Thursday 20 January 2011

My Birthday Special

Three.egg  on AviaryThree.egg on Aviary.

This blog was born three years ago on 22nd January. It happens to be my birthday too. I would like to celebrate this day by looking at my last year's posts. Starting with a post just like this one written on 22nd January 2010. Since I don't post so often, it shouldn't be such a difficult task.

Last year I attended three EVO sessions and the first couple of posts were about the workshops and what I learnt there. In the first post (EVO, HTML and the Voki Girl) I also boasted about how I managed to change the HTML in my Blogger template. I did this mostly by cheating, but I did it.

Let Me Tell You a Story is about using Mixbook to tell stories. I finished the post by a storytilling challenge for my readers. This is, I have to say, quite a good way to get comments...

Myna and the Sleeping Dragon is one of those posts that mean a lot to me, which means that it has got a poem inside. It also talks about Myna by Aviary which can be used to create short listening comprehension exercises.

In Which Came First - the Picture or the Caption I am musing about different ways to tell a digital story and the connection between the image and the written text.

If you are looking for EFL lesson plans, there is a free one in Trouble with the Mobile Phone.

Myrphy's Law for EFL Teachers is probably my most popular post so far. It is exactly what the title says it is - a collection of Murphy's laws. I am not sure, but it could easily be my favourite post as well.

Two posts that look at ways how (not) to cope with information overload are Swimming or Drowning and Back to the Future. Quite a few people related to them.

Jukeboxing the EFL Classroom contains some ideas about how to use music both in the classroom and as "homework".

Where I Stand on Dogme started like an answer to a Dogme challenge, but turned into a definition of my educational philosophy. Raised by NNESTs is the second 'Dogme post'. It also contains my observations on what it feels like to be a non-native English speaking teacher.

I Have to Be Who I Am is... I can't tell you exactly what it is. It was Christmas, you see. It is, in a way, a personal manifesto.

Birthday Cake
Photo on Flickr by Theresa Thompson

And here we are. Right now and right here. Right now I am using this blog to write my homework for my Multiliteracies class and for the Teacher Challenge. There is one Multiliteracies post (Information Is Everywhere) and two pieces of homework for the Teacher Challenge: My Life as a TEFL Blog (an "interview with my blog") and Five Steps to an Effective Blog Post.

I have skipped a couple of posts and, if you are like my students, you'll immediately go searching for them, but I have mentioned everything that was really important to me.

Thank you for travelling with me so far. It has been an exciting journey. As for what you might read here in the future and how often... Who knows? I am not making any promises. Blogging is like a journey, whatever happens - happens. One thing I can promise you is that I will keep posting. I love my little blog. After three years, it has really become a reflection of who I am as a person and as a teacher.

A toast to my readers. Because without you I wouldn't have made it this far.

Toasting Champagne
Photo on Flickr by Waldo Jaquith


6 comments:

Janet Bianchini said...

Dear Natasa

Happy birthday to you and to the 3rd anniversary of your wonderful blog!!! You are such an inspiration to me, and it is lovely to share so many learning adventures with you on the various courses that we have in common.

I hope your special day is filled with lots of love, laughter and happiness. May your blog continue to shine and to give you much happiness!

Best wishes

Janet

Ps Hope you can open the link to my message.

http://cdn-img1.imagechef.com/w/110122/62bcc4e154da4a90.gif

Natasa said...

Thank you, Janet. I wouldn't have made it this far without you. We inspire each other.
And I have something for you: http://cdn-users1.imagechef.com/ic/stored/2/110122/sampa62f5c02533af009.jpg
I haven't forgotten that your birthday is one day after mine.
Happy birthday, dear Janet.

Natasa said...

http://cdn-users1.imagechef.com/ic/stored/2/110122/
sampa62f5c02533af009.jpg
Janet, don't know what happened to the link the first time.

Janet Bianchini said...

Many thanks to you Natasa for your lovely surprise on my blog this morning! It's nice that our birthdays are so close to each other. Hope you had a great time yesterday.

Darren said...

That's my birthday too! Happy birthday!

Natasa said...

That's great, Darren. Happy birthday to you too.
There seem to be quite a few "January children" among TEFL bloggers.
Janet, it was a pleasure. Yes, I had a great day with my family. Hope you had a great day on 23rd.

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