Janet's Abruzzo Edublog

Connecting Online 2012 - A Missed Connection

2012-02-13T14:05:00.001-08:00

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

2012-01-28T00:57:00.000-08:00

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

2012-01-22T00:09:00.000-08:00

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.

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EVO Podcasting 2012 - Opening The Door To New Horizons!

2012-01-20T00:05:00.000-08:00

I have been attending sessions in Electronic Village Online for the past three years now, and these are the ones I have done:

2009 - Digital Portfolios and Personal Learning Spaces
2010 - Images for Education
2011- Digital Storytelling
Each of the above excellent sessions have affected my life in a powerful way. They have helped me to become a more confident user of tools involved and also made me more aware of how these topics can be exploited in the classroom. I have been encouraged to create presentations as a result of these courses, and have presented talks for webinars and e-conferences. You can view all my presentations on Slideshare. Please feel free to use them in seminars or lessons if you feel they will be helpful.

This year I had a difficult decision to make. Which course to attend? Well, all the 14 courses on offer seemed perfect and useful and interesting for me as a teacher! I wrote about this in my post on the EVO Call for Participation here.

I had a dilemma as seen in the full Pixton cartoon below:

I made my choice...........

......... and here I am now I am very pleased to say, in the second week of a fantastic course, moderated by fab moderators as seen here below!

I had wanted to do a course on podcasting for quite a while now, but had never got round to it. The lure of web 2.0 tools to try out had always won the day in the past.

I had already experimented with tools connected with audio such as

Vocaroo,
AudioBoo
Voki
Fotobabble

These all help to liven up lessons, or blog posts in an interesting manner. However, I was keen to learn more about how podcasting can be used as an effective teaching topic.

Welcome to Podcasting - Weeks 1 & 2
You can view the weekly timetable freely available on the Podcasting 2012 Blog, which I have also added to my blog sidebar via RSS feed, so that I can easily check in to view the weekly plan and keep up with all the action!

In the first week we covered course objectives by recording ourselves on Voxopop. This was a really nice way to outline our course expectations and I liked this tool. It's nice to listen to everyone's expectations all in one place.

We also introduced ourselves via a Glogster, an interactive web poster site.

Below you can see my Glog. If you press on some of the images it will lead you to a blog post or a website. I have also embedded a podcast for Week 2 activities. We used Audacity to record an introduction podcast and then uploaded it to Glogster, This was a new thing for me and I had always wanted to add audio to my Glogs, but didn't really know how to do it. With the help of some skilful video tutorials, participants were shown step by step how to do it. I now know the way and I'm happy I can add more audio podcasts to future Glogs and projects!

We had to coment on 2 Glogs created by other members of the course. This was great fun and I enjoyed viewing and commenting on the amazing and beautiful creations! Screenshot below of some of the lovely glogs created and then presented at the first live Webinar.

Podcasting hosting sites amongst others I have learned about so far are:

The lovely Podcasting moderators have done a great job of creating video tutorials to show us how to access and then use these tools to record a podcast. We are then invited to add our individual links to the Yahoo Podcasting site, so that we can share all the podcasts done so far. Part of the learning process is to view and comment on each others' efforts and I am enjoying this very much indeed!

In the second week we have been reading about what podcasts are and viewing sample podcast projects from around the world, and experimenting with recording our own podcasts with some podcasting hosting tools.

Below you can see a screenshot of my very first Podomatic podcast. It was easy to create and I liked using it. We had to upload a picture entitled "Out my Window" and then describe it. This activity is a great one for introducing ourselves on an online course, and it is very visual and fun to listen to the voices of participants. It makes the course much more personal.

Below is the embeddable podcast, which you can listen to.

There is so much more that I can write about but I think I have covered quite a lot in this post!! I will publish further updates over the next few weeks, so you can share my learning journey if you wish. I can guarantee that there will be lots more exciting and fun activities to share with you!!

Many thanks to the wonderful moderators for leading the way so skilfully. Thanks to all my fellow participants for sharing and interacting during the session. It's great fun learning with you!!

Update on Other EVO 2012 Sessions
I have read the following informative posts via links from Twitter updates. Thanks to the following educators for sharing their EVO experiences:

Carla's observations on the Classroom Digital Tools session
Marisa's reflections on Making a Machinima in Second Life - in 19 Steps
Eva's post on Digital Storytelling for Kids
Natasa's 5 Card Story for Class Digi Tools.

Watch this EVO 2012 space!!

#30 Goals Challenge: Me Manifesto

2012-01-18T00:12:00.000-08:00

Thanks to the incredible Shelly Terrell for inspiring me to take up this challenge from her wonderful #30 Goals Challenge series.

My very simple "Me Manifesto" is as follows. The principles basically remain the same as in 1979 when I first started teaching in Madrid, Spain.

I would like:

To enjoy my job.
To help students achieve their aims and realise their dreams.
To do the best I can.
To give 100% and then some.
To listen to my students and take action.
To work not only for my students, but with them.

If you wish, why don't you take a few moments to reflect on your own personal ideals, and create a Me Manifesto as well? It could be as simple or as sophisticated as you like. :-)

It would be lovely if you were motivated to do this reflection.

For more inspiration, you could also pop across to Brad Patterson's blog, where he has invited his readers to add a quote that defines your teaching style.

If you read all the very interesting quotes in the comments section, you will see that I used the metaphor of a captain and a sinking ship. I wrote this comment before a particular incident regarding the stricken Concordia hit the news recently!!

I still stand by my quote: a good captain should always lead his crew by example.

Man on a roof - (Almost) Infinite Ideas

2012-01-12T00:59:00.000-08:00

Almost Infinite ELT Ideas, by Sandy Millin is an award-winning blog written for teachers, which contains a rich resource of pictures to be used as prompts for lesson ideas. Teachers are invited to adapt and use the images as they wish. (Almost) Infinite Ideas won the Tefl.net Site of the Month Award in May 2011.

Who Is This Man On A Roof??
I am very proud to say that one of my pictures, taken in Oxford during the summer, has been selected as a picture prompt for this week's activity, which is open to all teachers. Please go to the post "Man on a roof", and imagine how you would use the picture and then if you like, please write a few ideas in the comments box. It would be really interesting to know how you would exploit this image.

I have to confess, I was fascinated when I saw the sight for the first time. I literally did a double take whilst riding my bicycle along Broad Street (see image above) and almost toppled off it, because I couldn't believe my eyes! Who or what on earth was it on top of the roof??

So, without more ado, head over to Man on a roof right now to see what you think!!!

When you have done that, don't forget to bookmark (Almost) Infinite Ideas so that you can have a valuable resource of interesting photos to exploit with your classes.

How to take the perfect photo
Chiew Pang from IASKU fame has recently written a guest post on ELTPics blog Take a photo and ...... outlining some great tips for taking photos! Have a read below, and then see how much better your photos will turn out!

Know your photos, know your camera

A Photo I'm Quite Proud Of
I took this photo today whilst sitting on the back of a big motorbike, which was travelling quite nimbly! I managed to catch the shadow of myself and K and I was thrilled it didn't come out too terribly blurred. You can actually see my shadow taking the photo. I'm still not quite sure how this photo came out like this, so I guess I was very lucky!!

A Few Fun Lesson Ideas with Images and a Blog, Starring Fluffy - The Blogging Mega Star!

2012-01-05T00:30:00.000-08:00

Insert a picture of yourself or a pet into the Gallery section of a photo editing site such as Tuxpi, Photofunia, and then ask this question:

How did X get to be exhibited at the National Gallery, London?

Set a time limit of 5 minutes for students to come up with an inventive story either written or orally. The class gets to choose which story they like the best.
This is a fun activity and works well as a filler / warmer /
Invite students to photo edit a photo of theirs and get the class to imagine how they came to be in the particular situation. An example is below:

Fluffy has become a world-famous feline mega star after her Storybird Fluffy The Mouse Catcher sold millions of copies around the world! Her portrait is now hanging in the National Gallery and thousands of visitors are flocking to view it.
Fluffy purrs contentedly when she explains her newly acquired superstar status: "I always knew it would happen one day!"

You can do the same sort of activity with a billboard poster:

Victoria - The Reclusive English Moggy

Image above edited with Dumpr and then screenshot taken.

Lesson Idea to practise Idioms / Expressions
Write a paragraph based on an image of your choice such as the one above of Victoria, Fluffy's house-mate, and create a Wordle by copy pasting your paragraph. Try to include a few examples of idiomatic expressions as a review. Ask students to predict the main content of the short paragraph.

Can you guess some of the content from the words in the Wordle? Sample paragraph is below.

Sadly our English moggy Victoria has been completely overwhelmed by the presence of 5 Italian felines, which include the mischievous Fluffy, and she keeps them all at arms's length. She eats separately from the gang, and keeps herself to herself during the day. Whenever a little mischievous kitten approaches her to try to make friends, she stiffens, hisses and gives it a wide berth.

Victoria's Daily Routine
Ask your students to imagine the daily routine of their favourite pet or animal. Get them to write a few sentences using the present simple. In the past I have used the example below with beginners to practise present simple, and adverbs of frequency. Using images of animals is just a change from always using images of famous people. Young learners in particular find this activity fun.

Fluffy's Blog - World Premiere!!!
Fluffy has agreed to star in her very own blog, which has been set up on Posterous Spaces. The title of her blog is The Hectic Life of a Fluffy Kitten. She may decide to change the name of the blog, so watch this space! It's been kept private for a few weeks while she got a feel for the blog space, but now she feels comfortable with it and I am delighted to feature it here on Janet's Abruzzo Edublog.

She has an "About" page, and also a special page dedicated to Fluffy Idioms!!!

The very first post is entitled "Welcome to Fluffy's World!". I hope you enjoy following her adventures in Abruzzo.

Why set up a blog for Fluffy?
Well, it is to showcase what can be done with a blog, and also to encourage all age groups from young learners to adults to see how much fun it can be to play around with a theme that you are passionate about. It improves literacy skills and writing skills and practises web tools in a fun context!!

I hope these ideas inspire you to try out some of the activities and have fun with editing your images!!

English Raven's Blogging Tips
I have been following Jason Renshaw's fantastic posts on why blog with students, and the posts offer a more in-depth analytical argument for starting a blog. I hope you will be inspired to get your students to write a blog!

Blogging with students (1): Why get them blogging?
Blogging with students (2): Choosing a blogging platform

Call for Participation for Electronic Village Online 2012

2012-01-04T00:35:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year again when a decision needs to be made about which session to attend on the free TESOL Electronic Village Online sessions which begin on January 9th. There are more than 14 different topics to choose from this year, and each one looks unmissable!! Registration is taking place now until January 8th. Each session lasts 5 weeks and is action-packed full of practical projects and hands-on practice. This is an excellent opportunity for Continuous Professional Development (CPD) and the time for action is now if you can spare a few hours every week for the course interaction and work required.

It will be a fun 5 weeks and you will get the chance to collaborate with fellow educators from around the globe and discuss issues of common interest. The moderators are all highly skilled and experienced and you will gain a lot. You never know, it could be a life-changing experience!!
Since 2009 I have attended one session each year, and I can truly say that all the topics chosen have been so useful for me in terms of practical applications for classroom teaching and for professional development.

Last year I did Digital Storytelling, which was excellent. This year the focus is on Digital Storytelling for Young Learners and this promises to be fabulous. Ozge has just written a post on it here.

Read what Carla Arena, one of the moderators for EVO, has to say about these fabulous free online developmental opportunities.

There is so much else happening in 2012 in terms of CPD for teachers of EFL! Shelly Terrell from Teacher Reboot Camp has just written an indepth post on 20+ Free Professional Development opportunities, which are available for you to join now, or in the very near future. The choice is truly amazing!

Online Teacher Training Courses 2012
For further information on an exciting range of certified online teacher training courses which are due to start in the coming week, you can view The Consultants-E web page. There you will find some truly inspiring and practical courses such as for example, E-Moderation: a Training Course for online Tutors, and Cert ICT: Certificate in Teaching Languages with Technology.

Best of luck with making your choice(s)!

2011: The Year of Living Simply Yet Fabulously!

2011-12-31T00:15:00.000-08:00

2011 was a simple year, yet full of exciting, fabulous events. My current life in the Abruzzo countryside is a mixture of down-to-earth living and connecting with people from all over the world via the Internet.

Helping K carry logs chopped for firewood in our jungle.

A new olive tree, my Xmas pressie!! This 3-year-old olive tree cost 8 euros from our local garden centre, Rosa D'Oriente in Cepagatti. Dr Luigi very kindly selected this Leccino variety for me. The idea that this olive tree will be here in a hundred year's time, long after I am gone, gives me a good feeling. It should withstand all that nature will throw at it and it will survive to grow into a venerable tree, I hope!!

The happiness I derive from living amongst chickens, cats, dogs, falcons, the occasional wild boar, olive groves and vineyards is one that invariably transcends having the latest material goods. However, I have to confess, I do get the odd pang of desiring something, but I content myself by saying I can't have it NOW, but hopefully at a later date. This usually does the trick....

I know this solitary lifestyle could be transient, so I am making the most of it, and yet at the same time, trying to do my utmost to further my teaching career, whether virtual or face to face, which is now in its incredible 33rd year!!

Many Heartfelt Thanks to....
.......all the wonderful team at The Lake School of English, Oxford for their continued support. I enjoy teaching there so much, and the course participants are always so keen! Many best wishes to all the lovely staff, and teachers and students I have had the pleasure of teaching this year.

In addition, I would like to say a very special thanks to all the fabulous team at The Consultants-E for making this year very interesting and varied with the different online projects I have had the pleasure to have been involved in.

To everyone I know, via this blog or Twitter or other projects I have participated in this year, I would like to say a very, very BIG thank you to my PLN - Passionate Learning Network. I appreciate all the support and guidance that I receive. I hope I can give the same back to you, I really do.

So, 2011 is nearly over and it's time for a few reflections!!!

Blog ChallengesI took part in 6 blog challenges! Thank you to each and every challenge organiser. It was a pleasure to be a part of the EFL community. Below are links to the original blogs, which hosted the challenges.

