Project 52 - Week 48

A very nice relaxing week with online moderating and working in the garden, helping to chop wood, and collecting lots of leaves. 

I used the leaves in my Christmas card making as seen below.  This card with the leaf needs to be finished...

I usually try to recycle all my old Christmas cards from previous years.  I enjoy making new cards out of them and embellishing them with stickies, which I buy from a local shop.  It takes me some time to create new ones, but it is a relaxing process.

I made some apple sauces with the numerous apples from the orchard, and started one of the home made mulberry jams I had stored.  It is quite delicious, I have to say :-)

I had bought the jazzy jam jar labels on my last trip to England and I think it makes the jam jars look more interesting now..

We have named one of the kittens 'Tiny Tim' as he has not grown very much, due to the fact that at feeding time, he often gets left behind in the frenzied foray into the food bowls.  We have allowed him into the house, and he is getting lots of tlc.  Here he is sitting on my jumper, in the garden.

We were out and about in the week and on the motorway I noticed this large poster advertising the wonders of motorway travel!   It reads 'You are in a wonderful country.  Explore it with us.'  I love the way English is used in the middle of the sentence beneath the picture!

Finally, I have got my Christmas calendar ready for tomorrow, December 1st.  There is a little chocolate behind each numbered box.  I wonder who will be up first to open door number one!!

We hope to get our Christmas tree in the next week or so from a local garden centre.
 
I have been reading all about the mad shopping frenzy that occured in the UK on 'Black Friday,' and I am so glad that I was nowhere near any of those shopping centres that day. 

Living here in Abruzzo, I have learned that I don't need much for a simple and happy life.

Week 47 - All About Abruzzo!

It's been a very quiet week, so not many photos, I am afraid!  I took some photos when we went to the local DIY store.  Here you can see the sliding door at the entrance which says' Now is the time to do / make something!!' There was a DIY promotion week, with some low prices on many items.

Below you can see a shelf full of Abruzzo wines.  

Hard to choose which one to buy really as they are all quite reasonably priced!  We bought a bottle of Montepulciano d'Abruzzo 'Miglianico' and it was very nice indeed.

 Bottles of wine from Abruzzo are usually quite expensive in the UK, but of course, they are much cheaper here, where the wine is actually produced.

Below in the distance (yellow/orange colour of the grapevines), you can just about make out one of the many vineyards near our home, which produce this special wine.  There are many 'cantinas' in the area, where you can buy bottles straight from the producer.

K took the photo above and I took the one below, both of the same view.

I introducd myself on an online course I am doing, and below is a collage that I included:

Still on the theme of Abruzzo, I have 2 copies of a magazine called 'Tesori D'Abruzzo'.  It is published 4 times a year and for 5 Euros, you get fabulous articles about Abruzzo's history and heritage, and also some wonderful photos.  I have numbers 30 and 32.  I wish I had bought all of the numbers as they came out, as to have the whole collection would be fantastic, but at 9 Euros for a back copy, that would make it 279 Euros for the whole set (gulp!!), which is way beyond my very modest means.... 
This magazine was first published in July 2006 and below you can see some of the early copies available to buy.

I decided I wanted to subscribe for a year, and it was a very simple process.  I downloaded and then printed off the online subscription form, filled it in, then paid 19 Euros at the Post Office, and now I am waiting for the first one to arrive which should be in January.  I can't wait to get it!  However, not sure how it is going to arrive as the postman is still not delivering to our house, so we will probably have to collct it from the PO.

Whilst reading one of the 2 copies that I have, I noticed this absolutely stunning video, highlighted on the main page.  It is called Twofold Nature - Abruzzo Sublime and Beautiful, from Alessandro Petrini.  I think this will certainly encourage a lot of visitors to come to Abruzzo!!


Twofold Nature - Abruzzo Sublime and Beautiful from Alessandro Petrini on Vimeo.

Week 46 - In Aura of New Technology.......

My wonderful mlearning course came to an end on Friday and I will miss being a student!!  I have always loved studying from when I was a child and just enjoy the process of learning something new.  This way, my life is always interesting and full of new experiences!!

I created an 'Aura' (interactive experience featuring an animation, video, or image) on Aurasma, an Augmented Reality site for the first time. I struggled a bit at first with this new cutting-edge technology.  I was an Augmented Reality newbie, and I tried my best, but it involved a little bit of determination and tenacity to get to grips with it. If you join the site and then follow JanetBianchini you can see my auras!!  An 'aura' is an overlay on a trigger = image. 

I learned that Aurasma is already being used in educational projects in schools and here is an interesting review of it by Edudemic.  

If you download the Argos catalogue app, you will be able to view some of its products in AR format. 





Link: http://www.aurasma.com/news/argos-launches-aurasma-powered-augmented-reality-in-app/

Early in the week, I created an action plan for implementing mlearning in my future teaching projects.

 

I had to create an Augmented Reality video farewell and below is the 'trigger' image I created with simple MS Word shapes.  I printed it out, put it on blue card, and then embellished the card with hearts, diamante buttons and pearls to make it something eye-catching and memorable!!

I even got Fluffy hooked on AR and this is his 'trigger' picture:

 

K was curious about the Aurasma site and promptly created an account and started playing around with it.  He has already created some amazing 3-D models, which move around, and the results in static pictures are below:

I was online quite a lot and I was checking that my webcam worked when I took this 'selfie' test screenshot.  I then edited it with Picasa tools!



Leaf Mulch
Now changing the subject completely (and getting back down to reality!), this week I have been collecting leaves, and leaves and even more leaves to make nice friable leaf mulch for spring!!  


