My Ship Has Come In

Visual Assignments 379 - Your Dreams Out the Window

I have been keeping myself busy at the Macguffin Camp - reading about photography, doing my Daily Create assignments (did each and every one so far this week) and thinking about my visual assignments. I have completed two and the third is under way, but nobody knows about them. The reason why nobody knows about how diligent I have been is that I haven't updated this blog of mine.

I am going to be brief here, since I desperately want to go back to thinking about my visual assignments. I swear, they are addictive. These days I can't wait to get home so that I can update my Daily Create and play with my photo editors. I have even started carrying my camera with me and today, when my students left the classroom, I took some more photos (of the classroom and out the window). I did this, I reasoned, so that I could catch the light. Most of my Daily Create photos so far have been Nightly Creates, as I usually do them when I get home from work.

Anyway, what's this story of my ship coming in?

Visual Assignment 379 asks us to photograph our best daydreaming window and alter it to show what we are dreaming of. I am dreaming of the holiday and of the time I am going to spend at the sea-side with my family. It is as simple as that. Though, while I am at the sea-side, I will have to abstain from the Daily Creates and other Camp activities. You can't have it all.

And here's how I did this task:

I used PhotoFiltre. It is not in our packing list, but it is free to download and use. I wrote about PhotoFiltre here.

 I copy-pasted the ship onto the window as shown in this video:



After that I painted the area around the ship using the brush tool and some dark red paint matching the window.

The result is amateurish, but not too bad.

Technorati Tags: DS106, VisualAssignments, VisualAssignments379, VisualTutorials379

My First Letter Home from the Camp

My Daily Create Number 164 - a picture of water, stone and clouds

Dear Mom,

I am really sorry I left without letting you know where I was. I knew you wouldn't have let me come to Camp Magic Macguffin. You think I am too young to travel on my own, but, Mom, you need to understand that I am a big girl now and perfectly capable of taking care of myself.

I am also sorry that I didn't write. Here I am now, Mom, and I am going to write to you regularly.

Everybody is very kind at the camp. I am staying at Slaughterhouse Four with 12 other people. I know what you are thinking - it is a bit crowded, but everybody is great. I have my own canopied bed. You know I always wanted one.

I also have my creature comforts and I am happy:




There are jasmine bushes all around my bunkhouse and they smell really sweet:


My Daily Create Number 147 - Out of Focus

I am having a lot of fun at the camp, but I am also working very hard and doing my homework. So, please, stop worrying.

Love,

Your daughter

Technorati Tags: DS106, weeklyletter

A Latecomer to Camp Magic Macguffin

My Daily Create assignment No 146 - a photo that represents destruction

I joined Camp Magic Macguffin a while ago, then forgot all about it, shame on me. I joined the camp because I love digital storytelling and the DS106 activities will give me something fun to do during summer. Since I am an open participant and not doing this for credit, I hope it is still not late to start creating.

I am grateful to @olHatchetJack for showing me the way to Bunkhouse Four and to @cogdog for reminding me that I haven't written a single blog post so far. So, here I am now.

If you are one of my regular readers and only came here looking for TEFL lesson ideas, I believe you are still at the right place. The reason why I didn't create a separate blog for DS106 is that I think that most of the stuff I do here can be transformed into lesson ideas. Today is no exception.

The first task I have decided to tackle is "Vonnegut and The Shape of Stories". Here is the original video:

Our task was to describe the shape of a story we are familiar with, based on Voneggut's video. Here is my contribution:

So, have you recognised the story yet?

Technorati Tags: DS106, VonnegutStory

Webskills Part 1 - Nicenet

Photo on Flickr by Aphrodite

I made a promise some time ago - I said I was going to write about my Webskills experience. Then I got very, very busy. Here I am now, ready for the first post.

My intention is not to transfer the whole learning experience into a series of blog posts. What I'll do instead is give you little bits and pieces, showing you how I am applying the knowledge in my teaching and giving you ideas how this could be explored further.

I decided to start with Nicenet because it was our main medium of communication during the course. Also, I have been using it with my CAE class ever since.

Nicenet is an "Internet classroom assisstant". It is a safe place for a class forum. The people behind Nicenet believe that "the classroom is not a marketplace", so you will find no advertising on the site.

The U of Oregon team has provided a very useful step-by-step instructions sheet on how to open a Nicenet class. The first page is intended for the teacher, while the second page can be printed and given to the students. It is a Word document and you can download it here.

It is very important to note that a class can't be accessed without the class key. If privacy is your issue, you couldn't have come to a better place. No one will be able to find your class unless you give them the key. No one will know your class is even there. Of course, this might be a big drawback as well, depending on how you look at it.

Another drawback of Nicenet is that, if you want to use HTML, you have to put it there yourself. Let's say that you want to create a link to my blog. It will have to look something like this:

 

You can substitute my link and my text by anything you want. Here's how: 


 

Feel free to copy-paste this code into your Nicenet posts, just make sure that you have removed my links and my text and replaced them with yours. This particular code will open your link in a new window, which is very convenient.

Alternatively, you can learn more here. 

Flickr photos can be embedded into Nicenet posts by copy-pasting the embed code. You can't embed YouTube videos or other multimedia, though.

What I am doing in Nicenet with my CAE students right now is a book club of sorts. I share a new short story with them every week. They read it and write a short review or answer a couple of questions I have asked them. It works, since CAE students desperately need extensive reading. What they also need is a place where they can write freely and exchange opinions, since most of their regular writing homework revolves around exam preparation. 