Dave Dodgson : Truth or Lie?
Vicky Loras: What's Your Story?
David Warr: A Word Cloud Blog Challenge
Adam Simpson: 11 from'11
Ann Hodgson and Brad Patterson: Compare and Contrast
Anna Loseva : ELT Workplaces

Blog Carnivals
I took part in two fabulous blog carnivals this year.
Eva Simkesiyan: Warmers, Fillers and 1st Week Activities.
Berni Wall: The Most Popular Posts on your Blog

The Year of Webinars and E-Conferences
I continued to attend and present at international webinars and Virtual conferences. I feel immensely happy that I participated in them and I still can't believe it's true!! My trusted and faithful laptop has taken me on a rollercoaster virtual ride and I was in 7th heaven!! Thank you to all the organisers of the following events!

Connecting Online 2011
Virtual Round Table
Reform Symposium 2011

The Year of Firsts!
I tried out quite a few new tools for the first time and you can see which ones in the Tagxedo below. You can find out how I got on with them by searching for the labels on the sidebar.

Scoop.it
My Scoop.it web curation site on Comics and Cartoons was begun in July 2011 specifically to house the links and resources connected to my Reform Symposium online webinar on Fun with Comics and Cartoons in the Classroom. I would like to say thank you to all my fellow "Scoopers" for suggesting new comics and cartoon sites and posts to add to this growing collection, which I hope is useful in some way! In particular, the BookChook blog has very kindly suggested lots of materials to add, and I appreciate this collaboration very much!

The Comics and Cartoons Scoop.it site is doing very well! It now has 100 followers, and has had 2,000 page views, with 1,200 visitors! I am delighted by this, and would like to thank everyone involved in making this particular project such a great success. I don't plan to curate other topics for the moment, as I already follow quite a few topics anyway. However, I don't know what 2012 will bring, so it will be interesting to see what happens in this area.

Electronic Village Online 2011

I attended a 5-week course in January 2011 on Digital Storytelling and learned so much from my lovely tutors and fellow participants. What I gained from the course helped me to produce my very own digital story called "An Idiomatic Love Story". This formed the central part of my first ever presentation at IATEFL Brighton 2011. You can find all the materials I created here.

The Year of SEETA Courses!
I attended 4 marvellous free online courses via SEETA and I had 4 of the best tutors in the world as moderators! Interacting with fellow teachers from around the globe was also amazing. If you would like to read my feedback on each of the courses below, please look under the label SEETA in my blog Sidebar!

mLearning with Nicky Hockly
Creative Reading with Marisa Constantinides
Jazz Up Your Digital Storytelling with Ozge Karaoglu
Humanism and Modern Technology with Hania Kryszewska

IASKU

A special mention to Chiew from IASKU blog for the fantastic interviews that he is recording with teachers from all over the globe. It was a huge honour for me to be interviewed by him during the summer. Click here to view all his guest interviewees.

ELTChat

I would like to say a big thank you to all the fab moderators and team of ELTChat, held every Wednesday at noon and 9pm UK time. They are doing stirling work in givng teachers from all over the world the chance to discuss pedagogical matters of great interest. I hope to be a more active member in 2012!! To find out more, click on the ELTChat wiki link here.

QR Codes

Writing a blog post on QR codes was one of my most researched topics this year and has led me to be curious about how they will impact on the future of learning. Already I can see that they are playing a big role in a lot of areas such as marketing a product, for example. Recently, I have read a piece on Motorcycle News quoted as follows: "BMW is now incorporating QR codes into the camouflaging used on disguised road-going prototypes, so sharp-eyed and curious onlookers can use their smartphones to scan the codes and go to an official website to find out exactly what they have just seen."

I have discussed the use of QR codes with my hubby K, and I think I have imparted a curiosity in him to find out more about their use. I am thrilled that he has taken on board some of the ideas. He is now busily researching ways to deal with such codes in his industry, high level motorbike training. He's already experimenting with a QR code for his blog home page.

To the left, you can see a photo I took of K riding home on his motorbike after testing out the new road surface!! It passed the test, thankfully. You can see the same photo here.

Happy New Year (mp3)

Wallwisher Resolutions for 2012
I'd like to invite you to add your wishes for 2012!! Hope they will all come true!! Just double click on the Wallwisher to post a stickie and add your wish or resolution.

Christmas 2011 Wishes from Janet's Abruzzo Blog

2011-12-22T09:20:00.000-08:00

During this festive period, I would like to send a heartfelt message of joy, peace and goodwill to all the readers of my blog, and all the members of my PLN. Thank you very much for your support and kind comments throughout 2011. It's been a fun-filled year.

Here's an Animoto message from The Motley Crew below:

Make your own slideshow with music at Animoto.

If you would like more ideas for creative Christmas messages using apps and other fun sites, look no further than Shelly Terrell's amazing post "30+ Holiday Apps for Creativity and Learning". It is packed full of great ideas to keep you busy over the coming days.

Below are some festive mince pies that were made today by K and I. For me they represent a typical Christmas tradition from England. We followed Delia Smith's recipe.

A few of my Christmas tree decorations to get into the festive spirit! One of my lovely angels...

..and a peacock!

Father Christmas on the fir tree outside the house, waiting to come in from the cold!!

A personal message from Fluffy:

Best wishes to you all.

To finish off, here's a fun, easy to create e-card message from Jib Jab!

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

A Traditional Abruzzo Christmas Delight:Recipe from Life in Abruzzo Blog!

2011-12-20T05:36:00.000-08:00

Following recipes has never been my forte, but seeing one for the traditional Abbruzzo Christmas "Calgionetti", in Life in Abruzzo blog, spurred me to have a go, and the results are truly delicious!! These special treats were made by my mother every Christmas time, and she used to make hundreds of them for us to eat, and also to share with friends and family. Sadly I wasn't at all interested in cooking in my youth, so I did not pay attention to how these were made. Imagine my delight when I came across the recipe! Without hesitating, I knew I had to make them and hopefully you will be inspired to make them, too.

Please note that this recipe contains quite a few nuts, so will not be to everyone's taste.

I noted today that homemade calgionetti were on sale in the special Christmas food section of SISA, the local supermarket. They were selling them for 18.50 Euros a kilo, which makes them quite a delicacy!!

Here is a link to the post"Caggionetti, Calggionetti, Cagiunitt" where you too can make your own Abruzzo special Christmas treats, if you follow the instructions carefully!

The ingredients required for "calgionetti" can be found in the Wordle below!

Below you can see images I took of some of the stages.

Boiling the chestnuts, an important part of the process!

Rolling out the dough made from flour, olive oil and wine! A copy of the Life in Abruzzo recipe which I used can be seen next to the rolling pin and dough.

The pastries waiting to be fried!

Angel Delight
The angel you can see in the photos certainly helped me to create these yummy sweets which are a traditional part of the Christmas festivities! She was able to oversee the delicate process while I made two batches.

The finished pastries, sprinkled with icing sugar, waiting to be devoured!

To make these Calgionetti, please read and follow the recipe instructions in Life in Abruzzo.

I have just submitted an article for the series on "A Few of My Favourite Abruzzo Things", so please watch this space for further details coming soon!

My 11 from '11 in the 3rd Year, inspired by @yearinthelifeof

2011-12-05T00:07:00.000-08:00

What better way to celebrate my blog's 3rd Anniversary than to join in another exciting blog challenge "11 from '11" inspired by Adam Simpson's A Year in the Life of an English Teacher blog? The aim of the challenge is to reflect on a year of blogging and highlight 11 posts with explanations for their choice.

I have just created a short FlixTime slideshow of some of the 2011 highlights. I first learned about this lively and exciting video slideshow tool from The Consultants-E Tool of the Month page. It's my first attempt, and it looks cool and very easy to use!

Reflections, Reflections
Writing my blog for the third year has given me a new outlook on life, broadened my horizons, connected me to educators world-wide, challenged me to the full, encouraged me to share what I have learned, given me a confidence I didn't know I possessed, and given me much joy and pleasure. A life-changing experience indeed! I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for helping me on this fabulous and amazing journey.

Below in no particular order, 11 of my favourite posts from 2011.

Homage to Nicaragua
This post was written in homage to my visit to Nicaragua. My poem was added to Bookr, one of my favourite web 2.0 tools.

IATEFL Brighton - An Exclusive Interview with Janet
This interview laid bare my techniques for preparing for a global presentation such as IATEFL Brighton. Luckily, I managed to get everything done in time!

The King and I at IATEFL Brighton 2011
The title says it all, really. IATEFL Brighton was the most wonderful experience I could have wished for - my dream come true!!

OBI, RSS and QR Codes!
This post was a factual one and I enjoyed doing the research and adding some comics as a test item at the end. QR codes seem to be everywhere in Italy and I have yet to embrace them fully.

Janet's Top Scoop.its!
A list of top Scoop.it curation sites that I particularly like following.

Learning is Sharing
This post explains how sharing has become the way forward in terms of personal fulfillment.

SEETA: Humanism and Modern Technology
I learned so much from this fabulous course and my feedback reflects my feelings.

Playing with Bubblr!
I really enjoy writing about my experiments with new web 2.0 tools, and this post is all about a fun tool called Bubblr.

Santo Stefano di Sessanio - A Veritable Feast
This post is on one of my favourite places in the Abruzzo region. I hope you will be tempted to visit this relatively unknown area of Italy.

Learning in a Diabolik-al Way!
This has to be my favourite title of the year. The title came first, and then the content just flowed!

Language Garden: A Word Cloud Blog Challenge!
I loved experimenting with this fabulous tool, created by David Warr.

Many thanks once again to Adam for creating this lovely blog challenge!! I have enjoyed reading other bloggers' reflections of their 11 from '11. In addition, it's been fun for me to go down memory lane....

Janet's Nominations for the 2011 Edublog Awards

2011-12-02T00:40:00.000-08:00

When everyone is outstanding, it is always difficult to choose excellence. The yearly nominations phase for the Edublogs Awards 2011 has come round again, and here are my choices below:

Best Individual blog: The English Blog by Jeffrey Hill
Best teacher blog: English Raven by Jason Renshaw
Best group blog: Teaching Village by Barbara Sakamoto
Best librarian/library blog: The Daring Librarian
Best new blog: A Journee in Language by Brad Patterson
Best Edtech blog : Free Tech for Teachers
Most influential blog post: Blog Challenge: What's Your Story? by Vicky Loras
Best Twitter hashtag: ELTChat
Best free webtool: Fotobabble
Best educational wiki: Greeting From The World by Arjana Blazic
Best educational use of audio/visual/podcast: Teacher Training Video Tutorials by Russell Stannard
Best open PD/unconference/ webinar series: Reform Symposium
Best educational use of a social network: English Companion Ning
Lifetime achievement: Scott Thornbury

I wish I could have nominated everyone I follow and admire, but of course it is not possible. Best of luck to everybody mentioned above!

A huge thanks to all the members of my PLN, who are a constant source of encouragement, enlightenment and engaging interaction:-)

Update on Award Winners!
The Edublog Awards winners can be viewed here. Many congratulations to everyone involved! Vicky Loras has just written a lovely post called Educators Everywhere, Congratulations!

Thank you Vicky for this heartfelt and wonderfully uplifting post! You have expressed the true ethos and benefits of such events in a very eloquent manner indeed.

Janet's Top 10 Tools for Learning 2011

2011-11-08T00:17:00.000-08:00

Here is my selection of the Top 10 Tools for Learning I am submitting for Jane Hart's 2011 edition of Top 100 Tools for Learning. I have chosen the following tools and sites because I like using them for either teaching, or my professional development.

In no uncertain order, here are my choices for 2011:

Twitter - I wouldn't be able to keep up with current trends and technology without it
Posterous - a new blogging platform for me
Slideshare - useful for keeping my presentations in one place
Jing - a great tool for screen captures and making videos
Powerpoint - I enjoy creating presentations with this easy to use tool
Storybird - a beautiful storytelling creation site
Scoop.it - an easy to use web curation site
Diigo - great to keep all my bookmarks in one place
Animoto - fabulous slideshows can be easily created
Moodle - a versatile virtual learning platform

If you would like to vote for your Top 10 Tools of 2011, you can add yours here:

http://c4lpt.co.uk/top-tools/share-your-top-10-tools/

Voting closes on Sunday 13th November, so make sure you submit your entries before then!

Update November 14th 2011!
The list has been finalised and you can view the full list on Jane Hart's site here.

I have embedded the latest slideshow below. Three of my tools made it to the Top 10!

Top 100 Tools for Learning 2011

View more presentations from Jane Hart

Learning in a Diabolik-al Way!

2011-10-30T00:58:00.000-07:00

"Alien Language" comic created by Janet with Marvel Super Hero

Learning a new language via comics is fun and engaging, and this has been proved in numerous pilot studies as reviewed here. Comics usually contain short sentences, phrases and are often repetitive, thus making the language easier to comprehend. People of all ages enjoy reading them and I often recommend that students buy comics of their choice while they are in England or else suggest they view suitable comics online, to pick up new vocabulary and expressions. Comics often contain examples of everyday, colloquial English in manageable chunks.

I am still collecting links and resources for using comics in the classroom via the web curation site Scoop.it. You can view the latest additions to this site here.

Learning Diabolik-ally
In addition to reading motorbike magazines in Italian, my husband K also sometimes buys copies of Diabolik comics (fumetti) in Italian in order to pick up the language in a fun and stimulating way. Diabolik is a fictional character, an anti-hero featured in a series of Italian comics. He drives an E-Type Jaguar and his girlfriend is called Eva.

The hugely popular comics were written in 1962 by two sisters Angela and Luciana Giussani, both born in Milan. By all accounts, they led a very exciting and fulfilling life. Both sisters had an extraordinary and vivid imagination to be able to produce this series of comics, which celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2012.

Below you can see a personal copy and image of Diabolik, "Sull'Orlo della Fossa", March 2011 edition. In parts, K has annotated in pencil with translations in English. Maybe if I were really "teacherly", I could create a series of review cartoons in Italian specially for him to test his understanding of key words??? Hmmm, maybe if I have time....

