See you and good luck!
Thanks everyone for having been such good students. It was fun teaching you and learning from you too, and I'm not only thinking of salsa dancing...
I wish you all the best for your future in this country. Come around any time and say hello to us.
I joined another photo server, buble share. You can also record your voice. I decided to publish a few photos that I haven't posted before. They show a bit of our life in Hogben street (maybe we should have had more salsa and more table tennis).
I'm still trying to upload the video. Keep an eye on the blog, I may succeed one day. Robert is also trying.
I've uploaded Harjit's and Helen's radio programs in
Sydney's People Podcast and
Let's Talk. Marcela's is nearly ready, too. I'll upload the rest asap, so keep posted!
Labels: edublogger, English, esl, esol, multiculturalism, p2p
Digital Story Telling
Two weeks ago we watched Barbara's digital story,
close to my heart, and my short video of Gloria's fantastic performance. Today we will watch Liz's digital story about her trip to Afghanistan. You can see that it is something achievable. The main thing is to have a clear idea in your head of the story, find the photos and place them in a digital format, write a script and then get down to creating the digital story.
You can use
Photo Story 3 or
Windows Movie Maker . Click on them for the tutorials.
EXAMPLES
There are many examples in
Capture Wales*. A very good one, simple but effective, is the one with a shoe.
Silence Speaks,
Telling Lives,
Breaking Barriers,
Path of Me. Watch them!
Another great link with examples is the
BBC Humber Stories*.
Video Nation*, also BBC UK, has more digital stories.
Centre for Digital Storytelling tells you everything about digital storytelling. You can view stories in quicktime, which works at TAFE.
acmi is an Australian site with a digital story section.
Finally visit this post
What's in a name? from Ayden, a teacher whose students have published individual short photostories interpreting their names. They are in windows media player, so you won't have any problems watching them at TAFE.
And now, let's do it!
*To see most of the stories above, you need real player and we don't have it in the computer rooms.
- Last week you answered Barbara's questions on Language and identity. She has taken the time to read your answers and write comments in your blogs. You should try and reply to her comments, as they are open questions that invite you to engage in further communication. Read also some of the answers that the students from the caucasus women's groups wrote:
Siran's
Foreign Languages, from Armenia and Remziyye from Arzebaijan writes
Foreign Languages. Read their entries and respond to them in comments. You can leave a link to your own entry there.
- Visit Barbara's students podomatic, Pods from the Tropics. Listen to their podcasts and leave them a message, written or, even better, recorded. Remember to leave your name and a link to your blog.
- Everything comes to an end. This is our last computer class. It doesn't mean you have to stop blogging. The door has been open for yu to continue exploring, learning and getting in contact with other people. I hope you have enjoyed the trip, I certainly have. You've been great learners, adventurous, never afraid to take risks. It shows, too. Have a look at your first posts and see how you've becomemuch more independent in your writing and the topics have been more in depth as we've progressed.
You can visit our forum and answer the last question for this semester. Don't forget to continue working with Time4English and keep in touch. Good luck!
Thanks Liz, Djimi, Chika, Harjit, Palawat and everyone for the delicious morning tea you prepared yesterday!
Labels: edublogger, English, esl, esol, multiculturalism, p2p
Blog portfolio
Today you can start documenting your blog portfolio. One or 2 pages is enough. The work is on your blog, so ther is no need to print any of it, just a list of contents. The document you are going to prepare should have your blog URL, a list of your posts and comments you have posted on other people's blogs, any comments other people have made in your posts that you think are worth including and your choice of your best post. This will be the only post you can include in this portfolio document.
To help you with the technical side of things, the
how to do it, watch a
video with instructions on how to use Paint & Word to create your Blog Portfolio page/s.It will take a couple of minutes to download the video. Be patient. It will then ask you to save it , say yes. Once it's saved, you can open it. The video is a video of my computer screen. I talk to you as I open a blog, open paint and word to start writing a blog portfolio list. I hope you can follow the instructions.
- Take time to publish any posts you haven't published.
- Do the conditional exercises form Grammar in Time4English and any other exercises you feel like doing (maybe listening, film reviews, etc)
- Go to Approaches to learning. Remember your username is your TAFE number. Follow the instructions in the announcements.
Have a good day!
Labels: edublogger, English, esl, esol, multiculturalism, p2p
Foreign Languages, Identity and Intercultural competence
Thanks a lot to Gloria for a very entertaining show yesterday. Her imitation of Raphael was spot on. It brought back memories that were buried by many layers of new multicultural experiences.
I'm still waiting for someone to tell us what is new about our class blog appearance. And does anyone know where this photo was taken?
- Barbara Dieu (or Bee) is mentoring a group of young caucasus women. She has given them, and other esl students that feel like contributing their thoughts, some issues to think about.
She starts from the premise that language is a very important component in a person's identity. Nevertheles many of us live in a community where our mother tongue is not the dominant language. At the same time English is becoming widely spoken in all the world.
Watch and listen to her introduction,
close to my heart, as it is a very good example of a photostory or movie story, like the one I would like you to create.
Read her questions here:
young caucasus women- mentor page.Can you answer the questions she asks about languages, identity and intercultural competence?
Her students have started answering them in their blog
foreign languages identity and intercultural competence. Write your answers in your blog and leave them a link to your blog in their comments .
- Susan Marandi, a teacher form Iran, has a new class blog, Susan Marandi's blog,where you'll find links to her students' blogs. They are worth reading. Susan's students' English is very good and they cover a range of topics from English literature, Iranian traditions to the validity of housework. Read them and write comments to them. Maybe you could chose 1 or 2 students and visit them regularly and invite them to visit your blog regularly.
- Last week we didn't have a lot of time to do our work. Visit the Canadian site, Dear Ai, with advice, information,etc. and One stop English Friendship Advice Forum. Like I told you last week, they would make a very interesting funny radio program. One of you is Agony Aunt and the rest phone in with questions, unusual situations, etc .
- Go to Time4English and read Cultural Mistakes in Intermediate.
- Also in Time4English do the grammar excercises for Will and Would. You will find them in Grammr book, lettter W.
- Finally, also in Time4English, do WOULD & WOULDN'T WITH IF. It is more practice for the conditional sentences.
- Visit Sydney's People Podcast or Let's Talk to listen to Chika's radio program on transport and Anna's radio program on movies. Remember to pay attention ot your contribution in order to improve on your spoken language. Check with me if you have any doubts about your oral performance.
- Listen to Suzanne's Podcast, if you still haven't done it.
Labels: edublogger, English, esl, esol, multiculturalism, p2p
