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!!

 

Week 26 - Half way Point

We are now halfway through this project and how time has flown!! It has been fun doing Project 52 together with Sue, and I feel inspired by her posts.

To mark the occasion, I have created a  tagxedo of this blog.  I just typed in my blog address and this is what it came up with.  I had fun trying to remember when and why I had used the following words, which include 'Facebook'.  I can't recall writing about Facebook these past 6 months, so that is a mystery why it is included!

This week I was delighted to see a reference in Shelly Terrell's wonderful slideshare presentation called Virtual Makeover: 15+ Ideas to Get Students Actively Learning Online This was part of the Teaching Online MOOC, which looks very interesting!

One of Shelly's slides with my 3,2,1 Introduction screenshot in the top left hand corner:

In the middle of the week, I was inspired to do nothing for 2 minutes after reading Ana Maria's excellent blog post called 5, 4, 3, 2, I Relax.....

Below a screenshot of the message I got when I actually followed the instructions and did nothing.  It was very relaxing indeed, and I should do nothing more often!!  Try it here!

Kittens have been crowding into my pots to sleep in at night time, and last night there were 5 squashed in.  I only managed to take a picture with 2 of them in.  As you can see, my sedum plant and Snapdragons have been well and truly squashed!

At the same time I managed to take a photo of a creature on my potted pea plants.  As you can see, it is extremely well-camoflaged!

 Last but not least, a picture of a kitten wrapped round a statue of a dog, fast asleep and purring away to its heart content....

Next week I won't be online much as I have family visiting from England, so I will be very busy.  Hopefully I can take a few nice photos to share here.

Week Ten

This week has been a very nice quiet one and that is the way I like it!   
K took the motorbike out for a spin yesterday evening and has kindly given me permission to add this photo here.

I just love all the colours of the sunset.  This was taken at the top of our road.  The predicted rain still hasn't arrived and fingers crossed it won't be too bad if it does come.  The road is beginning to move again, (yes, I know, it is a scary thought) and cracks are appearing across it again.

I created a tagxedo heart for a summary on Monday.

I highlighted a forthcoming Spring Blog Festival on my main blog here.  
I reused the image of the almond tree in blossom, as I like it so much!

It promises to be a great event and lots of presenters will be discussing the art of blogging, including Shelly Terrell, Sylvia Guinan and many more.

On Thursday I picked a few flowers to put in this sweet little jug I bought from a charity shop.  I like to add fresh rosemary twigs into the display.

I am keeping a constant eye on the bowl of olives I am pickling.  They were freshly picked off our trees in November and have been in a brine solution since then.  I have to keep checking the taste and changing the liquid from time to time, and tonight I think they are almost ready for eating!  They taste quite delicious and the sprigs of rosemary adds a nice flavour to them.

I recycled some plastic tubs which had contained food and made some plant labels out of them. Nothing ever goes to waste!

I created a Good Luck comic to send to 2 colleagues who are going to China for a few weeks to do some teacher training on behalf of the Lake School. Comics are a fun way to send all kinds of messages.

Our cutter hadn't arrived by Friday so I had to ring the company to ask where it was....It should arive tomorrow.

A lovely Friday evening spent in a local pizzeria with some friends.  It was great to catch up on their news and it all came to the princely sum of 10 euros each.  We had a huge pizza each and wine and beer to drink.  In the UK an equivalent meal would cost up to £20 per head, so prices can still be reasonable in Italy.

For an online weekend activity I created a rose Tagxedo to highlight activities I was doing over the weekend.  

A nice relaxing week, all in all!

Roll on Week 11.

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!!