The comics are well illustrated and full of high action with easy to recognise sound effects such as "Boooom!!" Craaash!! Splaaash!! etc

Everyday expressions crop up frequently such as the following:

Che cosa succede? What's happening?
Buona fortuna! Good luck
Grazie Thanks
Ma che cosa...?? What on earth..?
Poco dopo.. Shortly after...
Piu tardi.. Later .....
Sono d'accordo I agree
Va bene! OK!
Attento! Watch out!

These short phrases enable the reader to take in the meaning of these expressions with ease. I would love to add some of the comic scenes on my blog, but the publishers have imposed strict copyright usage on their content, and I have to respect that.

A Diabolik Scenario
In view of this limitation, I have reproduced a typical generic scene from Diabolik by using the Super Hero Marvel Comic cartoon site. I have written a short sample dialogue in Italian using some of the language I have introduced above. See if you can work out what the characters are saying :-)

Comic created by Janet with Marvel Super Hero Comic Squad

Can you understand what the 2 characters are saying in Italian? If you can, well done!!!

K enjoys reading them and with the use of a dictionary, he can pick up a lot of new vocabulary. I also like looking through them as they are so visual and the stories are interesting! This comic series comes out monthly and each copy costs 2 euros and that is quite good value.

You can view Diabolik comics online from the official Diabolik.it website if you click on Diabolik Fumetto Online. So if you are learning Italian, and you want to pick up some useful Italian expressions, go ahead and browse through the site. Then why don't you make your own free and easy to use Super Hero comic strip using the new language you have learned and print it out directly? You could also keep your lovely creation in a folder for review purposes, or simply print it out and pin to your work area wall and create a nice collage of your work of art??

That is what I am starting to do in order to jazz up the wall of my "office" area, as you can see below!

PS
Apologies to anyone following my blog for my accidentally publishing this post yesterday with just the title. I deleted it immediately, as I hadn't written the post content yet(!!) but for some reason, I think it is still showing up in blog feeds as published.

Language Garden: A Word Cloud Blog Challenge!

2011-10-21T00:58:00.000-07:00

My very first Language Plant! My plant is surrounded by a Tuxpi flower ornament frame!

David Warr from the amazing Language Garden blog kindly encouraged me in a very convincing way, by the mere mention of kittens, to take the leap of faith, and play with the fantastic Language Garden Plant Maker tool, which he has created. This was for the Blog Challenge he has set up as follows:

"Well, stage 1 is here, and I’d like to propose a blog challenge. It’s simple enough: make your own word art – a language plant, a mind map or word cloud using the new language plant maker."

It took one simple tweet to get me to leap into the unknown and create a simple language plant. How could I resist David's challenge after the tweet below?? Within moments, I took up the challenge and tweeted back to David with the image of my handiwork.

I was thrilled when shortly afterwards David tweeted this very helpful alternative based on my original Abruzzo plant with the comment: "Sharing the adjective morphology endings". This indeed would be an excellent introduction to studying such adjective endings with students. It shows how creative you can be with different adjective endings.
Images / screenshots above and below reproduced from tweets sent by @DavidWarr.

I also received this lovely, beautiful plant on the theme of kittens.

A Message from Fluffy

All these fabulous creative examples prompted me to have another go, and this is the result. As you can see, I hadn't cleared all the little icons when I saved the language plant.

I found as with all new things, you need to practise and practise to get used to how a new tool functions. I viewed David's helpful video tutorial below and this helped me a lot.

I felt that I could do better than my first Test version, so I timed myself to see how long it would take to create a similar one, but with more colours and separating the words. I was much quicker the second time and I was able to move the words around more easily.

Here is my creation below. I am really thrilled with it!
However, I could see that the colours were a bit mixed, so I set out to try to change the colours and separate the "I love" into 2 blocks rather than one block. Here is my 3rd attempt, which took me an even shorter time to create. I could see that I was getting quicker and more able to manipulate the bends and sizes. The final letter of the word "weather" is a bit tilted, but I am sure practice will make perfect!!

Feedback
I think this tool is a fabulous resource and leads to a lot of creative activities. You can get students to make up short poems, write short descriptions, play around with grammar items or teach each other simple phrases such as demonstrated in the blog challenge samples submitted by various bloggers in Language Garden. My verdict? It's a sure fire winner with students and teachers alike!!

One thing which would be good for the future is an "undo" button if you make a mistake or want to delete a word. I am sure that this will be possible in due course :-) For now, I believe it is an amazing tool which will make learning and teaching English much more fun! So many thanks to David for sharing this brilliant creation with everyone!

Why don't you have a go, and then share your language plant with David on his blog? He would be really happy, I am certain to add your creation in his beautiful Gallery.

The Abruzzo Dream - My Story

2011-10-14T00:12:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Vicky Loras's Blog Challenge, I would like to share this post, which presents a different angle to a part of my life. The reason why I moved from England to live in the heart of Abruzzo, Italy. Then soon after, an event which shattered me to the core..

Worlds apart yet a destiny foretold. My blood is 100% from Abruzzo, my heart is 100% British. Two countries forever intertwined from the moment of my birth. I was born and brought up in England by my parents, both from Abruzzo. Now I find myself living deep in the beautiful countryside of Abruzzo surrounded by olive groves and vineyards. Far From The Madding Crowd. I wrote about these two very different worlds in May this year and to read all about it, you can click the link Worlds Apart.

My parents had left Abruzzo in the 1950s during the depression to seek a new life and work in England. Both my parents have settled down in England forever, and they return to Abruzzo now for holidays and only accompanied by myself or my sisters. My beloved grandmother had also left Abruzzo at the grand age of 61 to begin a new life in England with my parents. I wrote about her life story here.

I have written about the unique love story of my parents in "1955: The Look of Love" here. I guess I owe my life to a certain mirror which played a pivotal role in their first encounter. Below is the anniversary card I made for my parents this year. They both loved it. A young, beautiful couple, their whole lives ahead of them.....in England in 1955.

What brought me to leave my country of birth after half a century?
Together with Karl my hubby, we decided we wanted to live in a more open, less hectic space. It was impossible to afford this in England in 2007. House prices had rocketed with the housing boom, and we were faced with properties costing up to half a million pounds. YES!! that is what it would have cost to buy the house of our dreams. At our advancing ages, we would have had a mortgage around our necks forever.

Time for a Change
At that time we were living in a tiny two-bedroom maisonette in an area only a bike ride away from the city centre of beautiful, historic Oxford. We had lived in the same place for 16 years. However, the area had changed considerably over the years. From friendly, peaceful neighbourhood to a busy, noisy and ever changing scene. People never stayed in the houses around us for long. Respect for the buildings and gardens was different from when we first arrived. Strangers coming and going. We had neighbours above us, next to us, across from us - every direction was covered. There was no peace, no quiet. It had become a living nightmare, if truth be told. It was time for a serious change. A change which led to the image below.

In the depths of the Abruzzo countryside

A Seachange
The change was about to become dramatic. We began looking at houses in the Oxfordshire area. We wanted a house with a bit of land around it, so we would not have the problem of noisy and unfriendly neighbours ever again.

We looked at lots of properties and we even put an offer in for a beautiful, charming, picture perfect cottage in the heart of a lovely village in Oxfordshire. The house cost a cool quarter of a million pounds!!! The bank had already agreed to lend us the money for a mortgage. Everything was set for paperwork to be signed. Then after a survey of the cottage was completed and everything was ready to go, we suddenly got cold feet and we pulled out. In hindsight, if we were meant to buy the house, we would have gone ahead with the deal. Nothing is impossible when you are determined and are passionate about something!

So we continued looking, but became disheartened. We both had excellent jobs and I suppose we were the epitome of DINKIES. Dual Income, No Kiddies, so we had quite a bit of disposable income at that time. Yet we still could not afford what we wanted without having to borrow a huge amount from the bank. That is when the idea came to our minds. Why not go to Abruzzo?

Why was Abruzzo chosen?
It was an area K and I both knew as we had visited for holidays many times. The pull of my family's roots played a part. The land where my parents were born. The land they had left to begin a new life in the 1950s.

The price of properties in Abruzzo was much lower compared to in England. Why not give it a go? The seed had been sown.

We could have chosen to go anywhere in the whole world, but Abruzzo held a special, magical attraction. The people, the lifestyle, the scenery, the food, the traditions...the glorious summers, the beaches, the mountains......what was there not to like about this region? Why not move lock stock and barrel to this stunning, quiet, unspoilt area?

We were advised by friends and family not to sell our little house, which was in a prime location.

"You should rent out your house in Oxford, get a mortgage, buy a property in Abruzzo then in the future if things don't work out, you can always come back to your house in Oxford."

My dear readers. I absolutely agree this was very sensible advice at the time. However, we followed our hearts and instincts. We did not follow this advice. We chose to risk everything for our chance to live the dream and walk the talk............even if it eventually turns out to be temporary.

Location, Location
So in 2007 we began looking on the Internet for properties in Abruzzo in earnest. We discovered so many sites.....at breathtakingly reasonable prices. We registered with House Around Italy and they provided excellent assistance in all stages of the process. Within 5 weeks of viewing our property after a whirlwind weekend tour of properties, we had the keys to the house. It was a fast and painless process. Maybe we were lucky. We were so, so excited!!

What we got for a very reasonable price was a tumble down "casale" (old farmhouse) in great need of restoration and tender loving care. It was the perfect restoration project! The property was set in 12,000 square metres of land, with olive trees, an orchard and many other fruit trees. It also had a big open barn and outhouses. Two rooves were missing...... Undeterred, we fell in love with it at first sight.

We had been in the right place at the right time and the moment we sold our flat in Oxford was the highest point in the property boom. It crashed a few months shortly afterwards. By that time, we had spotted the house of our dreams in Abruzzo and with the proceeds of the sale of our property, we were able to buy the house outright and have money left over to start the long renovation process....That was in August 2007. The move to Abruzzo wasn't complete until mid 2008. Within months of the dream move, however, my life and that of K's changed completely.

February 25th 2009
My mother suffered a devastating accident on her bicycle on the way to church one bright, sunny, beautiful, calm and peaceful day. In just one second her life and all the family's life changed forever.

I returned on the first plane to London to be told by the consultants to brace ourselves for the worst possible scenario. My mother had suffered a catrastrophic brain injury and it was touch and go whether she would pull through. The idea of abandoning our new home in Abruzzo was something we considered privately. I spent more time in England than in Abruzzo during these turbulent and stressful days, weeks and months.

Amazingly, my mother did pull through!!! She spent over 5 months in hospital and rehabilitation. The day she came home was the most fantastic day ever. We celebrated her birthday in style, and then I finally returned to Karl and furkids in Abruzzo.

I have written about this miracle many times on my blog and so will not dwell on it in this post. I would just like to say that as a result of this event, my heart has been in 2 places. My family need my help and moral support. For this reason I travel back to England quite often. I am half here, half there. The dream move did not come at the right time, in all honesty. I have not been able to seriously contemplate a full time position in Abruzzo, because of the need to return to England at a moment's notice to deal with my mother's affairs, and also to give my sisters a well-deserved break. Maybe one day, a fresh decision will have to be made about where to spend the rest of our lifetime.....

K and I agreed that a margin of 10 years to do up our house would be realistic. 4 years have passed since we actually signed the paperwork. We are only a third of the way there! Now we have become LILOPs. Limited Income, Lots of Pets! We are currently actually living like the proverbial church mice, but it is a new experience and we shall see how long we can last.........

How have my two lives fared?
They have fared well so far, but it hasn't really been easy. Dividing my life between the 2 countries, and the pull of family commitments tugging at the heart strings is something which is difficult to get to grips with. I am faced with the eternal dilemma. I would like to be in two places at once, but that is of course unrealistic.

What is my future destiny?
The simple answer is I don't know. My life is still an open book waiting for the next page to unfold. Yes, this is a bit scary sometimes, but I don't dwell on this, as I am living in the present. In the past, I used to live with my head in the future. All I know now for sure is that nothing is permanent. Life can change in one second, that is all it takes. My family in England is very dear to me. I love Abruzzo and I feel at home here. I love England and feel at home there, too.

Together with K, we feel comfortable in both worlds. I would like to say that K has been my rock and has supported me and my family with great understanding and devotion.

Abruzzo Scenes Today with the Menagerie

With Kelly and chicks.

With naughty Fluffy and more chicks.

With new kitten on her first outing in the garden today.

More new kittens relaxing indoors.....

Due to a special request by @ David Warr, here are some more cat images!

Kitty's looking at you, David.

A pensative Fluffy. She is a brilliant big sister to the 4 kittens.

Below, in the early days in our new home in Abruzzo. You can see me de-weeding an area which had no roof, so weeds had reached to the ceiling! This room now has a roof, and it needs considerable more work done to it before it is finished.......

Scoop.it! Update

2011-10-09T00:24:00.000-07:00

I first wrote about the web curation site Scoop.it three months ago here. Since then I have been using the site to add to my growing collection of Comics and cartoons, which has been viewed over a thousand times! Thank you so much to everyone who has visited it, and also a big thanks to all my followers.

I have reproduced the Pixton comics below from my previous post about Scoop.it. It is now part of a series of comics on this theme.

Fun Scoop.its to Follow
I have also been busy following quite a few Scoop.its on a variety of topics, which include technology, images and presentations, amongst others. I follow these sites for my CPD. I like the fact that each site contains a lot of useful links all in one place. This is both convenient and time-saving. I intend to show these sites to teachers as an example of the type of themes that can be curated. In fact, the world is your oyster! You can curate anything that interests you. I get daily notifications of any updates on the sites I follow. This is very handy!

Scoop.it sites I follow include the following:

Inspiration for tired EFL Teachers
Tools for Learners
Teaching English
Digital presentations in English
Visual Literacy

Larry Ferlazzo has an excellent and informative list of Best Posts & Articles about Curation.

If you haven't already investigated starting up your very own site, then I hope this post will inspire you to do so!

If you already have your Scoop.it site, I would love to hear how you exploit your curation site(s) for your Continuous Professional Development, or your classes.

