Natasa's blog

Saturday, 31 January 2009

My first Podomatic podcast

One of our Week 3 assignments in BaW09 was to create a podcast. As I have said before, I hate listening to my own voice. Maybe the medium takes a little time to get used to, but I am just not comfortable with audio. I got all confused at the end (plus my microphone is bad), but I decided to post it anyway. So, here it is. Don't laugh.

I know it would be really useful to be able to create your own listening exercises. As I have said, maybe I'll get used to it in time (though i doubt it). Or maybe I'll wait till BaW09 to create my second podcast.

I want my students to...

I Want My Students To

View more presentations from lunas994. (tags: week3 slideshows)

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Friday, 30 January 2009

Who am I and what is this blog all about

My name is Natasa Bozic Grojic. Welcome to my blog.

I am a teacher of English from Belgrade, Serbia. I teach adults and I have been in this job for 20 years. My school is called Zaduzbina Ilije M. Kolarca and it is the oldest school of foreign languages in Belgrade. We have recently celebrated our 75th birthday. We are an accredited member of EAQUALS.

I am interested in Web 2.0 and its application in education. I am a lifelong online learner and a proud member of Webheads in Action.

You can find out more about my online activities if you look at my Netvibes page. I find this page very handy, as it enables me to keep everything I do on the Internet in one place.

I am also a wife and a mother. My son's name is Luka and he is 9 years old.

I enjoy reading good books. In case you want to find out about my favourite books, here is the link to my Shelfari profile. I also like watching good films, taking long walks, spending time with my family and writing. I have been passionate about writing ever since I was a little girl. That's probably why I enjoy blogging so much.

This is a personal blog, but it doesn't mean that there is nothing in it for you. As a teacher, I am eager to share my experience and talk to other teachers about what goes on in the classroom. As an online learner, I am on the lookout for new tools that I can use with my students. If you are a student of English yourself, I'll be happy to answer any question you might have or help you in any other way.

If you like this blog, you can subscribe to it via RSS or via email. You can also follow me via Twitter.

I hope that you will come here often. Your suggestions and comments are always welcome.

You might also like Five things you didn't know about me

Technorati Tags: about e, myprofile, aboutmyblog

Monday, 26 January 2009

Day 4 - A Blogger's Day in Hell

The Challenge was to interlink my archived posts. So, how exactly do you do it?

You go through your posts, old and new, find the stuff that is connected and, well, you link it. Easy?

Not if you want it to be complicated.

I didn't understand what interlinking was. I tried to work it out on my own. I read somewhere that there was a plugin that could make your task much easier. I ended up staring at some hypertext trying to find the exact place where I could put more hypertext.

Don't ask.

To cut the long story short, I lost an hour and a half trying to find a shortcut for something I could have done manually. Of course, I didn't manage. I don't 'speak' HTML and I had no idea where to put my piece of hypertext.

I ended up shouting for help. In the 31 Day Challenge wiki , on Twitter, everywhere. Now I know the task is as simple as tidying your old drawers.

Except that I never tidy my drawers. Or almost never. Which is why I hate this task.

While I was looking at my old posts, I realised I would have to go through a couple of them again. I haven't quite linked everything I intended to link, but not just because of that. There are some posts which could do with a picture. There are some pictures and slideshows which could do with a text. My tagging is strange or non-existent. And I never wrote Motivation, part 2 (although I promised in Motivation, part 1).

I will have to move on to Day 5, but I'll keep working on Day 4, I promise.

Thursday, 22 January 2009

My blog is one year old

I have not neglected my Blogging Challenge . I am still stuck on Day 3 . I will return to the challenge soon, I promise. So, instead of doing day 4 and interlinking my old posts, I will do something similar.

My blog is exactly one year old today and I am exactly... never mind that.

I would like to be able to say that I have gone very far and accomplished amazing things. That wouldn't be exactly true. I am still a beginner blogger and still not sure about the direction I should take.

One thing I know - I have had a lot of fun this past year. The posts I have enjoyed most, however, are the ones that don't link anywhere. You know, the personal stuff, the stuff that means a lot to me. I think that some of it wasn't badly written, either. So, those are the posts I would like to tell you about.

In January 2008 I found blogging very, very scary. It made me reveal all sorts of things about myself.

My own personal favourite is Everybody's Dog. I was sitting in an Internet cafe at the time and I was inspired to write this post about this dog... It isn't very useful or informative - but writing it made me feel good.

My second favourite post is My Global Neighbourhood.

In mid-February I was trying to decide what this blog was going to be about.

I didn't quite succeed.

On 19th February, I wrote about going to Second Life for the first time. In June, visited Van Gogh's museum and made this slideshow.

With time, I started blogging less and less. Now, thanks to the 31 Day Challenge, I blog almost every day.

I would like to finish with this. It was an assignment we had for Images4Education. The question was "Where are you from?" We were supposed to post a picture and a poem. It might provide an answer to where I am from, but where am I going... No idea.

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Technorati Tags: 31DayChallenge, SecondLife, Blogging4Educators, Images4Educators, PangeaDay

Monday, 19 January 2009

Images4Education - Week 2 Assignment

The place I am from

I am from the earth

Where my feet were planted

On the day I was born

Where I was watered

And sang to

I am from the birch

Whose juice can quench your thirst in summer

Where I was rocked

In a hammock

I am from the hexagonal house

Built by a surgeon with gentle hands

I am from the garden

Where you can rest in summer

I am from the little wood

Where my ancestor chose to be burried

I am from the river

Which can get really angry

And flood the fields

Otherwise it is nice,

Especially in summer.

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Technorati Tags: Images4Education

Day 3 - Join a Forum

I am already a member of several forums and groups which deal with teaching English and Web 2.0. You can see the Webheads in Action badge in my sidebar. I am very proud of it. Being a Webhead is like belonging to a large international family. Most of my groups and forums are 'spin-offs' of the WiA forum.

When I started using Twitter more actively, I started meeting warm and caring people outside the Webheads group - and that's what led me to the 31 Day Challenge. And now I know even more people and the conversation goes on and on. Once or twice I came across hostile people on the net (and some forums can be rather hostile - they call it 'discussion'). I never stayed long in such forums. There was nothing I could learn there.

Now I have joined two more: Betterblog and Edubloggerworld . Both are blogging communities, which is what I was looking for. I need to belong to a community which will encourage me to keep blogging.

And, once I finish with this blogging challenge, I think I'll start another one right away. I haven't had so much fun for a long time.