Project 52 - Week Seven

Monday was spent pottering around with seedlings and checking of pots.  I sowed some Cut & Come Again lettuce seeds and put them in a tray in the window sill in the empty back room.

I really enjoy looking through my packets of seeds and planning when and where to sow them!

A view of one of our almond trees which is just in blossom now.  It's the first sign of spring approaching!

Spring arriving in the garden

Off to Penne on Thursday, a beautiful day!  Below a vision of the snow-capped mountains nearby.

 A view of the entrance to Penne from the other side.

Then we enjoyed a lovely celebration meal in La Grotta, in the centre of Penne.  We celebrated K's birthday on 15th January, and mine on 23rd of January.

I love the decor and ambience in La Grotta and the food was fantastic!

I want to buy some uplighters like these in the picture above. They come from Castelli, one of my favourite villages in Abruzzo!

Below a bigger image.  I can imagine how lovely these will look on our walls!

I received a nice ecard in the morning!

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Friday being Valentine's Day we decided to go off on a motorbike trip to Palombaro, setting for the new film Lords of London, starring Ray Winstone.  A film review here.

Palombaro is a beautiful hill-top village in the middle of the Abruzzo mountains, within the national park of La Maiella.


First, though, we had to get down our road, so K kindly drove me to the top of it. The top end isn't too bad at the moment, and it is drying out as you can see below...

 

Whilst waiting for K to go back home then grab the motorbike, I had a bit of fun taking a selfie of my shadow!

 

The end of the road on the other side....

An unbelievable blue sky today!!

 

My carriage arriving!!

It's too risky to carry a pillion going from the house to the end of the road, so that is why we had to do 2 separate journies along the 1.2 kilometre long road.

Once on the motorbike we set off and travelled for about an hour, stopping off for a coffee on the way. 

As we got closer to Palombaro the day got more and more sombre-looking and misty.

Approaching Palombaro in the Abruzzo mountains

The scenery surrounding us was beautiful and I loved seeing it pass by.  K was video recording everything on his GoPro camera attached to his helmet.

Palombaro in the distance...

We walked around the streets reliving the scenes from the film.  Then we had a lovely lunch at the Dal Pagano Trattoria up in the mountains, where the view was truly spectacular.  We were served by the owner and chef, Leonardo, who was very nice and friendly.  He told us the star of the film, Glen Murphy, had fallen in love with the area and had bought a house near Palombaro.  This is why Lords of London was filmed in Palombaro, because he wanted to promote the Abruzzo region!

Walking around the village we came across this sculpture of hands holding a heart, with 'To the Giver' inscribed as a caption. ...

I feel a little bit sad that the EVO eBook session is finishing today, but I am sure there will be posts to view over the next few days, so it won't really be the final ending. It will be nice to keep in touch with the community....   I enjoyed checking in on a daily basis to see the amazing ebooks created.  All the participants have put their heart and soul into their beautiful ebook chapters and they should all feel very proud of their achievement!!


Here is a link to the Padlet set up as a feedback to the session.

Here is a Bookr I have created as a little personal feedback.


 



Week 7 has been a very enjoyable and lovely one! 

Project 52 - Week Six

Monday was a very busy day going to the doctor's with my mum to see about her new medication, then an appointment with the OT in the afternoon.  All was well and my mum has recovered very well from the setback she suffered in January, thank goodness.  Then shopping, lunch together and back home to pack my bags and then early to bed at 9pm.  I set 3 alarms to ensure I would get up on time.

I was up at 3am on Tuesday morning and caught the Stansted coach at the unearthly hour of 3.55am.  An uneventful journey to the airport and the flight arrived into Pescara at 1pm.  K was there to pick me up and off we went home, where I was greeted with this lovely welcome message in the kitchen.

Since then it has been hectic dealing with Telecom Italia engineers who have been here to fix the phone line, which hadn't been working for the past two weeks.  They couldn't believe how terrible the road was and they refused to go down it with their van, so K ended up having to ferry them up and down from the end of the road to our house several times. 

Luckily the water pipe was fixed earlier as well, and it is now above the road looking quite ugly.  They can't bury the piping until the road has been fixed!!  Then off to the local 'Comune' to pay a Rubbish Tax bill and I bumped into the lord Mayor.  I collared him and asked him about when our road was going to be  fixed, but he explained the land was still wet (true) so no point in starting the work until the weather is a bit more stable.  I asked him not to forget us, and that we have great difficulty in getting down the road now, and that it is a very urgent matter...

Checking up in the garden and all my pots was a very important duty for me and it was lovely to see the various furkids POTtering about, pun intended, lol ...

 Despite adding the netting as a deterrent, the kitties still insist on using my pots as a resting area!!

I couldn't resist taking these photos of Fluffy and Olivia chilling on the balcony.