Have the Courage to Follow Your Heart and Intuition - Steve Jobs RIP

2011-10-07T00:58:00.000-07:00

Image source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs

These words formed part of a momentous speech that Steve Jobs, the visionary co-founder and CEO of Apple, gave to his audience at the Stanford Commencement Address in 2005. He sadly passed away on October 5th at the young age of 56 after a prolonged battle with cancer.

How To Live Before You Die
I wrote a post back in March 2010 after I had viewed the 2005 Stanford Commencement Address given by Steve Jobs. That post was simply called "How to live before you die". The video of his talk moved me considerably.

I made up a lesson using the phrasal verbs encountered in the talk as seen above and I also generated a discussion activity.

Here is the video below. It is full of truly inspiring words about life and death.

The Guardian have just released a video of his life and career:

The untimely death of Steve Jobs has generated a lot of posts from around the world. This is an amazing testament to the charismatic and influential person he was. I have just done a search on his name, and found an incredible 42 blog posts have already been posted on onestopenglish blogs. This shows how he has affected so many people in different ways.

Follow Your Heart and Intuition
For me, I admired Steve Jobs' determination to live life to the full, to experiment with the unknown, to create innovative technological tools, which have helped millions, and finally the ability to follow his own advice such as "Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition."

The Truth Is Out!

2011-10-05T10:41:00.000-07:00

Thank you to everyone who has attempted to guess which facts are NOT true about my life. I made a Jing video and wrote a post about the blog challenge here. Dave Dodgson who started off the Tuth or Lie? blog challenge has posted up his answers to the challenge on his blog here.

Thanks to Dave for this very interesting and worthwhile challenge. I have visited new blogs and connected with other teachers from around the world, and that has been fun.

Here was the challenge:

Post a video, audio recording or just a regular post on your blog in which you state 5 facts about yourself - 3 truths and 2 lies.
Invite your PLN to quiz you and speculate on what the lies are!

I have a big confession to make. I have just realised that only 2 facts are strictly true, so there are 3 false statements in my Blog Challenge: Truth or Lie? post. I apologise for any confusion!!

Fiona has guessed two facts correctly! So has Sue from ESOL Courses. Well done!

Here are the TRUE facts as seen in the individual Poweroint slides below. I used Jing to screen capture each slide as an image.

Statement 1

I originally said I cultivated 100 litres. Maybe one day it will be true and olive oil cultivation will be my full time day job!

Statement 2

I said I had been blogging for 5 years. In fact it will be 3 years very soon.

Statement 3

This fact is true! You can see my blog post called Janet's Motorcycle Diaries, which describes a trip I made from Abruzzo to England last year. I and my hubby used to be members of a motorcylce club and we went touring all over Europe! I have been to Assen twice on the back of a Triumph Trophy 1200 motorbike, and I have seen Valentino Rossi win the Moto GP there. Both trips were amazing and I loved the exciting atmosphere at the Moto GP race track. I must find some old photos and add them to this post!

Statement 4

Yes, this statement is absolutely true!

Statement 5

I said I had been to all the places on the red dots. In fact, I haven't been to all these places but......my Janet's Abruzzo Edublog HAS been viewed by people from over 100 countries in the world, as you can see from this Clustrs map, taken from my blog's Main page!!!

I look forward to finding out the truth about the other bloggers who have taken up the challenge.

Blog Challenge: Truth or Lie?

2011-10-03T00:42:00.000-07:00

Challenges are hard to resist sometimes especially when you can kill two birds with one stone! Dave Dodgson from the super Reflections of a Teacher and Learner blog has set up an interesting Truth or Lie? challenge amongst fellow bloggers. You can find out more about this fab challenge and view links to Dave's and other bloggers responses on this post: This is My Truth (or is it?), Tell Me Yours - A Blog Challenge.

I found this Dilbert comic strip via Twitter today, and thought it is very apt indeed for this post. Thanks to @ Sandymillin for tweeting it!

The Challenge
Here is the challenge:

Post a video, audio recording or just a regular post on your blog in which you state 5 facts about yourself - 3 truths and 2 lies.
Invite your PLN to quiz you and speculate on what the lies are!

To complete this challenge, I first made a Powerpoint presentation and then I used a Jing screencast to video capture the slides. I am still very much a newbie Jing user and it took me a few attempts and deletions to get it right!! I am not sure about the sound. Hopefully you can hear it ok.

In my presentation, I say five facts about my life, but only three are true! Can you guess which two facts about me are NOT true?? I'll post up the answers some time this week. I hope to use this video as a new "Introduction to Janet" for my next class.

Unable to display content. Adobe Flash is required.

SEETA: Humanism and Modern Technology

2011-09-30T00:32:00.000-07:00

Comic created with Lego.com. Comic Builder.

I have recently attended another excellent free online course thanks to Seeta (South Eastern Europe Teacher Association), called Humanism and Modern Technology. Our very knowledgeable and highly experienced tutor was Hanna Kryszewska , a teacher trainer, the editor of Humanising Language Teaching Magazine, and also a renowned author and co-author of many books including Learner Based Teaching by OUP.

I have "The Standby Book" in my library from Cambridge University Press. It contains a lot of practical ideas from my tutor :-)

Below is a wordsearch puzzle I have created for fun from The Ultimate Word Search Maker. See how long it takes you to find all the words hidden in the puzzle! How do you think the words are connected to the course?

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;noframes&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href='http://www.wordsearchmaker.net/wordsearchplayer.aspx?puzzleid=8cc1477f-ddb4-4bd6-a6ef-f7b9a115879a'&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Free Word Search Puzzles&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/noframes&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Make Your Own Word Search

What is Humanism?
Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. You can read further information about the meaning of this word from Wikipedia.

The course brought humanism and modern technology together and required us to reflect on our current teaching practice.

Humanism values creativity and we explored how to use web 2.0 tools selectively and creatively. I hope the 6 tools I have chosen for this blog post reflect this creativity.
Self-directed learning is also one of the key traits of humanism. I have often written about the classroom without walls that is now available to all of us. For our own Continuous professional Development, it really is up to us to become our own Director of Studies in this modern era.

The Course

The course did not have many attendees for some reason, but no matter, the few who did attend made the most of the discussions and debate that was generated and it was very enjoyable to participate actively. In particular, I shared many interesting discussions with Lesley Cioccarelli, whom I had met on a previous SEETA M-Learning course.

Lesley has just written a fantastic feedback post entitled Humanism and Modern Technology - another fabulous SEETA course.

One of the tasks was to use a new tool of our choice. I chose and wrote about Storybird. I have embedded a rather large Fotobabble below, which explains my choice of tool.

Our tutor Hanna divided the course into 5 main topic areas, each section with a 2-day gap inbetween. I liked this, as it enabled me to keep up with the course content, which was very interesting and challenging. Each section consisted of a question, links to excellent resources and then a task in a forum discussion. I got a lot out of this course as it made me think of the way I teach and use technology with teachers who maybe are resistant to change. We delved into the reasons for this resistance and I will definitely bear this in mind in future teacher refresher courses.

A Change of Attitude in the 50s
I too was resistant to change in the past and it took me until I was in my 50s to actually begin to embrace the Brave New World of Technology. I must never, ever forget the scary feelings I had at the beginning towards the road to accepting that I had to change, otherwise I would get left behind!! This push came from myself. Nobody forced me or put pressure on me to change my attitude.

A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Just remember one thing: You are never too old to learn new things!!! It might sound like a cliche, but honestly if you tell yourself you are "too old, too comfortable in my present situation, too this, too that", you are actually doing your own future a great disservice! You are actually stopping yourself from personal growth and development, by the words that you choose to use. So the answer lies below in the comic:

Comic created with ArtisanCam.

Audioboo Thanks
Finally, a special word of thanks via Audioboo!
I am still very new to this podcasting tool, so for some reason the sound cuts out in some places. I have got lots to learn still!

SEETA:Humanism and Modern Technology Feedback (mp3)

Useful References
Teaching Online
Blended Learning
How to Teach English with Technology
8 Keys to Integrating Technology into the Classroom
Flow
A Teacher's Guide To Web 2.0 at School

View more presentations from Sacha Chua

Photo Blog Challenge: Compare and Contrast

2011-09-27T13:37:00.000-07:00

Blog challenge everyone! Contrast and compare! Two photos, similar but different!

How could any blogger resist such a challenge?? Here are my 2 photos, similar but different! They were both taken on the same day in the "garden" (now formally known as "The Jungle".

Challenge Questions:
What fruit am I holding in Picture 1?
What's the name of my dog?
How come there are so many Janets in Picture 2?

Picture 1

Picture 2

I was challenged by Anne Hodgson this evening and Brad Patterson via Twitter to join in the fun with the Photo Blog Compare and Contrast Challenge. This challenge has been instigated as a result of Anne's blog post entitled Compare and Contrast.

Brad posted up 2 lovely photos here and opened up the challenge to the rest of his PLN. Within hours, quite a few keen bloggers had submitted their posts, amongst whom are the following with their fantastic photos:

Larry Ferlazzo's challenge is here.
Jeremy Harmer's challenge is here.
Tara Benwell's challenge is here.
Mike Harrison's challenge is here.
Ceri Jones' challenge is here.
Chiew Pang's challenge is here.
Chris from Bits & Bobs challenge is here.
Jason Renshaw's challenge is here.
Baiba Svenca's challenge is here.
Karenne Sylvester's challenge is here.
Cecilia lemos' challenge is here.

Anybody else fancy joining in the fun? These pictures would be great for exam style "compare and contrast" activities and also for getting your students to discuss different topics.

Playing with Bubblr!

2011-09-25T00:18:00.000-07:00

Bubblr by PimPamPum is a fun tool to create comic strips using Creative Commons' photos from flickr. I was able to create this short "Abruzzo Magic" photo strip by simply typing in "Abruzzo" in the Tag box. 16 photos immediately came up from the flickr database of images. I just clicked and dragged each photo into the strip, and added a caption. Hey presto! As easy as pie!!
You can even use your own images on flickr, if you like.

Please press this link here- Abruzzo Magic - to see the Bubblr on the original PimPamPum site, as the image strip you see below is quite small.

You can view this short and excellent You Tube video tutorial on how to use Bubblr as part of Using Web 2.0 in Key Stage 3 History, by Kerry Wensley, an ICT and History teacher from Nottingham, England. I am really impressed with the results of the history projects that Kerry's pupils created using a selection of fun web 2.0 tools.

I first came across this very informative video via Jose Picardo's lovely A Box of Tricks blog.

More links about Bubblr!
Nik Peachey has created an excellent video tutorial on how to create a Bubblr on his Nik's Daily English Activities blog.

Teacher Training Videos as usual offers very clear instructions on making a Bubblr.

Ozge's wonderful blog is doing a series on A - Z Web Tools. You can read all the tools beginining with "B" in this post here. It also includes Bubblr, of course :-)

Ana Maria from Life Feast blog has written up a great post on Exploring PIMPAMPUM.

ChristinaSkyBox has a fab post on Ice Breaking with Bubblr and Fotobabble.

Storybird: Fluffy The Mouse-Catcher

2011-09-22T00:05:00.000-07:00

I am proud to display my very first Storybird on my blog.

I had been meaning to create a Storybird for ages, but had never got round to doing one. Now as a result of being a participant on the fantastic free SEETA e-course called Humanism and Modern Technology, I have had the opportunity to try it out as part of a challenging task. The task was to choose a tool we would like to explore, learn how to use it, and then create something with it.

I will write up a feedback post on this really enjoyable and worthwhile Humanism and Modern Technology course once I have finished. Our tutor Hanna Kryszewska is wonderful, and I am learning lots and enjoying the great debates!

Choose a Tool
Here are some of the free tools I contemplated exploring further for the task:

Audioboo -allows you to record and upload audio
Prezi - allows you to create zoomable and exciting presentations
Knovio - allows you to add voice and video to your Powerpoint presentations
Storybird - allows you to create beautiful story books

I chose Storybird because I fancied creating a visually appealing story to send to my young nieces and nephew for them to enjoy. That was a big motivation for me. I had viewed some beautiful stories via Storybird like this one for example, and I really wanted to know how to create one as well. Doing it as part of a task was an excellent opportunity for me to learn how to create one.

Gems on The Web
I remembered reading a guest post on OUP ELT GLobal blog written by Russell Stannard called "Gems on the Web - Storybird." I went back to it, read it carefully, then followed the links to his easy to follow tutorial on Teacher Training Videos. I played it, paused it, and copied each step and hey presto, my first Storybird about a pretty naughty Fluffy had taken on life!!

Image above captured by Jing in seconds. No more fiddling around like I used to!!!

Use Your Imagination
With Storybird, you are provided with an array of stunning, and beautiful images drawn by different artists. You choose the images you want for your story and then you let your imagination run free! You write the words and Storybird does the arranging for you in a brilliant and professional-looking manner. You can also choose amongst many tags such as "Teacup", for example, and then use artwork which includes the theme of teacups.

The end result is an e-booklet, with flippable pages, and one that you can email to your friends or embed on your blog. I couldn't find the embed code at first, but once you have published your story, the embed code or link to Twitter and Facebook are clearly visible.

You have the option of keeping your Storybird completely private, viewable only by you and whoever you choose to view it. You can also create a collaborative story, and that is an excellent feature, great for youngsters of any age. There is also the option of being able to buy your published Storybird in various formats to give away as gifts for example, or simply to keep as a lovely souvenir.

There is Storybird for Schools and you can read all about it here.

More Links and Resources on Storybird
I have discovered a fabulous wiki collated by Fiona Joyce called MFL - Storybirds, which houses a colection of Storybirds written in French, German, Spanish and Italian. Here is a collection written in Italian. What a fantastic way to learn a foreign language by reading these fab examples!! There are clear instructions for how to add your Storybird to this wiki collection, if you wish.

Below is an excellent and comprehensive presentation called Storybird for Linguists also by Fiona Joyce.

View more presentations from Fiona Joyce

Here is a link to a fab blog post about "Using Storybird" compiled by Lisa Dabbs.

I do hope you find this information will inspire you to create your very own Storybird and also encourage your students to create their own masterpieces!

