SEETA Guest Blogger for April

I am proud to be this month's guest blogger for the South Eastern Europe Teachers Association.

I am currently having a break at the momen, so I am posting reflections and insights into teaching and discussing some of my favourite topics over the five days.

Please do join in the SEETA community. You will need to register in order to read the Guest Bloggers' posts and have access to many resources.  There is a huge archive of past guest blog posts and they make for fascinating reading!

In the past I have enjoyed many courses with SEETA, including mLearning, creative reading, digital storytelling, digital literacies, and humanism and modern technology.  I learned a lot from these excellent sessions and you can find out more by looking at the posts in my SEETA label

I am enjoying writing daily blog posts on a variety of topics connected to my teaching life, and I hope to see you there.

SEETA: Humanism and Modern Technology

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?

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!



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

Storybird: Fluffy The Mouse-Catcher

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!!

Seeta Jazz Up Your Digital Storytelling - Feedback

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.

A Wordle in the Gallery

Dave Dodgson from Reflections of a Teacher and Learner blog set a very inspiring challenge during his excellent presentation on Word Clouds at the 4th Virtual Round Table. He asked fellow bloggers to create a word cloud from the current URL of their blogs and then to answer the following questions.

• What does it tell you about the content of your writing?
• What does it tell you about your writing style and use of vocabulary?
• Is there anything that surprised you?

Well, not surprisingly, my Wordle can be summarised using the following key words:

I enjoyed the fabulous online Seeta Reading Challenge course with Marisa and teachers, because of the many lovely digital texts, activities and resources that everyone shared!

One thing that strikes me is the juxtaposition of the word "time" near "day. This refers to the fact that I recently haven't had much free time during the day due to my recent virtual and face to face presentations. It's a coincidence, I feel.

It looks as if my wordle is dominated by the recent Reading course challenge. Maybe this is because I enjoyed it so much!

My choice of vocabulary seems to be quite simple judging from the words generated, and I feel that is a bit odd. I do try my best to write as interestingly as possible and yet, there are no unusual or difficult level words at all!

My wordle also contains references to the recent devastating earthquake in Japan, and you can read My Message to Yokko in Japan.

There is more about the earthquake from Barbara Sakamoto's moving and very insightful posts about the aftermath and also how people can help here.

Thank you very much Dave for setting such a lovely challenge! You can read about all the bloggers who have also done the challenge here.

PS
There is only one reference to "cat", and no references at all to the rest of my menagerie, and so Wordle hasn't really represented the contents of my blog very accurately!! I therefore decided to create a Tagxedo in the shape of a dog to make up for this absence, and here is the image below with quite a lot of different words.

Technology, Twitter, conference, blog, English, Abruzzo and virtual - all figure prominently and I believe this is an accurate reflection of what my blog is all about.

Seeta:Reading Challenge Feedback!

I entered the Seeta Reading Challenge e-course with great excitement. An educator whom I have admired from afar for a long time was to be my tutor. This wonderful tutor was Marisa Constantinides. She organised a fantastic 7-day course on Moodle. It proved to be a real challenge for me and one which pushed me in all the right directions. It was lovely to be a student once again amongst members of my PLN. By chance, the week in question was a good one, because on a few of the days, I had slightly more free time than usual. This was a very fortuitous sign. I approached the course with gusto. This means "with pleasure and enthusiasm".


I would like to share the 3 main activities for reading lessons that I created during the course. I don't think I've worked as hard as this in a long time (lol), and it is all thanks to the excellent motivational skills of Marisa. At one point due to other pressing engagements that cropped up, I wasn't sure if I could do everything. My way to get round the lack of time was to stay up burning the midnight oil and I was able to achieve the tasks.

Day 2 Seeta Reading Challenge: The Man with the Golden Voice
Ted Williams below was part of my reading task for Day 2 of the Seeta Reading Challenge. You may be thinking why is he here? Well, I had to find a text and then devise a series of pre-reading tasks to use with the text. Photo below edited with photofunia


You can read the set of activities that I have published via www.youblisher.com. It's a free and very fast tool, which converts your pdfs into nice-looking "books". These booklets can then be easily embedded on a blog or wiki! Please click on the book to view the activities inside.

Day 5 Seeta Reading Challenge:The Cat that got the Cream
Cats seem to follow me wherever I go online. It can't be helped, I suppose. 3 of them are a part of my life and one of them is my dedicated and trusty logo. The Cat that got the Cream comes as a direct result of a very challenging piece of homework that was set for Day 5 Reading Challenge. We had to devise a set of creative activities for an authentic reading text of our choice.

Below is part of my lesson plan.



I was informed yesterday that my slideshare of this particular lesson plan was a "hot Twitter topic" of the day!

Day 6 Seeta Reading Challenge:Physical Training in Your DreamsPlease see below a list of activities that I created for the Day 6 reading challenge task. Marisa asked us to create some pre-reading, while reading and post-reading activities to share with the group. We had to use the techniques that we had read about in the resources and reading materials that Marisa had included as reading matter every day.

I actually thought of all these activities in the car during our weekly expedition to Penne for our shopping. I was exceptionally quiet and very focused. I just brainstormed a list of things to do with the text that Marisa had kindly supplied us. I really enjoyed having to think up the following tasks, which are, I hasten to add in mixed up order.

I caused my dear tutor a bit of a headache by submitting this homework in this mixed up format. I owe her a few drinks in Brighton as a most humble apology!!

Final Thoughts
I wish to thank Marisa for a wonderful course, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Marisa was able to skillfully select the right level of stimulating reading tasks, and I felt refreshed as a teacher after the course had finished. It made me question some of my methods and it made me want to incorporate new ideas and strategies in dealing with reading skills. A lot of web 2.0 tools were incorporated into the Moodle platform by our expert tutor. It was a great experience for a lot of us to try out new tools in a relaxed and stimulating environment.