Fluffy enjoying a catnap

Olivia deep in thought

Shopping for bits and pieces on the Wednesday, I spied a lovely carpet, which would be nice for the kitchen or living room area.

The colours are quite vivid, but they are the right ones which would go with the rest of the decor. It measures 160 x 230 cms and may be a bit on the short side, so will have to think about it for a bit longer before buying it....

During this week, I was in communication with Dr Nellie Deutsch about my presentation on WIZiQ for Connecting Online 2014.  She is an amazing person, and I admire her for all the work she does for the teaching community.  She has been organizing the free Connecting Online econferences since 2009.  I am proud to have been a part of this event the past few years both as a presenter and attendee.  All the webinars are free and Dr Nellie organizes everything perfectly.  She is able to attract some of the world's leading educators to present for CO14.

I have attended Vicki Davis' webinar on  Reinventing Writing, and Dr Bob Diotalevi's session on Copyrightdot.com: Teaching Old Dogs New Clicks .  I am looking forward to attending Dr Curtis Bonk's webinar this afternoon called Experiences of Publishing of an Open Access and (free) PDF and then Shelly Terrell's webinar on Reimagining Online Learning & Reflective Multimedia Eportfolios this evening. 

I created a ToonDo comic to highlight this fantastic CPD event this weekend, and also wrote a quick blog post to showcase the information about it here. My presentation is on tonight at 11pm and it is the same one I did for RSCON 2013, so am looking forward to it very much.

It will have been an exciting weekend of CPD!!
 
This week, I have tried to pop in to the EVO ePerfect Book session as often as I can to leave comments.  I am amazed at the creativity and originality of the proposed ebooks and the wonderful energy emanating from the participants.  I wasn't able to attend Saturday's Week 4 HoA, but I have already viewed Andre Sprang's fab Prezi presentation.  I have learned so much from him and from all the team of moderators.  I am also learning from all the keen participants. This collaboration is what makes EVO sessions so incredible, as they are a powerhouse of learning and connectivity!!

 

Project 52 - Week Four

Another hectic week with me starting full time work at the Lake School of English, lots of family commitments, and checking in on the EVO Crafting the ePerfect Textbook session any spare moments, but in particular, late at night.  

On Monday morning I had a lovely welcome and met my new classes.  A2+ in the morning, and B2+ in the afternoon.  A nice mix of nationalities, including Arabic, Japanese, Swiss, Argentinian.

I usually like to focus on speaking skills, but also ensure a good mix of all skills.  I recorded me reading a text about the woman who invented Ragu sauce on my Android and used it as a listening activity. I am going to do a short writing activity every day and then do follow-up error correction with lots of spelling tests.  The students are taking a mix of KET and IELTS exams and so will need to do lots of authentic reading. I used a new tool called festitext to jazz up my intro text:

I encouraged my students to send me voice recordings of their homework and I was delighted to see how keen they were to send me their messages.  I replied by using Vocaroo. 

A Special Day

Lovely gifts from Marion

JibJab egreetings from K

A fun JibJab birthday ecard from K was in my inbox and it made me smile!  One full of cats, I wonder why, lol, plus another one of a Flamenco dancer!

Janet, the Flamenco dancer

Muzy collage below showing a set of cushion covers with a cat design given as a present, some lovely cards, beautiful flowers from the Lake School, and a birthday cake from my parents.  During the morning coffee break all the staff was treated to a fabulous array of cakes and special coffee ..... it was a lovely surprise!!

Also, during the day, I was touched to see many egreetings in the EVO session Google+ community, and that was so nice!!

Shelly also mentioned me and other birthdays in the fab Week 2 Google+ Hangout on Air video session held on Saturday, which I have just finished viewing, and this was so thoughtful :-))

Whilst I am writing this up, I'd like to add a belated birthday greeting for Natasa, a fellow blogger and EVO participant :-)

In the evening I went to Jamie's Italian in the city centre and had a lovely meal there, with a truly decadent chocolate birthday cake arriving.  Sadly all my photos came out blurred as earlier I had dropped my Smartphone and now am hoping I haven't ruined the camera part forever...

Continuing with the EVO session this week, I was blown away by all the enthusisam shown by the participants and was inspired to create a simple mind map, using text2mindmap, as seen below.

Catching up with hubby today, I finally heard from him after 3 days of no news from Abruzzo, due to our problematic and dodgy phone line, which needs fixing asap!!  I was relieved to hear all is ok, and all the furbies are behaving themselves.  I do miss each and every one of them, including K of course.  I had a peak at what he's been getting up to whilst I am away, by popping in to view his blog.

Roll on Week 5!!

Project 52 - Week Three

Week 3 began with a very busy Monday.  I am clearing the attic for my parents as there is a leak in the roof.  These chairs date from the 1970s and they have to go as they are not needed anymore.  I have to find a new home for them asap, and my wish was granted!!  A charity shop is coming to collect them all next week.