The Adventures of Fluffy, The Mischievous Kitten
To finish off this post you can view a photo of the real Fluffy, who is the most expert mouse and lizard-catcher in the whole of Abruzzo!! She is also a real minx and a complete tearaway!!

Fluffy has been driving me up the wall recently because:

she has taken to wanting to nibble and then bite my ankles for some unfathomable reason
she play fights with her 4 youngest siblings, who are only 3 weeks old, so I have to keep a watchful eye over her
she keeps on jumping and pouncing on her mum, Samantha, who really needs a bit of a rest after having given birth to 8 kittens within 4 months!!
Today my computer was offline for several hours, because she had been playing around with the cables!! This put me out a fair bit, as you can imagine!
Below, an exhausted Fluffy after having played around my desk!

Do you recognise the blog that I am viewing in the image above? A clue: the blog owner is an adventurer, a polyglot, and he loves pandas!! Please write who you think it could be in the comments!!

Here Fluffy is again thankfully fast asleep having a catnap with one of the earlier set of siblings. Does the expression "Butter wouldn't melt" spring to mind?

Below you can see Fluffy looking after her new set of tiny siblings!

Will there be more Storybird adventures featuring this irrepressible kitten? You'll have to wait and see what happens!!

Sparkling Civitaquana!!

2011-09-14T00:05:00.000-07:00

Civitaquana sparkled with the most awesome display of dazzling fireworks last weekend. I was there to enjoy the pyrotechnics and to soak up the lovely atmosphere with the locals.

Civitaquana Fireworks Cartoon

You can find more information about where I created this cartoon on my Comics and Cartoons Scoop.it site. Thanks to @BookChook for the suggestion! Can you guess the missing part of the dialogue in the final box?

The beautiful church of Santa Maria delle Grazie was the backdrop for the fireworks in honour of Saint Egidio and Saint Emidio. If you like, you can read more about Saint Emidio. The church dates from the middle 12th century according to this history (written in Italian) here.

Below you can view an image of Saint Emidio's Annunciation. Image source from here.

Mirko CasaDei Beach Band
We also enjoyed watching the world-famous Mirko Casadei Beach Band playing in front of an enthusiastic audience. Of course, I was right at the front tapping my feet animatedly to the beat of the samba music. Find out more about the biography of this exciting and dynamic band by viewing this pdf information sheet here. Below is a short video clip of the band, taken with my camera. (Coming soon!)

Why Civitaquana?
Have you ever wondered why I chose the URL http://civitaquana.blogspot.com for my blog address? Well, now you know. It's the name of this pretty little village in Abruzzo! I bought this postcard some time ago, but I haven't sent it to anyone yet. Now I'm sending you virtual greetings from Civitaquana in Abruzzo :-)

Janet's First Jing!

2011-09-13T07:34:00.000-07:00

I have been wanting to create Jing screen capture screencasts ever since I viewed Russell Stannard's video tutorials on this versatile web 2.0 tool. It is his favourite tool, and he demonstrates how to use it here. I have to confess I have had to watch this excellent video tutorial a few times today, and I am still learning by trial and error!! That is the only way to do things, I guess. Practice, practice and even more practice!!
I am determined to teach myself how to use this very interesting tool!!

I also viewed this great blog post on Simple K12 site, called How to use Jing in your classroom. There are a lot of useful comments and practical tips in the Comments section of this Simple K12 post.

Nik Peachey has just published "10 Tech Tools for Teacher Training Courses" on his fab Nik's Learning Technology blog. Jing is included in his top 10 tools!!

My First Jing Video
So, this is my first ever Jing screen capture video!! I captured the image that you can see at the top, and then created the video and saved it onto my computer and screencast. I then got the embed code to add to my blog post. Russell Stannard shows you exactly how to do this step by step on:

http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/Jing/index.html

My aim is to learn a bit more about what to do with Jing and how to use it with students, so I will be viewing this set of Teacher Training Video Tutorials soon:

Using Jing in Language Classes.

You are welcome to join me in my learning journey. I hope to post up how I get on with it as I go along.

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My Classroom Without Walls
My virtual classroom and excellent teachers surround me on my blog sidebar! This means that I can enter my very own, custom-designed classroom whenever I want.

This is really cool, don't you think??

How to be a Viral Educator with Shelly Terrell

2011-09-08T00:00:00.000-07:00

Comic created with makebeliefscomix. Please click on the image to enlarge it.

Join the incredible and indefatigable Shelly Terrell in a free Webinar this evening Thursday September 8th, entitled "How to be a Viral Educator". It is part of a series hosted by SimpleK12. You can read all about it and register for the event if you read Shelly's blog post here.

I have already registered. For me it will be 9.30pm Rome time! I am very keen to learn more about this interesting topic, especially on how to leave a positive digital footprint.

Many thanks to Shelly for giving educators this incredible opportunity to expand our horizons! Remember - all the details are here on Shelly's blog. Hope to see you at the webinar :-)

Audioboo Update and Feedback
Watch this space for my feedback on the fantastic webinar presented by Shelly. I will be using Audioboo for the first time!! Coming as soon as I learn how to use Audioboo properly......

Audioboo Feedback is Here!
I have now recorded an Audioboo feedback on Shelly's webinar and you can listen to it below:

Feedback on Shelly"s SimpleK12 Webinar (mp3)

Life is for Learning!
For more news on CPD, conferences, webinars and courses that are available, you can view this fab Scoop.it topic curated by Sue Lyons-Jones called CPD in Education. There are lots of interesting links here to help us all to expand our horizons and develop as 21st century teachers!

Santo Stefano di Sessanio - A Veritable Feast

2011-09-07T00:30:00.000-07:00

The poster I saw of "Degusta e Artigianato Artistico" in Santo Stefano di Sessanio appealed to me immediately. I knew I had to go there. The village was hosting a veritable gastronomic delight for foodies over 3 days. Below is a photo showing some of the 70 stands offering delicious samples of local produce.

This was the perfect opportunity to go back to one of my favourite places in the whole of Abruzzo and spend a relaxing time there with K and 2 friends, Sue and Adrian.

The name of Santo Stefano di Sessanio comes from the Latin word "Sextantia" meaning that the village was 6 miles away from a strategic crossroads en route to Rome.

Image above of sunset in Santo Stefano courtesy of KRB

Revisiting Little Tibet
Santo Stefano di Sessanio is located high up in the mountains, set in the spectacular, unforgettable scenery of Campo Imperatore.

We passed through Little Tibet on the way. You might like to read a blog post I wrote last year called "In Little Tibet".

Photo below of me enjoying the views reproduced with kind permission by Sue Laing.

The views are absolutely breathtakingly beautiful. Talented photographer and dedicated motorcyclist Karl Bianchini took the photo below, which has recently been published in the Abruzzo Weekly magazine.

Below is one of my favourite photos, I took from high up in the village centre.

Another view below. Thank you K xx

Sextantio, Albergo Diffuso
I once had the pleasure of staying a few nights at the Sextantio, Albergo Diffuso. Each time I go back, I have to look at where we stayed. You can read more about "Sextantio -unique world class hotel" from Inside Abruzzo blog.

A lovely blog post from Life in Abruzzo highlighting a romantic trip to this fabulous village is called "Reliving Romance 100 Years Later in Santo Stefano di Sessanio".

A Special Risotto with Pecorino Wine
My friends and I also sampled the delicious local Pecorino wine. There is a review of it from Life in Abruzzo blog. This Pecorino wine went down very well with the fabulous Risotto that was cooked right in front of us and filmed by Italian TV. It was worth all the wait, and the portion dished out was very generous indeed. It was fantastic to see this dish created in front of a crowd of enthusiastic onlookers. I managed to get to the front and got a great view of the demonstration!! If you would like to cook a special dish such as this one, M aria Liberati has a fab recipe for risotto.

Medieval Delights
We visited the array of lovely, unique shops scattered throughout the medieval lanes in the centre of the village. These delightful shops sell local produce such as handcarved wooden items, and handmade linen, fit for a signorina's bottom drawer!

Above is a photo taken by Sue of one of the delightful and quirky signs outside a shop, and below a tranquil corner, also shot by Sue. Many thanks for allowing me to show them here :-)

Below you can see me in the amazing interior of a "Tisanerie", where we stopped for a refreshing cuppa!!

The Medici Tower

Viewing the once beautiful medieval Medici Tower surrounded by steel scaffolding as seen above and below, invoked feelings of sadness and nostalgia, but at the same time, a feeling of hope for the future.

Below you can see an image of the Medici Tower before the devastating L'Aquila earthquake in April 2009.

Image source here.

Noel from About Abruzzo blog has recently written a great post about Santo Stefano called "Medici Memories in Abruzzo". Definitely well worth reading and viewing the fab photos.

Quiet Reflection

This lovely corner of the village for quiet reflection is only one of the numerous places, which are picture perfect.

The image would be suitable to exploit in the same way as Chiew Pang has described in his excellent A Clil To Climb blog post Photos + Mind Map = Ideas on a Silver Platter

Below another view of the village.

I do hope this blog post on Santo Stefano di Sessanio has inspired you to visit Abruzzo one day so that you can view the absolutely stunnning scenery for yourself :-)

An Abruzzo Notebook
To inspire you and motivate you to book your ticket, you might like to view and then buy An Abruzzo Notebook - Perfect For All Your Thoughts and Inspirations and much more, hot off the press from the amazingly informative About Abruzzo blog.

Learning is Sharing

2011-08-28T05:49:00.000-07:00

Recently I have been very impressed with a PBWiki works wiki created with MA students by Evelyn Izquierdo from the Universidad Central de Venezuela. I was invited to look at the ICT in TEFL 2011 wiki and I was blown away by the whole layout and the notion of being able to freely view work carried out by students and tutors doing a course based on Web 2.0 tools. This wiki is a great example of what can be achieved in a relatively short time and it is a vertitable treasure trove of resources and ideas. Well done to everyone involved in the project!!

To quote from one of the many comments written on the front page:

"This wiki is a great reference for those EFL-ESL teachers interested in exploring different tools to provide easy access to course content, collect and assess students’ work".

Sharing is Caring
This post by English Virtual Community refers to sharing. I have just come across it via onestopblogs and it is called "Hey, teachers! Use Web 2.0 tools."

Carla Arena's post on Three Powerful Mantras for Tired Teachers is very motivational. Sharing is at the heart of what she does as an educator.

Sharing Leads to Fulfillment
From a personal perspective, since I have been slowly but surely sharing new things that I have learned since 2008 via this blog, I have felt more fulfilled than ever before. I have shared freely in the hope that someone somewhere might be inspired, or might use something I have written or published in a beneficial way to aid in teaching. In the grand scheme of things, it's just a very tiny thing. All it has cost me is my time and some effort. What it has given me, however, is absolutely priceless!!

IASKU - An Exclusive Interview with Chiew

2011-08-16T06:24:00.000-07:00

I was so excited when Chiew Pang from the wonderful A Clil To Climb blog got in contact regarding doing an interview for his exciting new blog project called IASKU. I was very happy and honoured to be amongst his illustrious cast of interviewees, which includes so many educators, whom I greatly admire and respect. I also felt very flattered to be a part of the "daredevil and avant-garde" group of educators, who have been interviewed so far. I certainly didn't ever set out to be different in any way!!! It kind of just happened along the journey of life without too much drama, and when I least expected it, really.

I'm not so sure if I fit into Chiew's category of teachers who "dare to be different", as I feel I am still the same old me, but thanks anyway, for the fab description!!

However, I think you can certainly teach an old dog new tricks, if the old dog (moi) is still young at heart!! As Chiew mentions, I first met him via our shared interest in idioms, and I had come across his lovely interactive lessons on Idioms on his A Clil To Climb blog, which I began to follow with interest.

Chiew explains here why he has started up this inspirational new project. I have really enjoyed viewing the interviews, and I like the way he has arranged and organised them all. He is really dedicating a lot of time and effort to make this series of interviews such a great success!! Many congratulations to Chiew!!

I wasn't able to do the recording using my own equipment at the time, so I asked a very good friend called Andy to help me out. He did a brilliant job of recording my responses. Grazie mille, Andy!!

I chose to answer Chiew's questions all in one go with no takes, so that my answers would be as they came to me. I am delighted with the result, and Chiew asked some fantastic questions, which I enjoyed replying to. Thanks very much to everyone who has already commented on the interview! I appreciate that.

You can view the interview, which is in two parts if you click on the link below:

http://iasku.wordpress.com/2011/08/06/janet-bianchini/

Once again, Chiew, thank you for interviewing me on your IASKU blog. I really enjoyed the experience and it was a huge honour to take part. Now, I wonder who will be next?? I can't wait to find out...

Comics and Cartoons - My RSCON3 Presentation

2011-07-31T06:36:00.000-07:00

I had the greatest of pleasure to present at the Reform Symposium 3 yesterday and I have just uploaded my presentation on Using Comics and Cartoons to Slideshare. I would like to share it with you below. Thank you so much to everyone who attended last night at 6pm London time. The time flew past for me and I really enjoyed myself, once I got going!!!

A huge thanks to my lovely moderators Clive and Sabrina de Vita. They really took care of everything and the whole presentation went off very smoothly, thank goodness :-)

In addition, I would like to thank all the incredible organizers- Shelly Terrell, Kelly Tenkely, Chris Rogers, Lisa Dabbs, Melissa Tran, Clive Elsmore, Mark Barnes, Ian Chia, Cecilia Lemos, Jerry Blumengarten, and Kyle Pace- and Steve Hargadon of Classroom 2.0 and The Future of Education online communities for making this incredible conference possible!! Their dedication has no bounds, and they all did a grand job of making sure that everything went off smoothly. A million thanks!! I feel so proud to have taken part in RSCON3 and to have shared what I am passionate about with other educators. It was a truly fabulous experience!!

I had great fun creating all the comics and cartoons!! I am thrilled that I was able to show off quite a few comics created by my students as well, and also one by my young niece. I asked her to do some research amongst her school friends. The result was that she and her friends absolutely love using comics for creative story writing and literacy sessions at her primary school!