I have only included a taster of the course content. There was much, much more!! A lot of superb materials for teaching effective reading skills were shared on the course, and I can't wait to try them out in my upcoming lessons!!

In particular, this post on Advance Organisers was very practical and good background reading matter.
This post on "Tech Tools & Pedagogy 2 - Word Clouds" was great as a review of all the different word clouds that are available.
I also enjoyed this post on "Embedding Creative Thinking Skills Training into our EFL Practice."

Although the Reading Challenge course is officially now over, it is still open if you would like to find out about the reading challenge. All you have to do is register on the Seeta site! There are some more fab courses coming up as well!

Finally, I would like to say many thanks to my co-participants on the course. Together we shared a lot of experiences, resources, ideas, techniques, advice and it was amazing. Most of all, it was great fun learning together!!

Winter Wonderland in Abruzzo & News Update

A very well wrapped up Janet in her favourite winter jumper!!

These are the wintry scenes that greeted me this morning. The weather forecast predicting buckets of snow proved to be correct! My concern is for the 20 young olive trees that were planted recently. Will they survive this patch of cold weather? Will the part of the house which has no roof yet, be ok?

The Dream
When we bought our abode a few years ago, there was a huge amount of work to do on it. Having sold our house in Oxford to buy this house outright, we were able to do up the kitchen and the upstairs sleeping quarters, slowly but surely. There is still lots of hard work left to do, but Rome wasn't built in a day!! Now, with an irregular source of income coming in from time to time (lol), each step is taking that little bit longer.... My optimistic aim and dream is for us to live off the land in the future and thus be completely self-sufficient.

Living off the Land - The Reality
Well, with each year that passes, we are getting a bit more off the land and via our livestock, namely from these eggceptionally lively chickens here. With fresh eggs being dutifully laid every day, we can make fresh pasta, pancakes, omelettes, fried eggs, scrambled eggs and so on. Unfortunately, the chicks haven't been laying as many eggs as usual during this cold spell, but egg production should pick up again very soon.

Last summer, we had enough tomatoes, peppers, runner beans, French beans, melons, cucumbers, lettuce, apples, peaches, olive oil, eggs, almonds, figs, a few cherries, pears, and various fresh herbs to keep us from the wolf's door. I need to learn so much, though, about farming the land and to be honest, it's still a hit and miss affair!! I can't say I've got green fingers, just lots of enthusiasm!

Soil, Humus and Manuring
I have just finished reading a fascinating horticultural book by Shewell Cooper called "Shewell Cooper's Guide to Soil, Humus & Manuring", published in 1952. I learned an incredible amount about the value of worms in the soil as a guide to the soil fertility, and found out more about the joys of composting. I enjoy making my own compost to put back into the land. I wrote a review of "How to Cook Compost" a while back, which you might like to read, if you are interested in this topic.


I also love dipping into "Food from your Garden". Published in 1977, this book is a fantastic compilation of everything you need to know about growing your own food. I bought it from Oxfam last year for a few pounds, and it was a real bargain! It contains a lot of fantastic and timeless tips which are highly relevant even in 2011!

News Update! New Seeta Course
I have signed up for another Professional Development mini course on the SEETA site. The tutor is Marisa Constantinides, a highly experienced teacher trainer, with her own teacher training centre in Athens.

The course title is "The Reading Challenge: Motivation and Creativity in Reading Lessons". It starts on 27th February for 7 days, so please do sign up, and learn with me and lots of other keen teachers!! I hope I can be a good student and keep up with the course content. A lot of people I know have already signed up, and it promises to be a very exciting and enriching few days of learning.

Why do I Blog?
I have just submitted a guest post on the subject of blogging to the British Council Teaching English site. It is an honour to be included as a blogging guest in the blogging marathon. You can read the post here.

Countdown Challenge
I have been featured in Bits 'n 'Bobs/Show and Tell blog recently. The "Countdown 28 Challenge", which ends on Monday 28th February, is of a very innovative nature. Will my suggestion of "is" as the final word on the 28th day of the countdown challenge be the one that is indeed chosen by the author? The tension is mounting...

Electronic Village Online - Digital Storytelling
This fantastic 5-week course on Digital Storytelling finished a few weeks ago, and I am planning to write a feedback post shortly with my impressions and some of the work I was inspired to create during the weekly sessions. Watch this space!!

An Idiomatic Story - A Series in Motion
I have been busy drafting more episodes for my digital series of An Idiomatic Story and have been experimenting with Bitstrips and Dvolver. This evolving series is very exciting, and I am having fun using different digital media and Web 2.0 tools. The story of Frederick and Isabella is developing in an interesting way. Anyway, I'm doing my best, and the latest installment is due out tomorrow. Can you ermm...feel the excitement bubbling away???

Post Scriptum
I was very surprised just now and delighted to see that Part 4 Go Animate installment has had 18 views since I created it a few days ago. Maybe I am doing something right? I hope so!!

Free online course:mLearning, an Introduction

Image source here

I will be joining a short one-week mini course on mLearning run by The Consultants-E and hosted on the South Eastern Europe Teachers' Associations on-line community. The tutor will be Nicky Hockly, the Director of pedagogy at the Consultants-E. This course will be held from January 23rd to January 29th. 

Being one who still has her trusty Nokia 3310 which is almost but not quite on its last legs, I feel I need to know a bit more about a subject which is going to be HUGE in the future, which is coming NOW!

There are already 69 participants enrolled and it's lovely to recognise a few names.  Hope to see you there?