I am writing down all the interactions I have with participants on the Crafting the ePerfect eTextbook session as with over 500 participants attending, it is easy to get confused and forget what has been written and I have commented on.

I got another nice notification from Slideshare re my 2013 stats!

It was K's birthday on Wednesday so I sent him a Voki message from Oxford with me singing Happy Birthday to him.  We are going to celebrate both our birthdays as soon as I get back to Abruzzo!

Thursday was spent at the dentist's and the news was as I feared. Something has got to go.... and I am a bit nervous about what is going to happen on Tuesday!  The clip art gives a clue....

Image source: http://classroomclipart.com/clipart-view/Clipart/Dental/dentist_with_patient_jpg.htm

I created my first Haiku Deck!

I heard from K in Abruzzo that the 'Sindaco' had turned up to view the state of our road.  Apparently it will be fixed 'in una settimana' = one week.  Hopefully by the time I get back to Abruzzo, the road will indeed have been fully fixed!!  Fingers crossed it won't look like it is below - just mud!!

Below I have added a Tagxedo summary of all the tools the Evo Crafting the Perfect Ebook participants have used in the first week of the session for the 3,2,1 Introductions.  

33 tools and still counting!

I am learning about so many different tools on the session, and just wish I had more hours in the day.  As of tomorrow, Monday 20th January, I won't be able to interact in the EVO session so much, as I will be teaching up to 20 students f2f every day, so my focus will be on them.. However, I intend to use new tools I have learned about as soon as I have time :-)

That's it!  It's been a most hectic week with no 'Me Time' whatsoever, but I am still in one piece, and have enjoyed 'the good bits' very, very much indeed!!  

The 'bad bits' this week have involved dealing with Italian beauocracy refering to my father's missing Italian pension.  It has been an absolute nightmare trying to sort it all out, and has taken up a huge amount of time this week, both with numerous emails and phone calls to London and Italy. My father has not been paid his Italian pension for one whole year.  I will NOT let this injustice get swept under the carpet.... and I am rather stubborn...

To close on a positive note, I am looking forward to the challenges of Week 4!! 

Project 52 - Week Two

What a rollercoaster week this has been!  I heard unexpected news from England on Tuesday, which made me book a flight back to England a week earlier than anticipated.  My wish for a peaceful and calm start to the new year was not really granted...

A visit to Penne for shopping on Monday. It's a beautiful historical town.

Freddy enjoying the views of the garden.

The state of our road is atrocious and I rang the Sindaco (Lord Mayor) on his personal mobile to ask him when he was going to fix it. He said he would see what he could do, but basically I know the Abruzzo region doesn't have enough money after the severe floodings and landslides......

Would you be able to drive down this 'road' in your vehicle???  It was quite a hair-raising drive to the airport yesterday morning at 5.30am.  Our 'road' is 1.2 kilometres long and it is now mostly washed away into the valley.  I asked the Sindaco to come and visit it for himself.  The land is moving constantly and deep ravines have formed in the surrounding fields.....

The ruts in the road are getting bigger and bigger.  The sheer amount of water has forced the land to open up, as you can see below!

Yes, it was quite a soggy mess for a while!!

Our ancient 4x4 is getting battered and bruised by driving in these conditions, and the mudguard has come off.  We intend to take this to the Comune when I get back to Abruzzo and ask for a replacement one to be ordered, as it is a comunal road, therefore it should be driveable for the public. Let's see what happens next in this saga.

This week has been stressful with the news of my mother being rushed to hospital on Monday, just 6 days into the new year, and me being in Abruzzo at the time.  I am happy to say that she is now back at home, and I will be able to help with her rehabilitation, and I am very happy I can do this, thank goodness.

EVO 2014

This week, however, has also been exciting due to the EVO session I am currently moderating called EVO Crafting the ePerfect Textbook.  I wrote and published a blog post about it on my main blog here.  I was delighted to see so many familiar faces and members of my PLN joining in and posting their fabulous 3,2,1 introductions. 

As one of the 15 session moderators, I am welcoming as many of the new members as possible, and so far I have personally greeted 201 participants!! 

There are over 400 participants to date, so it is well and truly a MOOC.  (Massive Open Online Course).  It's the first time in my life I have ever moderated such a huge number of  participants. I am enjoying it very much indeed, and had got off to a flying start at the beginning of the week, but now being back in England much earlier than expected means I don't have as much free time as anticipated. However, I will be catching up with the action whenever I can, and of course doing my best!! 

Finally, I was notified by Slideshare today that my presentations have been viewed quite a few times...  I am absolutely delighted to hear this lovely piece of news.

Let's see what Week 3 of 2014 has in store....