I will be uploading the live session as soon as it becomes available on this post or a new one. Watch this space!

UPDATE: LINK TO LIVE SESSION
I have the link to my live session now, and you can view it here. Once again, thanks to all the many attendees and lovely moderators!!

Fun with Comics and Cartoons

View more presentations from Janet Bianchini

You can view my presentation on Youblisher if you prefer to read it as a clickable book!

View the fun news headline below, which is hot off the press!

Reform Symposium: The Final Countdown

2011-07-25T00:15:00.000-07:00

Comics and Cartoons
The excitement is mounting, the pressure is building up and it's time for me to pull my socks up and put the final touches to my Reform Symposium virtual presentation on Using Comics and Cartoons in Lessons.

I am currently teaching 24 delightful primary school teachers of EFL at the Lake School of English, Oxford, and as a group we are analysing and incorporating the use of comics wherever possible.

Below is a MakeBeliefsComix created by Group A to practise collocations with HAVE. Please click on it to enlarge it.

A Writecomics example to practise the use of 2 phrasal verbs is below:

I have gradually created and built up a store of comics to use in class and I now need to organise them to present them in the session in a logical manner. I only have 30 minutes approximately to get my message across and there is so much information available that it's difficult to know how to condense it all.

I still have a dilemma. How can I be truly original when everything has already been published on this subject? Well, I guess I have to create some original comics and cartoons to convey my meaning.

A Young Learner's View on Comics
My 8-year-old niece was able to create the following Marvel Superhero comic in a matter of minutes. She grasped how to use the tool very quickly and she planned how she wanted the comic to look before she created the comic. She told me that she used comics at school to help in literacy classes and for storybuilding. She was very enthusiastic about them and she explained how much she enjoyed learning French via the use of comics. Comics contain few words which are easy to work out the meanings of and they are memorable and engaging for younger learners in particular. I was very impressed with the result.

She enjoyed the whole process very much and the final outcome was that I emailed the comic to her parents to show them what she had done. They then simply printed it off and had the option of making it into a poster.

I have been burning the midnight oil recently and I hope I won't be dog tired by next Saturday. I am as keen as mustard to present at this unique e-conference and I am over the moon to be presenting. Below is a recording of me practising with my webcam. I want to record a short introduction to my session and put it on Youtube. Other RSCON3 presenters have already uploaded their lovely introductions on the site.

Below is an introduction from Eva Densiger, who is going to present on Using Web 2.0 Tools in the Primary Classroom. The session looks very interesting, and maybe my group of Primary school teachers can watch the presentation if they are still around.

The Power of a Twitter PLN
I had no idea how to delete a video (to introduce myself for the Reform Symposium) from my newly created Youtube channel! The video recording had somehow got completely out of synch and I wasn't happy with it. I went onto Twitter and posted a plea for help. Within moments Ron Hautman aka EduTechGeek had very kindly done a screen tutorial to show me how it was done and posted the link on Twitter for me. I was able to follow the very clear instructions and so I immediately removed the video. Many thanks to Ron for helping me in my hour of need!

Below is a new Youtube video presentation I uploaded tonight straight from my webcam. It's much better than the previous one I did!!

Click on the link to view lots of other presenters introducing their topics on the Reform Symposium Conference 3 Youtube channel.

RSCON3 Information

In a few days, nearly 8000 educators from over 40 different countries are expected to attend a free 3 day virtual conference, The Reform Symposium, #RSCON3. This free award-nominated e-conference is going to take place on July 29-31st, 2011. Participants can attend this online conference from the comfort of their homes or anywhere that has Internet access. This amazing conference provides educators new or currently active on social networks the opportunity to connect with educators and professionals in the field of education worldwide. With over 12 Keynotes, 80 presenters, and 3 keynote panel discussions you are bound to be inspired!

View the schedule to plan which presentations you will attend!
Download the flyer to share with your school!
Watch this Youtube video of January 2011's conference!
See if your school will count this as continuing education credit!
Consider hosting a viewing party!

We would like to thank the incredible organizers- Shelly Terrell, Kelly Tenkely, Chris Rogers, Lisa Dabbs, Melissa Tran, Clive Elsmore, Mark Barnes, Ian Chia, Cecilia Lemos, Jerry Blumengarten, and Kyle Pace- and Steve Hargadon of Classroom 2.0 and The Future of Education online communities for making this incredible conference possible.

We hope you can join us for this incredible professional development experience!

Joey - RIP

2011-07-24T05:00:00.000-07:00

The news from Abruzzo came totally out of the blue today. Joey my faithful companion and beloved mascot has sadly passed away, and is now at peace. He had reached the grand old age of 14. I am over a thousand miles away from where he is, but my thoughts are with him. He is buried near one of his olive trees and my vegetable plot.

Feline Confidence
Joey was the best cat you could ever wish for and I will miss him. I owe a lot to him. My technology integration history began with him nearly 3 years ago. He kind of gave me the confidence I used to lack. I felt it was ok to hide behind his lovely face in the picture you can view above. As you can see, I am hanging onto him for dear life. He was very dependable in that respect.

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

A Virtual Jet-setter
Joey has featured in many of my lessons and blog posts. Let Sleeping Cat Lie is one of my favourite blog posts ever. He became quite an international virtual jet-setter. He adapted to his new life in Abruzzo and I can say that he was truly happy there. Lizards, mice, grasshoppers and all manners of wildlife kept him on his paws, and he availed himself freely of their services and often took advantage of their lack of agility. He allowed two Italian cats to take over his territory and ever the quintessential British gentleman cat, he welcomed them into his countryside abode. He even befriended the chickens, and they often eyed each other up with mutual interest. The dogs treated him with the respect he fully deserved. During the latter part of his life, he was even keeping a watchful eye over Fluffy, the latest and most recent addition to the growing menagerie.

We will miss his presence. Life will inevitably move on, as that is the natural order of things. He will remain in my heart as a most loyal pet and companion.

Cat Poetry

A Cat's Prayer to Bast

As I lay me down to sleep
I pray to Bast my soul to keep,
I pray to Bast my soul to take,
And transport it to the sandy lands
Where my forbears worshipped were,
Where my ancient kin were much revered
And where the cat first learned to purr.

As I pad on velvet feet
I pray Bast will give me mice to eat,
And as I use my litter tray
I ask that she will find me play,
In her bright heaven where all cats,
Are stroked by Bast's most blessed hands,
And bask and gambol in her care,
Remembering Egypt's ancient sands.

As I knead upon your knees,
I hope that Bast is greatly pleased
To see her child at rest and play,
Fed and cared for every day,
And when I reach that glorious place
And gaze upon her feline face,
I'll ask that Bast will grant you grace
To join me in eternal play.

Author Unknown

Scoop.it - Comics and Cartoons for RSCON3

2011-07-12T00:38:00.000-07:00

Scoop.it cartoon created with www.writecomics.com

My first curation of comics and cartoons for my webinar at the Reform Symposium at the end of July via Scoop.it has been a painless and relatively easy affair. I decided to create this topic to make it easy to give any potential attendees a list of internet resources all under one roof.

My special dedicated Scoop.it site is called Comics and Cartoons. I am very proud to be one of the many Reform Symposium presenters.

An Original Deadline
I now need to get cracking on the actual presentation itself!! I didn't realise that there were so many resources available on this particular theme of comics and cartoons in education. How on earth can I make my presentation truly original?? This is a question that will be dominating my thoughts over the coming days. I always perform quite well under pressure and I like to work within deadlines, so I am confident that everything will be ok!!

Eye-catching Scoop.its!
Scoop.it caught my eye when I came across Nik Peachey's curation of Learning Technology recently. That encouraged me to look into it and I then discovered a whole range of other educators who have begun curating all sorts of different topics. I wrote about this discovery in my previous post Janet's Top Scoop.its.

I have recently found a very interesting collection of posts which deal specifically with Web Content and Digital Curation.

Tara Benwell has created a Scoop.it to promote her new book, "The Proper Order of Things". I think this is a truly excellent idea!

You can get more information from the Scoop.it blog home page and from this informative presentation below.

Scoop.it everywhere

View more presentations from Scoop.it

More Ideas?

Janet's Top Scoop.its!

2011-07-09T00:49:00.000-07:00

Scoop.it! has recently caught my eye on Twitter. It's a news aggregating tool where you can pick and choose your favourite resources on a theme (from blogs, Twitter, videos etc), and then a newspaper is generated for you. You become the "curator" of your favourite topic. It's a very clever idea, and the results are quite stunning. Have a look at this Scoop.it! video below and see if you fancy becoming a curator?

Scoop.it looks professional and easy to organise. I am thinking of setting one up soon and will post it here when it's done.

Did you know that "curation tools" are set to become the next big thing??? I certainly didn't know that! Read this article by Mashable in which 4 of the top curating tools are analysed. If you have always wanted to be a curator of your favourite topic or hobby, what are you waiting for??? Get curating with Scoop.it!! Come to think of it. What am I waiting for?

Janet's Top Scoop.its!
Here are my top picks of the moment. You can also suggest topics and links on people's Scoop. its! so that is a great tool for sharing information and for building up a nice repertoire of lesson ideas.

Nik Peachey is the curator of Tools for Learners - a great collection of web based tools.

Brad Patterson has put together a fantastic collection of PLN interviews, and Dave Dodgson is the creator and curator of the PLN Interviews...who's next?

Patrick Jackson is the curator of a fabulous selection of posts - Pre-Primary and Primary ELT which are perfect for Primary school teachers of English. I will definitely be showing this one to my 2 groups of Primary school teachers at the Lake School of English in Oxford.

Mike Harrison has done an awesome job of curating all the posts referring to IATEFL Brighton 2011 conference. It is great to have everything all under one roof. Now I can easily read the top posts about the conference.

Sharon Hartle curates a very useful collection of posts suitably called Inspiration for tired teachers. You will have a huge bank of ideas and resources to jazz up your teaching skills.

Shaun Wilden is the curator of #ELTChat - this is a fab collection of the weekly ELTChat topics that are discussed on Twitter every Wednesday.

Sue Lyons-Jones has a Dogme ELT collection of super articles if you are keen to find out more about how to teach "unplugged".

I am sure you will find some real gems amongst these specially chosen Scoop.its.

Happy reading!

PS See if you can spot some of my posts in the Scoop.its!!

Below is a vertical version of my new comic created with Pixton. I'm not sure which style I prefer so have included both styles :-)

La Strada.......

2011-07-07T00:49:00.000-07:00

...that is not 'a road' is getting worse. Thunder, lightning, torrential downpours has turned it into a quagmire. August 2008, we first started making noises that we were not happy. Our dream of turning our small holding into a Biker's B&B "Far From the Madding Crowd", started to hit serious problems. Only truly hardy bikers would ever contemplate travelling down "La Strada".....

Video of "La Strada Brutale" to follow soon, only if I have the courage to publish it. You might have to watch this space. It does exist, and 3 copies have been made and sent to the Comune.

A Bold Biker
Ian was one such brave and non-plussed biker. Had he known the true condition of our road, he would never have attempted to ride down it at midnight one dark and scary night. He hit the road, but undeterred, he carried on until he saw the flickering lights of our abode, shining like a beacon in the distance.

He stayed for 4 nights and the experience was truly magical. Many fairy lights on the balcony, many talks long into the night later, Ian proved to be a fantastic guest of Moto-Abruzzo. I tried to be the 'Hostess with the Mostess' and I was in my element!!

Back to 'La Strada'......

Ringing up the Lord Mayor of Civitaquana on his mobile phone is not something I relish, but I have had no choice. My livelihood has been at stake and so has K's. I don't want to damage our car by constantly driving it up and down 'La Strada', so I have had to take up working virtually, which I hasten to add, has been a dream come true.

This is a fantastic area of experience for me and one which I am really enjoying immensely. In fact my dream was to work from home, all because of "La Strada".

Giulietta
I love the name GIULIETTA. It's my sister's name. Nobody in England can spell it correctly or pronounce it correctly. I think it's a beautiful name. Giulietta Masina won great acclaim for her portrayal in La Strada. My father named my sister after the actress Giulietta Masina. A fabulous circle of events, don't you think?

An ever evolving theme: Life is a CIRCLE.

Facts about Giulietta Masina here. Not many people know that she was known as the female Charles Chaplin and that she was married for half a century to Federico Fellini, one of Italy's most outstanding film directors.

Romeo and Giulietta
In a way, I'm glad my father didn't have his way. He had planned to call his future son ROMEO. Can you imagine how my possible brother's life would have panned out in school before the days of Romeo Beckham?? Yes, he might have been teased remorselessly. On the other hand, what an intriguing life he might have had! Maybe that is why I have a fascination with the story of Romeo and Juliet? To have had a brother and sister named Romeo and Giulietta might have been seriously cool.

Confession: A part of me does regret not having a brother. I wonder if my life might have turned out differently?? Having two wonderful sisters is amazing, but having a brother might have been quite cool. I will never know.

OBI, RSS and QR Codes!

2011-06-28T03:32:00.000-07:00

Image found on wikipedia here

There is a connection between these groups of letters, and one of them is an odd word out! Can you guess what it is? Well, the connection is that they have all been on my mind recently and the odd word out in a way is "OBI" as it is a name of a DIY shop in Pescara. The other two are acronyms linked to the Internet.

NB
At the end of my post I have added a little comic test to review what these three groups of letters mean.

OBI and QR Codes
It all started in OBI, a local garden centre when I picked up one of their magazines and to my surprise, I noted that QR codes were on practically each page. I felt pleased that I recognised these as QR Codes! Only a few short months ago, I would not really have recognised them or indeed known the name or what the function of them was. Below is an example. Do you recognise it? They are now becoming ubiquitous, and I think they are definitely here to stay.If you would like to learn more about QR codes, you can read an excellent and comprehensive article written by Nicky Hockly from the Consultants-E. It's called Mobile learning - 9: A Dummies Guide to QR codes.

Below is a fantastic QR Code cartoon created by The Daring Librarian on Flickr.

You can read this excellent blog post by Gwyneth Anne Bronwynne Jones, aka The Daring Librarian, called Hot QR Codes in the Classroom, written in December 2010.