If looking for short stories to do with your students, here's where you can go: American Stories for English Learners.

That's all for now, folks, but stay tuned for more. I would also like to inform you that I will be the guest blogger on SEETA at the end of May.

 

If you are not a SEETA member, why not join? It is a wonderful site with lots of great workshops to attend and everything is free. See you there, I hope.

Technorati Tags: TEFL, SEETA, Webskills, Nicenet

April Fools 2012 - A Lesson Plan

Photo on Flickr by David Reeves

This year April 1st was on a Sunday, which is unfortunate. However, while it was impossible to make a lesson plan for that day, it seems quite OK to make one a week after the day.

April Fools online has provided a wealth of resources that can be exploited at leisure, mostly thanks to the Google guys and their geeky sense of humour. Other geeks have joined in the fun as well. Some of the videos sound more like prophecies than like jokes. Take, for example, the self-driving car and Chrome's "multitasking" function. My favourite remains last year's Google Motion, but this year it has been joined by the equally hilarious Google Really Advanced Search. And I want that fiber bar.

If you don't quite know what I am talking about, here's my collection of this year's online April Fools jokes:

April Fools

As you can see, I have used Storify to create this lesson and the questions for the students are inside. I learnt how to use Storify in Nik Peachey's "Adapting Your Coursebook With Technology" workshop on Seeta.

Storify is a really handy tool. You can search for different media while inside it and it is easy to drag and drop items into your story. That way you can create your own collection of readings and listenings for the students, or they can create their own stories collaboratively. Here's Storify's help page with a collection of screencasts.

Next year, I will be on the lookout for Google April Fools jokes and I might even do a scavenger hunt with my students and ask them to search for online pranks.

Technorati Tags: TEFL, "April Fools", Storify, Google, Reading, Listening

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Life After Webskills

I am a little disoriented. I feel like I haven't been online for 10 weeks.

In fact, I was online all the time. When I wasn't working, I spent every waking moment online, typing, reading, playing with web tools. I was online, but I didn't update this blog. I didn't visit Facebook or tweet. I didn't participate in my forums and I didn't leave comments in your blogs.

I spent every single moment of my time online in my Webskills course. I even blogged elsewhere.

Webskills is a long-distance course offered through the University of Oregon's Linguistics Department/American English Institute (UO AEI). The full course name is Building Teacher Skills through the Interactive Web and you can find out more about it here. This is one of the seven courses offered through the E-Teacher Scholarship program. You can find out about other courses this program offers here.

It was amazing. That is all I am going to say at this stage. I will not even try to cram the 10 weeks of this wonderful course into a single blog post. That will not do the course justice. I want to take time and share at leisure. One thing I learnt in Webskills is that, every time we reflect on something we did or something that happened to us, we learn something new.

I can't promise that I will do this in an uninterrupted series of posts. There are other things that I want to write about as well.

If you are impatient, you can read my Webskills blog. However, it is a very reflective blog (even more reflective than this one) and it was aimed at other participants of the course. In order to share what I learnt with a larger audience, I have to start from scratch and present, rather than reflect.

If you pay attention to the Wordle I started with, you will see that it resembles a jigsaw puzzle. That is because going through the course felt like putting together pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and, once the last piece was in, I could see the big picture.

I was going to write more about the course here, but I would like to try something else instead. I would like you to look at the Wordle-puzzle from the beginning of this post and tell me what you see. Listed are the topics we covered, some websites we used and some practical tasks we did. If you could describe this puzzle with one word or one sentence, what would it be?

I know this is a very difficult challenge. After all, I just spent ten weeks learning about something and now I want you to figure it out from a single Wordle. It is a crazy idea and it came to me while I was writing.

I hope this will at least peak your curiosity. Stay tuned.

Technorati Tags: TEFL, Webskills

Ladies and Gentlemen, My New Podcasting Blog

Photo on Flickr by John Thurm

It has been a week since EVO sessions have finished and I haven't had time to post. I haven't finished all my Classdigitools assignments and I am really planning to. Once I finish all Week 5 projects, I will post about them here.

I have, however, completed all my Podcasting tasks and I proudly give you Natasa's Podcasting Blog. The blog, exactly as it is, is the final product of the workshop, an eportfolio. This doesn't go to say that it will always remain as it is now. I am planning to add more pages once I start working on my future podcasting projects, but at this stage, everything you see there has been created during the workshop.

Here is a preview:

Natasa's podcasting 2012 blog

View more PowerPoint from lunas994

The blog contains three pages - About Me, My Podcasts and My Podcast Projects. I will share some highlights here:

Here is something about me, but I mostly talk about my school:



My interview with Janet Bianchini:

Podcast Powered By Podbean

My Mystery Person:

My future podcasting plans:



Finally, my "Animotocast":





It is not difficult to create an "Animotocast". You just create an Animoto clip the usual way and, instead of choosing their audio, you upload your own. The trick is to have enough photos ready to last you until the end of your audio. Otherwise, your podcast will be cut short. It goes both ways, so be prepared to sacrifice some of your photos if the audio is short.

You can create the audio for your Animoto using any of the podcasting tools, but I am hooked on Audacity. If you think Audacity is scary or too difficult to use, I advise you to attend the next Podcasting EVO session. You won't regret it. I feel that


Original image on Flickr by Floeshie

Technorati Tags: podcasting2012, podcasting, TEFL