate for them eg. use of pictures
• the choice to do things in hard copy as well as online – not sure about this – why should I force students to do something they’re uncomfortable with?  Is it my responsibility to develop their IT literacy?

I really want to think more about the use of Flickr with students (after Aaron’s talk).

Second Life

Have been enjoying doing the EVO digital gaming course at the same time as this OWP one. Exhausting but part of the learning curve. Check out  Second Life

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It’s all about the environment

Aaron Campbell’s ecological view of language learning reminded me of Lier’s discussion of ecology of learning related to language.

Leo van Lier says “Ecological educators see language and learning as relationships among learners and between learners and the environment. This does not deny cognitive processes but it connects those cognitive processes with social processes.” From input to affordance, 2000, in Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning, ed. Lantolf, J. p 258. I like the way he acknowledges that we are social as well as thinking bodies. 

I also liked his comment that as researchers ”We need to learn to identify ’sowing’ events (as opposed to reaping events) which lead to the emergence of complex language as a result of activity in proximal contexts” p 255. I like the idea of myself as a teacher ’sowing’ into students’ language acquisition.

Siemens also describes the potential of an ecology of learning.  “An ecology is dynamic, rich, and continually evolving” and gives control to the learner. He advocates all the tools that we are talking about to support learners’ networking to learn, which comes from their self-set objectives. Inspiring stuff! And a long way from IELTS – sigh ; )

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Tongariro crossing

  A few weeks ago we did the Tongariro crossing – up the saddle between Ngaruahoe (conical one) and Tongariro (foreground) and then across and down. Touted as one of the ten best one day tramps in the world, it took us 7 1/2 hours, most of which were windy with the last three being very wet. So I’m reduced to internet photos like this…

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