If you are interested in this area of technology, you can attend a free webinar on QR Codes On Saturday 30th July at the Reform Symposium presented by ShamblesGuru (Chris Smith). It promises to be very useful and extremely interesting!

RSS or Really Simple Feed syndication

RSS? Well I have been discussing Really Simple Syndication with a group of online learners recently. Only a few short years ago, I didn't have a clue to what RSS refered to, but now I do!! I use my RSS feed on my blog sidebar to gather all the latest updates on my favourite blogs and links. It's time-saving and very convenient.

The Circle of Knowledge
So the circle is complete. I was in OBI, I saw the QR codes and I felt chuffed that I recognised them and had an idea of what they were. So like a few years ago when RSS was a new and alien concept for me, I don't have any real experience of how to actually use QR codes actively yet.
QR codes are relatively new for me now, but I would like to know much more about them as they seem to be everywhere. Maybe in the future, they will be commonplace for me like RSS feeds are now, and I will be using them effortlessly? Watch this space!

Comic Testing Items
In preparation for my talk at RSCON3 on using comics and cartoons, I have just created a little test for you using cartoons as a prompt. These questions will check if you have read this post including all the links carefully :-)

writecomics.com

Toondo.com

Super Hero Squad Comics

Abruzzo Diary of a Country Lady - Part 2: Voltaire & Wild Gardens

2011-06-26T03:16:00.000-07:00

This view from home formed the basis of my recent "unplugged" lesson here.

A growing squadron of toads in pots, chickens crowing ever more heartily and fluffy kittens up olive trees is all part and parcel of the country jetset lifestyle. All slugs and snails have miraculously disappeared since I last wrote on this topic in Part 1, and I guess it's all due to these lovely creatures below, one of whom is seen squatting comfortably in my prized pots.

An image-edited photo of mum Samantha and kitten in the garden.

Wild Nature versus The Internet
The pull of nature or the pull of the Internet? These are things I have been thinking of recently. It's difficult to manage the two together as I can't be in two places at once. The more work I take on online, the less time I can devote to trying to keep the vegetable plot in order and tame the weeds that threaten to engulf the plot. This leads me to the next paragraph, where the eminent French gentleman below has a lot to answer for...

Il Faut Cultiver Votre Jardin
Voltaire famously wote these words in his mordant satire called Candide. I read this for my French degree and it made me realise that yes, it's true. A wild garden reveals a lot about the owners. You really have to "cultivate your garden" in the most basic sense of the words.

As I write the strimmer is whirring away in the distance. K valiantly and single-handedly trying to keep the ever growing jungle in check. The state of the garden is a constant topic of household conversation. Voltaire's words keep ringing in my ears. Why do these simple words have so much resonance after 32 years since I last read Candide??

"You have to cultivate your garden". If you don't cultivate your garden, it will become unruly and unmanageable. If it becomes wild and untameable, it will dominate your thoughts. If it dominates your thoughts, it will affect your life. If it affects your life, things will stand still. If things stand still, you are lost or doomed.

I guess that's the pretty hard-hitting message that I imagine is contained in these few simple words. So, what to do? Maybe this gentleman will have the answer?

Before I sign off to cultivate my garden, I'd just like to point out this great quote by Thoreau I found on this very interesting blog post simply called "Cultivate your garden". It's a good quote for discussion, don't you think? I'm not sure I agree with it entirely, though.

Anyone care to make a comment?

"In wildness is the preservation of the world."

You might also like to read this fantastic guest post by Eric Kane on Teaching Village blog, called "Proactive Discipline - Tend to your Garden". I love the gardening analogy!

Kittens in Olive Tree
Below is a short video of 3 of the kittens playing happily, freely and fearlessly amongst the olive tree branches high up. This video was taken this morning in the garden.

Oxford Blogs!

2011-06-16T14:02:00.000-07:00

I've had the pleasure of teaching at the Lake School of English for just one very intensive week. I taught 2 lovely groups of students.

I spent some time helping my students to create their very first blog. First they created a google account and then went to blogger to register their blog name and address. You can see the fantastic results above and below. I feel very proud of their achievement.

Well done to Maria Anna, Maria Eugenia and Fenisia, seen above in an Oxford college.

Teaching Unplugged
In the morning classes I actually made a big effort to teach "Dogme" style, and I found that a lot of vocabulary soon filled the board as you can see in the second image. It was all language and questions that cropped up from this picture of the Abruzzo countryside where I live.

If you look more closely at my board work below, you can see some of my drawings! Can you spot the picture I drew of a dog? I am certainly no Picasso! As usual, chickens, cats and dogs played a major part in some of the questions and answers....

Getting Down To Phrasals!
I also enjoyed teaching my group of Primary school teachers in the afternoon. I taught my favourite sessions on Using Images, Phrasal Verbs and Britain Today. We discussed topical social issues and then went on to do some vocabulary work on a grand British tradition, the pub.

To bring up the topic of pubs I hid a bar mat in an envelope and played the 20 questions guessing game. I told my class that the envelope contained an object which was very common in Britain. It took only 5 guesses for beer mat to come up. I was very impressed! We then did some vocabulary related to pubs and reordered a dialogue.

I've enjoyed both classes and this week has flown by!

Below a photo of myself and Gosia, a lovely teacher from Poland. More photos to follow..

The Fabulous PLN Challenge - Interview with Leahn from Early EFL

2011-06-09T00:26:00.000-07:00

Brad Patterson's inspirational PLN Interview Challenge brought me to Leahn Stanhope, a member of my fab PLN. Leahn writes the lovely Early EFL blog and she lives and works by the beach in the Canary Islands. I was delighted when the opportunity arose to ask Leahn the PLN Challenge questions. Here below are the standard 5 questions with an extra two thrown in at the end.

1) If your students were to label you with 3 adjectives, what might they be?

FUNNY seems to be a word I hear a lot lately, and I hope they would say knowledgeable and patient.

2) What would we find in your refrigerator right now?

I’ve absolutely no idea! The shopping and cooking are left in the hands of my boyfriend. Let me just get up off the sofa and check. Okay, lots of salad stuff, fruit, chicken, sausages, feta cheese, camembert, olives, orange juice, eggs, melon, yoghurt and sandwich making stuff too!

3) If you weren’t a teacher, what might your profession be?

That’s such a difficult question. I know what I wouldn’t want to be but it’s much more difficult to say what I’d like to be. Perhaps a foreign aid worker, dog trainer or horse whisperer!

4) What do you find most difficult about the teaching profession, or What has been your most difficult class as a teacher?

Don’t get me started with TEFL (it’s a love-hate relationship). It’s great when you start out, but as you get older it’s much more difficult to put up with nine month contracts and working in the evenings! Luckily, I now work 10 months of the year and have a morning job!

I’ve been lucky with classes, most of the teaching I’ve done has been in private language schools. The most challenging teaching situation I’ve faced has been in the last three years working in the state system, which has meant large classes, mixed abilities, children with no pencils and teens with no motivation.

5) What was the last book/movie you read/saw, and what have you seen/read way too many times?

I’m mad about books and films. I’m currently reading a graded reader as I have a German exam on Thursday but I’ve got a Spanish book on the go too, it’s called La Catedral del Mar by Idelfonso Falcones. I love Isabel Allende. I can’t help re-reading her books. My all time favourite is Stories of Eva Luna.

The last film I saw was Babel with Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett. I love the Aliens films, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, ET, all the Star Wars films, Platoon and so many more. Just remembered, Gladiator, I must have seen it five times at least!

And here are the two extra questions!

As having quite a few furkids is a connection between us, can you share a few stories about 1 or 2 of your pets and how you first met them or got them?

At the moment we have 6 cats and 6 dogs. Three of the dogs are foster dogs. I seem to have been collecting animals over the past 6 years. I got involved in voluntary work for a cat British based cat charity called Twinkle Trust and the rest as they say is history.This is CC or Crissy as she’s called. I met her a couple of weeks before Christmas last year. She was sitting outside a big electrical and household store. It was really strange; she was just sitting on the door mat as people rushed in and out. As I walked in, I bent down to stroke her and was surprised because she was very friendly. I went in and bought my paint. Feeling guilty, I asked the security guard about her. He told me that he’d been feeding her for a few weeks. I reversed out of the parking lot thinking that it was fine. She had a feeder and she’d be okay. By the time I arrived home I’d decided to go back and get her. It has taken her ages to integrate into the household but now she’s a happy little cat..

What's the best part of living in the Canary Islands? (For me it was definitely the fab beaches!)

The weather, the beaches, the completely laid back pace of life here and most importantly wearing flip flops to go to work!

Thank you very much Leahn for answering these questions!

It was lovely getting to know Leahn a bit more and our love of furkids and our considerable combined collection of 27 of them is quite incredible, I think!! I lived on the same beautiful island in the Canaries (see photo above) as Leahn for a year in 1984. I also love Isabel Allende's the Stories of Eva Luna! So, quite a few connections between us both.

Leahn is an active member of ELTChat held on Twitter every Wednesday, and recently she summarised the "Storytelling" session held on May 18th. It's an excellent summary and contains lots of fantastic links and resources on this very interesting subject.

If you like, you can read another PLN interview on Eva's post "My Wonderful PLN -2".
Watch out for more PLN Interviews on Brad's blog here. Thanks Brad for coming up with this challenge!
You can read all about the Challenge Interviews on Dave Dodgson's amazing Scoop.it page as well.

Reform Symposium - Fab CPD for July 2011

2011-06-06T00:06:00.000-07:00

If you are after a weekend full of fantastic free webinars and presentations for Continuous Professional Development purposes, then book your computer for the weekend beginning Friday 29th July to Sunday 31st July. The place is the Reform Symposium and you can find out all about it from the link.

Presenters from all over the world will be speaking on diverse subjects such as Technology Integration and Educational Reform and much, much more. The organisers are currently busy preparing for what promises to be a HUGE global event.

I am very pleased to say that I will be presenting on Saturday 30th July at 6pm UK time and my theme is going to be "Fun with Cartoons and Comics"!! I decided to do something new rather than a previous presentation, as that will give me motivation to do a bit of research over the coming weeks....I enjoy creating comics and using them in class, so the preparation should be great fun.

Janet's Daily Archives

I have looked through my archives and below you can read my feedback on RSCON 1 and RSCON 2.

2nd Reform Symposium in January 2011.

1st Reform Symposium in August 2010.

I'll keep you posted on the updates regarding the 3rd Reform Symposium. I do hope you will be able to attend some of the sessions, and that you will enjoy the whole amazing experience. I know you won't regret it!! You have two months to add this action-packed weekend to your diaries!!

Have a look at this post by What Ed Said blog called "10+ reasons to participate in RSCON3". I love the cartoon at the end!!

Here's another inspiring post to read about the forthcoming RSCON3 e-conference by iLearn Technology.

Abruzzo Diary of a Country Lady - Part 1

2011-06-04T00:18:00.000-07:00

Chikita has just laid an egg!

I am awakened every single morning by the sound of vociferous crowing, not by a cockerel, but by the 4 chickens who happily reside "chez moi". I love this sound and it means they are so proud to have just laid an egg. I was delighted to be able to take this snapshot of Chikita who had just laid one of her fabulous daily white eggs. Berry is looking on waiting her turn to sit inside my plant tub that has now become the official laying area. The beautiful plant that used to reside here is no more, as it has been squashed mercilessly. This big green tub has also become the place for the cats to have a kip during the day. So all in all this area is now a centre of refuge, peace and calm for a lot of animals.

Snakes
I saw one fleetingly the other day behind my pots and I let out a blood curdling scream, audible only to one man and many beasts.

"My dearest, what's up?" K asked casually as he ambled, yes, ambled towards the source of the screaming fit.

My face ashen white (slight embellishment here for dramatic effect), I pointed behind the pots next to the chicken pen.

"I've just seen a long black slithering hissing SNAKE!!"

" Yes, there are a lot in this area, you do know that, Jan, don't you??!!

Yes, I suppose I did, but at that particular moment, it didn't really help matters.

So where does one go from here? Does one abandon one's idyllic country lifestyle just due to a close encounter with one of its reptile residents?

The answer, of course, is No!! It's a part of the everyday mix of surprises and unexpected events that keep me fascinated with life in Abruzzo.

Every year in Cocullo, a village in Abruzzo, there is a festival in honour of snakes. Please read all about it in this Life In Abruzzo blog post "Getting Slippy at Cocullo Snake F estival". It's a fascinating read, and you will find out what an ophidiophiliac is!!!

Other Resident Reptiles

Image of toad found here: http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc68/dalgarvenbooks/toads.jpg

The reptiles do not stop here, however. There are two resident toads who appear only at night time inside more of my pots. Yes, I can confirm they are ugly creatures, hence the term "as ugly as a toad". Now I can say that this comparative phrase is absolutely true.

I stared in utter fascination at a very unusual coloured toad sitting very comfortably and in a very relaxed state, right in the middle of one of my prized pots containing seedling carrots. On closer investigation, I discovered there was another toad buried underneath the soil under the top toad, so to speak.

If you are wondering what I am going to do with these carrot seedlings after being in such close proximity with 2 toads, I can confirm that I have chucked them into the compost bin and will start again from scratch. I don't think I would have the stomach to eat fresh carrots straight from a toad's mouth, would you??

Should I take a photo for posterity? The thought entered my mind. It was after midnight, the moon was shining bright ahead, and I was on my way to bed.

At this point I have to explain that my house is an old "casale" with living quarters downstairs (formerly the stables) and we have to go outside every night in order to get to the sleeping quarters. I find this is very quirky and I love it! It takes me almost an hour to get upstairs sometimes when I inspect each pot for the following creatures of the night:

snails and
slugs

I dutifully dispense of such creatures by genteely as befitting a country lady, flinging them back into the nature where they came from by means of a stick, which I always carry with me for such purposes. It's slightly tedious, but it's my routine now and I don't mind at all. .

