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    Friday, September 29, 2006

    Dublin ESL students exchange

    Another guessing pic! Write your answers in comments. You were telling me that last week's picture reminded you of fields and hills seen form the air . Check some beautiful arial (birds' eye view) photos here.

    Peter Sheekey, an ESL teacher from Dublin (Ireland) has contacted me to see if you can have an exchange with his students. If you read this during the holidays, check their blogs in Peter's Class. We will work on more ideas for the exchanges with them and New Zealand after the Health Expo radio programs and Health surveys reports are finished. Meanwhile, you can answer his student's quizzes on Romania, Ukraine and Latvia. Write the answers in your blogs (so that nobody else sees them immediately) and leave a message in their blog asking Peter's students to see if they are correct.

    Room5 podcast is a blog where Primary school children from New Zealand publish their podcasts. Check them. They are amazing! Leave them a comment too, they'll be very happy to see that they have a wide audience.

    Check Marion's student Vicky's answer for the collage challenge from our excursion to the Sydney Harbour Pylon. She's got all the answers but 2! Can anyone guess the missing 2?

    More photostories hosted in Myspace is an amazing place. I've left a permanent link to a list of photostories on the sidebar. I'll be updating it and if/when you publish yours, it'll have a link there too. There're already two of yours there. Check them out!

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    Monday, September 25, 2006

    Health Issues

    As you know, we have committed ourselves to helping the Student Association with the organising of the Health Expo food. Our class is also conducting some health related surveys which will be answered by the other AMEP classes and some high level classes. We should finish typing them today. The surveys are on Alternative Medicines, Diet and Lifestyle.

    To help you with the vocabulary and content of your surveys and podcasts, check the following activities:

    • Go to Time4English, News Library 7J. Read the article Hot Chips cause Cancer. It's a good idea to read the three levels, it will help you with vocabulary and comprehension.
    • Now read the article 7Y Take-Away Food Dangerous. Read the three levels.
    In your blog write a summary of both articles and tell us what you think.
    • Check the following links to help us with the Health surveys for Health Day:

    Better Health Obesity. Do the worksheet Obesity. (You can print it or do it online)

    Better Health Skin Cancer, download the worksheet Skin Cancer.(You can print it).

    They have a BMI Calculator. You just enter your hwight and weight and it'll tell you your BMI and if it's healthy or not. (Thanks Marion for the tip!)

    Check their health quizzes to get more ideas for yours.

    • To prepare the radio programs for the Health Expo day, have a look at the program. Choose a topic or some stalls that you would like to visit and start preparing questions for the people who are manning the stalls.
    • You should also prepare a script:
    How are you going to introduce the radio program? Write a draft.
    What are you going to ask the experts?
    What are you going to ask the public (students and teachers).
    What can you ask the organisers of the day (Student Association and AMEP teachers and students)

    Check this idea: Radio program on music and recipes from all our countries done by William's New Zealand students (on a real radio station). We could just do it ourselves and broadcast in our podcasts.

    • Have a look at this great digital stories about Health! They were created by primary school children from Adelaide. This is one of the ideas we had for after our Health Day. You can also create some with the information you've got from all the literature we've been reading (like how to read food labels, skin cancer prevention, etc).
    • Totally unrelated, but relaxing (remember that mental health is very important too), have a look at 2 music videos that I found just by pure chance the other day. You will find the music familiar. Enjoy them!

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    Tuesday, September 19, 2006

    New Zealand friends

    You can listen to the podcasts & quizzes you prepared for our New zealand friends. They are all in a special post for them, Exchange with New Zealand.

      • William, their teacher has told me they have three weeks' holiday, but that you can look at their blogs in William's Class Blog. Five of their blogs are active. Visit them and write to them in comments.


      • Spain has decided to ban models that are too thin. Read about it in the Sydney Morning Herald and the abc7news. Write your opinion in our forum. Read everyone's opinion.
      • Answer theses questions and then write an article in your blog, including your opinion:
      1. What triggered the ban?
      2. What's BMI?
      3. What BMI should a model have to be allowed to participate in fashion parades in Spain?
      4. What's the average height, weight and BMI of a runway model?
      5. What are the arguments for and against?
      6. Check the meanings of gaunt, emaciated and wan. You can find many dictionalries on the internet (just wirte dictionary into Google). One of them is the Merrian-Webster
      7. How can you calculate someone's BMI?
      • I wrote a worksheet with information on how to upload digital stories onto an internet host in order to publish them onto your blogs. I hope it helps you and you are able to do it from home. Most of these sites are banned from TAFE.
      • Melinda Gleeson has re-published her page on Computer Health and the Quiz. I'll leave a permanent link on the sidebar. Do it now and remember to do the exercises regularly if you work at the computer for long periods of time.
      • Let's do the new work for Approches to Learning.