I created a set of labels to add to old recycled compost bags and spent hours going round the garden with my tub and gloves.  We have an incredible amount of leaves all over the place, so I think I won't have to buy much compost next year!  I experimented with Word Art.

..and here are the labels on the compost sacks!!  I hope to add even more sacks full of leaves in the coming days.  They will then be left alone and forgotten until early spring 2015.  I will add the mulch around olive trees and my veggie plot.  This time I am cutting all the leaves up finely before adding them to the sacks, adding a bit of compost on top and then adding water to give them a great start.  This is something practical I learned from my 'Backyard Composting' book!

Also we have had a bumper crop of apples this year and I have been collecting them and will need to continue turning them into jams, purees, compotes, stews etc. to put in the freezer.

Finally, this week sees the end of my EVO Moderator Training session and it has been a great experience.  I have been commenting on some of the proposals for next year, and there is an impressive line-up in store, including Teaching Pronunciation, Using Minecraft and so on!!  All sessions need to be approved before they go 'live' in January.  I hope to attend the final webinar this afternoon.

That's it for now.  It's been an action-packed week, and I am ready for Week 47!!

Week 45 - Wine Festival

Another week and the highlight was the wine festival on Saturday held in Catignano, one of the nearest villages.  We had seen this flyer of the event, and had decided we wanted to go there to enjoy the atmosphere.  Once there, we did a tour of the village with all the 'cantine' stops and local produce stalls.

Screenshot taken from the flyer
The young people of Catignano got together in 2004 and started up a group to rejuvenate the village and to bring more tourism to the local area. The group is called 'Pro Loco Catignano'.

We wandered round the narrow alleyways and enjoyed a lovely walk, listening to the Fantomatik orchestra playing local music from the Abruzzo area.  The alleyways became quite packed with people enjoying themselves in the warm November evening. We stopped for a bite to eat and a glass of Montepulciano wine.  We ordered some arrosticini, and they were truly amazing!

Earlier in the week I had created a Planet Jigsaw puzzle for part of my mlearning course and below is one I have done just for fun, of me and the motorbike.



20 Jan moto 1  I also did a bit more  reading on QR codes:

.....and was inspired to create a new introduction to my life via QR codes.  I think I will update it to include a small picture of me...

I was also inspired to update Fluffy's CV and below is what I created:

A visit to a different part of Abruzzo mid week and the chance to take a photo of this lovely olive tree.  It has been edited using software on K's mobile phone.

An image below of Raimondo, relaxing in the November sunshine!

That's it for this week.  Roll on Week 46!!

Project 52 - Catch up Weeks 43 & 44

Well, Week 43 went past at a rapid speed and before I knew it, it was over and I realised with some trepidation that it was a bit late to post.  So this week it is 2 for 1 and I have added week 44 into the mix!

At the beginning of the week I got a lovely surprise when I was invited by Lana to become a guest blogger for SEETA, on the subject of 'My Working Week'.  Sadly I am not teaching full time at the moment, so I asked if I could leave blogging until early spring 2015, when I hope to do more teaching at the Lake... Watch this space!!

My mLearning course is already over halfway through and I am learning so much.  I love being a student again, and so I was a bit worried when the Internet was down from last Saturday lunchtime til Monday night.  This meant 2 days of no access, hence another reason for my not posting last Sunday.  I managed to do course work offline, however, ready to post as soon as the Internet came back up.

This is a podcast I produced for one of the tasks on the subject of what makes me happy.  No prizes to guess what really makes me a happy bunny!!  This was one of the tasks I had to do, and I really enjoyed creating an mlearning lesson plan based on the theme of happiness.

For some reason I can't get the Podomatic embed code to work here, so here is the link to the podcast:

http://janetbianchini.podomatic.com/entry/2014-10-28T05_58_24-07_00

I like trying out new ways to reply to posts and here is my favourite quote from a TED talk I based the Happiness lesson plan on:

The lesson plan will soon be added to this site here and everybody is welcome to use it or adapt parts of it :-)

I added this picture of My Precious teddy bear bought in Harrod's on the occasion of a special birthday 7 years ago....

I also tried out Photo Grid again and added the Android app to my smartphone. This is a collage I created quickly and easily as an example of  a possible 'Show and Tell' weekend activity that you could get students to do on their mobiles:

Here's a single photo frame with a special Halloween theme.  There are lots of other themes available to choose from in the PhotoGrid app. I like it because it is so quick and easy to make beautiful collages straight from my phone!

I also experimented with a fun fake newspaper creator and added this as a lesson idea. You can scan the QR code and it takes you to a very short Youtube video clip..... 

 

As well as doing the mlearning course which I am thoroughly enjoying, I am also doing a 4-week moderator training session for EVO, and this means having to read lots of articles, responding to posts and generally getting the hang of Google+ again.  I was not so keen on starting up an account last year, as I can hardly keep up with blogging and Twitter these days, but I can see it is very useful in a closed group community, such as the EVO Moderators group.  There are 75 of us in total and it is great fun interacting and getting to know each other and discussing EVO matters together.

I have been invited to do a webinar talk for the IATEFL YTL sig in January 2015 by Dr Nellie Deutsch, and I was honoured to accept.  Now the only thing is I am not sure what to present!!  Do I do one on Comics and adapt previous presentations and update them for a new one (this is a tempting option), or do I do one from scratch, but that would need lots of weeks of preparation??  I am still not sure, but I hope to decide by the close of day!!

So all in all a busy fortnight of studying, socialising and a bit of gardening.......

Roll on Week 45!!