Anyway, I digress!! Back to the toads!! I don't like them. They don't blink, they just stare ahead and I can't bring myself to hurl them genteely back into nature. I just can't. Full stop. Anyway, I have since found out that toads apparently eat slugs and snails, so now I'm thinking maybe that's not a bad thing.
In addition, if you would like to read about how toads can sense impending natural disasters such as the earthquake in L'Aquila in 2009, please click on the link from Italy Magazine called "Some croaking seismologists".

Fluffy Kittens

The 4 kittens are growing and are in a very playful stage. I love watching them gambol around and they are absolutely adorable. Samantha who is still a kitten herself, is a wonderful mother and I enjoy watching how she teaches her little ones to copy her. They don't mind being picked up and are already very sociable kittens, with very definite characters.

Feeding time

So, as you can see, my life is surrounded by many diverse animals here in the beautiful Abruzzo countryside. I am learning from them on a daily basis.

The "Abruzzo Diary of a Country Lady - Part 2" might be imminent soon. I just feel that EFL is only one part of my life. I would like to write more often about the other totally different side of my life here in Abruzzo. This is the only place for it on my blog.

Poppy field near home, photo taken on May 30th 2011

More about Beautiful Abruzzo
In my mind Abruzzo is Always Green! and More Abruzzo in the News
by the very informative About Abruzzo blog.

Chikita the Movie Star
Chikita proudly showing off the fact that she's just laid an egg!

25,000

2011-06-03T00:58:00.000-07:00

I'd like to say a heartfelt thanks to everyone from all the countries above, who reads or has read my blog in the past 2 years and a half since its birth in November 2008.

The figure 25,000 just seems to have a special touch about it and this is what my Clustrs map has just told me. This amount of viewers is very modest in comparison to a lot of the leading ELT bloggers. To me, it means a huge amount and I can't believe how my very modest blog has evolved since November 2008.

I have readers from over 100 countries from as far afield as Guam, Tanzania, Qatar, Belarus, Swaziland, Dominican Republic and it seems every corner of the world. I am absolutely thrilled and deeply touched. Thank you very much to every single person who has ever stopped by to see what this blog has to say!!

Design 565
Nothing much has changed from the original layout. In fact it has remained exactly the same. My one attempt to jazz it up and bring it to the modern world went totally unnoticed until I actually mentioned it to one of my fellow bloggers (thanks Chris) who actually said he liked the new style. However, I decided to re-instate the status quo without undue fuss and here it still is. Design 565 as seen below:

I have sometimes wondered if the blog layout is too fussy and cluttered, but then I actually like it this way and don't have the heart to make it minimalist, as that isn't my character. The same Voki cat is still here with the same message.

So, here's to the next 25,000 viewers or readers. I'll do my very best to write about EFL matters, Abruzzo news and anything else that randomly comes up in my life. This blog is my

personal and very public virtual Learning Diary
e-portfolio
repository of free lessons and lesson ideas
window to the world outside
daily source of inspiration
cherished labour of love

The Time To Blog Is Now!
If you do not have a blog and you are a teacher who wants to reflect on your teaching practice, listen to my words of wisdom: start a blog now! I can assure you, you will not regret it.
Below is a list of useful sites and information about blogs and blogging, which will help you learn more about this wonderful subject. Hopefully they will inspire you to want to set up your very own first blog:

Russell Stannard's Teacher Training Tutorials on Blogger.
The Edublogger's Introduction to Blogging
Larry Ferlazzo's "The Best Sources of Advice For Teachers (And Others!) On How To Be Better Bloggers"
Ed Blog Collection by Clive, Sir

Seeta Jazz Up Your Digital Storytelling - Feedback

2011-05-28T00:15:00.000-07:00

Storytelling is big news at the moment, and so it should be! I have recently finished another wonderful e-course via the SEETA (South Eastern Europe Teachers' Association) on Jazz Up Your Lessons with Digital Storytelling with the lovely Ozge Karaoglu as the tutor. I knew I wanted to do this course, come what may, as soon as I saw that Ozge was going to be the tutor. She is the Queen of tech tools and her vast repertoire of sites and amazing experience in dealing with digital stories with young learners was a guaranteed sign of an exciting and jazzy course. I had the great pleasure of meeting Ozge in person in Brighton.

Press the link to listen to my Fotobabble feedback on the fab course!.

So, did I jazz up my digital storytelling skills on the course? Yes, I did! It gave me the chance to review some sites I already knew, but it also contained some really nice new tools which I'd like to look into, time permitting.

I was inspired to create a new comic to illustrate how you could use ones like makebeliefscomix.

Seeing so many faces I recognised was also a lovely feeling and everyone was very keen to share and encourage each other to do our best. Taking part in e-courses such as this one is also a great way to learn how they flow and to see the dynamics and interaction patterns within the forums.

I liked the way Ozge organised the course. It was very effective. Links to a pdf sheet of carefully selected tools in 6 different categories, and then the chance to participate in a forum to give our feedback on one or two of the new tools. I found that this was very manageable and I could easily pop in once a day to add to the forums and comment on other course members' work. A lot of creativity abounded and I learned a lot from everyone!

You can see a lot of Ozge's amazing links and resources from her blog here: 100 Digital Storytelling Tools.

I love "Daisy and Drago" that Ozge wrote herself.
Daisy and Drago

View more presentations from ozge

You can also view the amazing video of her fabulous story "Daisy and Drago and the Magic Wand", created by her 6-year-old pupils.

Thank you very much Ozge and all the course participants for helping to make it a very enjoyable and worthwhile course!!

ELTChat - Storytelling
Last Wednesday I missed one of the most interesting topics that have been discussed recently. Yes, you've guessed it already. I missed the ELTChat session on Digital Storytelling!! It's one of my favourite topics and sadly, I couldn't attend. However, Leahn Stanhope, a teacher from Fuerteventura, the Canary Islands, has done an incredible job of summarising the session in great depth. Just reading through all the links, resources, tips, ideas shared in ONLY one hour, will give you enough information to keep you doing "Storytelling" lessons happily for a very long time!! Here is the link for you to copy and then share with your colleagues. Enjoy looking at all the resources at leisure. Thank you Leahn!

http://earlyefl.blogspot.com/2011/05/eltchat-summary-storytelling.html

A Few More Links
Eva Buyukesmiyan from A Journey in TEFL blog has also written a fab blog post called "Teachers as Storytellers"

This blog post by Anita Kwiatowska caught my eye: "It was a dark and stormy night..." The blog post has some great ideas for exploiting this theme.

I recently gave a presentation on Storytelling in the Digital Era. Ana Maria Menezes from Brazil, invited me to hold a session via Wiziq. She then kindly wrote a lovely feedback post entitled "Learning with/from Janet Bianchini."

Below is my very own digital idiomatic story that took me months to create! "An Idiomatic Love Story."

An Idiomatic Love Story

Finally, one of my favourite (true) stories I've ever written is "And Then There Were Three".

Remember!
Everybody has a story within them just waiting to come out. Don't wait too long otherwise the moment will pass. Life is one big evolving story just waiting to be written!

Quote made up by me!

Top 100 Language Lovers Blogs 2011

Press here to vote!

If you would like to vote for one of the amazing blogs in the Lexiophiles Top 100 Language Lovers Blogs 2011, simply press on the link under the button, and then go through the list of nominated blogs until you find one you want to vote for!

Voting ends on Sunday 29th May.

It's Voting Time for the Lexiophiles Top 100 Language Lovers 2011

2011-05-21T00:15:00.000-07:00

I found out yesterday via Barbara Sakamoto's Teaching Village blog, that Janet's Abruzzo Edublog has been included in this year's list of 200 blogs nominated for the Lexiophiles Top Language Learning Blogs category. I was thrilled to read this piece of lovely news and thank you Barbara for mentioning me :-) Best of luck to you!

Click on the makebeliefs comic cartoon to enlarge it.

You can find out how the competition works here.

How to vote: First of all, go to the voting page of each category (links below). Then click on the name of the blog/Facebook page/Twitter account you want to vote for. All entries are listed alphabetically. You can vote once in each category.

Language Learning Blogs
Language Professionals Blogs
Language Facebook Pages
Language Twitterers

I've added the Lexiophiles badge below, but there is no obligation to vote for this blog at all!!
I'm just happy to be included in this year's nominations.

Just in case you were wondering why I chose my blog's name, here is a little bit of background information:

Janet- my name is Janet (very imaginative, I know :)
Abruzzo - I live in Abruzzo (again, a very inspired choice)
Edublog - it's an educational blog (a good mix)

That's it! Very simple, really.

Writing my blog has brought me a lot of happiness and satisfaction. I hope it can help inspire people to follow their dream of doing something different.

Writing this blog is a dream come true, and I'm loving every moment. Thank you so much for reading it!!

There are so many fabulous blogs and sites that it will be difficult to select only one for each category. Have a look through the lists and enjoy discovering new and exciting people to follow. Best of luck to all the nominees!

Vote in each of the categories here: http://www.lexiophiles.com/featured-articles/time-to-vote-top-100-language-lovers-2011

Worlds Apart

2011-05-18T00:57:00.000-07:00

I was born in Oxford and lived there all my life until 2008. Then I moved to the wilds of unspoilt Abruzzo, a total contrast to the cosmopolitan, lively and historical world I had been brought up in.

Image source here.

Oxford is a stunningly beautiful city, with dreaming spires and turrets in abundance. I love the atmosphere, the cobbled lanes, the mixture of youth and wisdom, the culture, the array of exciting activities, the olde-worlde pubs, the grandeur of the colleges, the perfectly manicured quadrangles, May morning choristers singing from the top of Magdalen College Tower, Christ Church College with the smallest cathedral in England. Well, I could go on......

So, you may ask, "What does Janet find so appealing about living in a place surrounded by hills, olive groves, vineyards, peace, quiet, solitude, falcons, hawks, snakes, lizards, frogs, chickens, dogs, cats, fruit trees, an ever growing jungle, an impassable road? Well, I could go on......

Norris enjoying the country lifestyle - as free as a bird, literally. Here she is quietly contemplating her next move, after having dutifully laid her daily egg....

These two sites are literally worlds apart in terms of lifestyles.

I am happy in Abruzzo.

I am happy in Oxford.

I am happy in Cyberspace.

I am happy anywhere and everywhere I have ever lived in.

"Non, je ne regrette rien", as Edif Piaf sang so memorably.

Below is a fabulous Bookr that one of my teachers created on the Learning Curves Teachers' Refresher course at the Lake School of English in November 2011. I felt very proud that she had been inspired to create such a lovely digital book of my city.

This is a slideshow I have just created using my own images of Oxford, taken in April this year.

Have a look at how much fun you can have studying at the Lake School of English, in Oxford!

Below is one of my favourite Animoto videos on Abruzzo that I've created, called "A Change of Lifestyle".

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

And, here's another slideshow on My Abruzzo created via Slide:

About Abruzzo blog is my absolutely favourite blog on this area.

Read "Abruzzo App-roved: A Handy Guide to Exploring Abruzzo

Now, the BIG question is: which world would you choose to live in, and why?? I'd love to hear your views :)

Shelly Terrell Hosts The Young Learners (23rd) Edition of the ESL / EFL / ELL Blog Carnival

2011-05-05T09:47:00.000-07:00

The lovely Shelly Terrell from Teacher Boot Camp has just hosted the 23rd Edition of the ESL/EFL/ELL Blog Carnival with a special emphasis on Young Learners. She has put together an amazing array of posts in the form of a Vuvox slideshow. Shelly has kindly given permission to her readers and followers to embed the presentation below. These posts and links are extremely useful for all teachers of Young Learners. Shame I'm not teaching Young Learners now, but I will make sure that I highlight this compilation in all future teacher refresher courses!

Click on the link to access the whole post on Shelly's blog. Have fun!!

Pomp and Grandeur: Kate and Wills Tie the Knot

2011-04-29T08:25:00.000-07:00

"Two rather beautiful kids tying the knot", sums up the day perfectly. I heard this quote during an interview with Simon Scharma, the well-known British historian. The Royal Wedding between Prince William and his stunningly gorgeous bride, Kate Middleton was everything I had hoped for, and some. The new Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's big day was fantastic and it encapsulated the best of British pomp, circumstance and majesty. It was also cleverly intermingled with the "common touch".

It was a moment in British history that I desperately needed to be a part of here back in Abruzzo. K set about strimming the garden with a vengeance, leaving me alone with Sam and her 4 adorable kittens, to witness the wedding of the century streamed via the Internet. With a token flute of chilled "bubbly", I settled myself down to watch the most amazing show on earth today.

At first I wanted to turn this post into an idiomatic field day, but then I stopped myself. This shouldn't be turned into anything but what it really is. The most magical event witnessed by about two billion people worldwide.

My Highlights

The spectacular horse-drawn carriages
The sight of the sprightly 85-year old Queen and 90-year old Duke of Edingburgh
The bride's entrance with her father walking down the magnificent Westminster Abbey aisle
The beautiful bride Catherine and handsome groom Prince William
The wonderful fairy tale atmosphere
All the fascinators (special headgear) on display
The mixture of royalty and the crowds
The timeless elegance of Princess Catherine's exquisite designer dress
The incredible music in the Abbey
The fly past of historical Spitfire, Lancaster and Hurricane planes
The ride in the old Aston Martin, driven by Prince William
The sight of so many street parties around Britain
The sheer joy and exhuberance on display
The British Monarchy enjoying a surge of huge popularity
The future King and Queen of England having a grand day out!

In the words of the comentators, this wedding was "a nice, communal, unifying experience with the magic secret. It was a symbolic and ornamental expression of royalty".

I personally loved it!!

Have a look at the fabulous images from the MailOnline's Royal Wedding Coverage here.
The Independent has a comprehensive list of videos of the day, in case you missed any parts.
YouTube The Royal Channel had live streaming of the ceremony and events.
The English Blog has lots of great links regarding the wedding dress.

Newsy Video: The Wedding Dress

Multisource political news, world news, and entertainment news analysis by Newsy.com

AKaTea and William Memorabilia
I had to buy the teabags below. I found them in Brighton and I wanted them immediately. Of course, I won't use them. I will keep them for historical and collactable purposes only! They are really fun and in thoroughly good taste, don't you agree?