Guest Blog Post on Ken Wilson's Blog!

I have had the huge honour recently to write a guest post for Ken Wilson's blog. I wrote about my experiences in the former German Democratic Republic, where I lived and taught for a year from 1981-82. It was a character building year for me and one which taught me a lot about what life was really like beyond the "Iron Curtain." Below you can see the opening lines from the blog post and the interesting connection that Ken and I share.

Please do hop across to Ken Wilson's blog in order to find out more about Living and working behind the Iron Curtain. Some clues are hidden in the Wordle below.

I can assure you that you will learn a few interesting facts about what life was like there 30 years ago!! You can see some of the many books I own connected to learning German in 1982, and some books on life in the GDR.

You can also find out what it is like to learn German in the modern era of 2012, written from Ken's unique perspective as a language student!

EVO 2012 Podcasting Course Feedback

What an amazing five weeks I spent on the fantastic Electronic Village Online Podcasting 2012 course! I feel as if I worked very hard during the session and I learned so much about Podcasting. I enjoyed all the activities, which were fun and challenging at the same time. Everything was set out very clearly. The moderators Evelyn Web, Miguel Mendoza and Teadira Perez were outstanding, and looked after the participants very skillfully. Readings such as The 4 Types of Podcasts were chosen carefully, and tutorials provided step by step guidance.

I wrote about the first two weeks in EVO Podcasting 2012:Opening The Door To New Horizons.

I have created a short story using Storybird.



This story is an almost faithful rendition of what happened during the fourth week of my course. I had fun creating it!! I will embed the Storybird as soon as the embed code becomes available. Please click on the link to view My EVO Podcasting Adventures!

http://storybird.com/books/evo-podcasting-adventures-2012/

A podcast was recorded specially for Fluffy's Blog. You can hear my young niece reading the nursery rhyme of Three Little Kittens. She had great fun reading this rhyme aloud and was very interested in how the podcast was created, using Audacity and then transfered to Podbean.

I was thrilled to be using my newly acquired podcasting skills in an activity aimed at primary school children.

Below you can view the Slideshare presentation, which I created for the final Week 5 Podcasting Fair webinar. I'm so glad I was able to attend this live webinar, as it was a fantastic finale to the whole session. Thanks to everyone for making it so enjoyable. I feel full of enthusiasm for creating podcasts now!

Podcast Presentation for EVO Podcasting 2012

One of the tasks I enjoyed the most was to interview a fellow podcaster, and I asked Natasa. She then interviewed me. We had great fun finding out more about each other.

We communicated via Skype and used the MP3 Skype Recorder to record the interviews.

Podcast Powered By Podbean

So I'd finally like to welcome you to my new podcasting blog, which is still in its infancy. It is simply called Janet's Podcasting Blog.

Miguel Mendoza has written a fab feedback blog post with his Reflections / Overview from the course, which you can read here. It is full of useful insights, and serves as a fantastic summary of what was covered during the action-packed five weeks.

Connecting Online 2012 - A Missed Connection

Abruzzo Under Snow!!
Sadly I was not able to attend my own webinar presentation for Connecting Online 2012 due to unforeseen circumstances, namely the terrible weather that hit the Abruzzo area the day before. I had been very excited indeed about presenting and I wrote about it in this post here.

A very big apology to Dr Nellie Deutsch and all the attendees who came to my session on Teaching Idioms with Web 2.0 Tools. I had recorded my Powerpoint presentation to send to Dr Nellie in case I encountered problems with the weather, but unfortunately we got cut off before I could send it.

I made a very big effort to get to an Internet point to do my webinar, but the odds were against me. Mother Nature, in fact.

This is my story below.

A huge amount of snow fell overnight in our area of Abruzzo, and I woke up to this view:

The situation was about to get even worse. Our phone and Internet connection went down and mobile phone reception was poor to non-existent, due to the severity of the weather. I decided we had to try to get to our neighbours, who hopefully would have a connection for me to deliver my webinar at 2pm. So we started walking up our road (over one kilometre long), which was just a mass of deep snow. Karl very kindly carried my laptop on his back.

I got stuck many times as the snow level was very high!

At this stage, I was hopeful that it was just us without connection, so I was hoping that our neighbours would be able to save the day.

While we struggled to make our way along the snow-covered road, I tried to ring my sister on my mobile phone to get her to contact Dr Nellie to let her know about my difficulties. Sadly, that message didn't reach its destination.