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      Monday, September 18, 2006

      Exchange with New Zealand







      Our class has prepared several activities for our New Zealand friends.

      • A description of our class. You can listen to it in Let's Talk and read the script at the same time. It was prepared by Robert & Sarina.

      • Oz Quiz (Whats' the meaning of Oz?). Prepared by Anna, Silvana & Gloria.

      • Oz Quiz 2. Prepared by Anna, Silvana & Dan.

      • An article on an Australian icon, Steve Irwin with a small interview to different students to get their reaction to his accidental death. Listen to it in Let's Talk. You can read the script here. It was prepared by Marielle, Sany, Dina, Chi & Sarina.

      • An interview with Sally, the teacher of AMEP-C, about the International Food Market organised by her students last week, also in Let's Talk. Check the beautiful poster Fawzia designed. The interview was conducted by Sany, Chi & Robert.

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      Tuesday, September 12, 2006

      Word Clouds













      Wordcloud made by snapshirts. Thanks Bee for the link!

      • Today we haven't got a lot of time in the computer room. Go to Marion's blog and read about Steve Irwin, carpe diem and what her students wrote about it. In your blog, write the meaning of carpe diem and write your thoughts about it.
      • Go to enough rope and listen to Steve Irwin's interview. Write your opinion in your blog. To listen and read at the same time, click on 2003 script and click on Listen to full interview. You can also view part of the interview by clicking Play Video (to read that part of the interview, open the full 2003 script, go to the top toolbar: Edit and go down to Find in this page. At the bottom of the page a window will appear, write one of the first words from the beginning of the video, like cartoon or conservationist, click on Find next and it will highlight that word on the script. Now you can start the video an dread at the same time).
        • Check Marion's students' blogs. They are making a lot of progress! Their answers to the collage are very good.
        • Go to Approaches to Learning. I rewrote the instructions to make them more user-friendly. See if you can follow them. There's a very good link to a website with drawings of a computer and its parts and functions.
        • We will finish our group writings & podcasts to be uploaded onto Let's talk:
          • Quiz for our New Zealand friends (insert pictures/map)
          • Steve Irwin: article and podcast (type and record)
          • Description of Our Class and podcast (type and upload)
          • Radio interview withSally and her students about International Food Market (record to upload)
        • Today's picture is made of words. Where do they come from? You can make your own for your blog!

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        Tuesday, September 05, 2006

        Digital stories


        Stop Press!
        Everyone is saddened by the sad news about Steve Irwin's death. YOu can read about it on the abc website, Steve Irwin's final moments.

        Next week you should be able to view the video from Andrew Denton's Enough Rope tribute broadcasted yesterday. You can read the transcript of an old interview from 22 March 2004, Steve and Terri Irwin.

        The collage on the right is from our excursion to the Pylon Lookout. Can you tell us what each piece of the puzzle represents?

        Have you started creating a digital story with your photos of the excursion?

        Two weeks ago when we had a digital story workshop, we used Photostory. There are other tools you can use to create a photo story. Below is an example of a very simple one created by Delia Bradshaw. It was done with bubbleshare. You can join on the internet. It is free. You can record your voice on each picture and it's very easy to add it to your blog.

        digital story






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        Add to my blog














        Other examples: Scissors, Remembering my grandmother.

        Another example is the one created by an AMEP student, Robert, at the end of last semester: Salsa.



        • An ESOL teacher from New Zealand, Hadashi* (real name William) has written comments in some of your blogs and would like you to exchange comments, etc with his students. I think it's a fantastic idea. What do you think? We could send them recorded questions, create a quiz on Australia for them, ask them about New Zealand, etc. Read your comments from him, answer them and start thinking... We will do an activity, Group Writing, based on his idea, to start working on this exchange.
        • Ramy told us about the news program Lateline. You can watch the video and read the script at the same time.

        * What does Hadashi mean? What language is it?

        • Go to Approaches to Learning and follow the instructions.
        • Read this poster created by one of Sally's students (AMEP-C). Don't bring lunch on Thursday! It's for a good cause and a great idea.

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