As you can see, I was dressed suitably for the arctic conditions. I wore my motorbike waterproof leggings and jacket, and Russian-style hat to keep me warm.

When we eventaully got to our neighbour's house after one and a half hours of walking through quite treacherous and dangerous conditions, we found out to my huge disappointment, that they too were cut off!!! No phone line and no Internet connection. This was so upsetting, because I had really hoped that I would be able to deliver my session, especially after having gone through all that struggle up the road. It was not meant to be.

I would like to thank Dr Nellie for valiantly holding the session together with 39 attendees from around the world. I take my hat off to her!! She conducted the session, despite her presenter (me)not showing up, in an amazingly calm and professional manner. I will observe and learn from her and this will be a role model for me. This is definitely something positive, which has come out of the negative. I think she did a brilliant job, coping with the situation. Thank you once again!!!

I have viewed the video, and it is an excellent example of how to remain calm and deal with an unforeseen situation. Thank you for holding the fort, Dr Nellie. Kudos to you.

JanetAbruzzo Unplugged!
To while away the days while we were cut off from the outside world, I created a series of podcasts, called JanetAbruzzo Unplugged, using Audacity. You don't need the Internet to record audio, so that was great. All I had to do next was upload the mp3 file from Audacity to Podbean or Podomatic for me to be able to publish the posts on my blog, which is what I have done now whilst in England.

How I got to England whilst being snowbound, is another story, and one which I will post in my Project 366 blog. This blog stopped abruptly due to the snow and Internet disruption, on Day 33:The Big Freeze is Looming.

Below the image is my Episode One: Dash Through the Snow, on Podomatic. You may need to turn up the volume, as I am still a newbie regarding recording with Audacity, and I am still feeling my way around this new tool.






Our road on 12th February after more snowstorms had hit our area. Karl has been without connection with the outside world for 10 days. Thank goodness he was able to ring me today and the Internet and phone line is finally back up!!!

Thanks very much to Marco, a local farmer and neighbour, who had cleared some of the snow from the road before this picture was taken.


The terrible weather has caused over ten million Euros of damage in the Abruzzo area alone, according to Il Centro, the local Pescara newspaper. The last time it was so bad was in 1956, before I was born.

You can view a video and more pictures from Abruzzo in the Snow here.

CO12 - Fab E-Conference, 3- 5 February

I have just been reviewing my slides, as seen in the mosaic below, for this Saturday's CO12 webinar on Teaching Idioms Effectively with Web 2.0 Tools.

My webinar, on Saturday 4th February, is part of many fabulous sessions you can attend for free on February 3 - 5 via Wiziq.

CO12 will be a fantastic opportunity for Professional Development. You can read why as follows:

The conference will be of interest to educators, administrators, students, and community members who value the importance of integrating technology into the curriculum to improve instruction, learning, and business. Online learning involves various skills on the part of the instructor and learner. These include social and communication skills, social networking, independent learning strategies, critical and higher order thinking skills, creativity, and effective online and face-to-face facilitation. In addition, there are many challenges that educators, administrators, students, businesses, and community members face.

Please view the video below by Dr Nellie Deutsch, the founder and current co-ordinator of Connecting Online 2012 Conference. It will explain all you need to know!

CO12 Connecting Online Free Online Conference on WizIQ from Dr. Nellie Deutsch on Vimeo.

Why don't you have a look at the list of presentations here and choose a few to attend this weekend? Whichever session you choose, I am sure it will inspire you! You can enjoy the session in the comfort of your own home.

So far, these are the presentations I have registered for. Why don't you join me??
Digital storytelling for employability
Blogging and Quadblogging - The power of audience on learners of all ages

Project 366: An Image a Day for 2012

I have been uploading an image every day onto my new Project 366 Posterous blog in order to record my life in 2012. It's a great project, and I found out about it via my Personal Learning Network on Twitter, where else!! I enjoy viewing the images posted by my fellow bloggers such as Chiew, Anna, Sue and Mike amongst others....

Why is Project 366 such a great one? Well, it will be a record of my thoughts and actions in 2012, a place for adding things I maybe wouldn't normally write about on my main blog. I will have a useful bank of images to use for activities in class.

I like the way Posterous Design template adds all the pictures and posts on one page, so I have an overview of up to 16 posts per page. This is a very cool feature! The design template theme is by Cory Watilo.

Below you can listen to a Jing screencast I have just made, which explains this project a bit more.