So Much to Learn...So Little Time

Izzy, wizzy lets get busy

This week I have been doing mostly everything...and getting it all done.
I'n't study leave great.

No I'm not trying to make up an educational version of The Fast Show.
Very busy but extremely productive week so far. I have...

• recorded and (almost) edited 5 new vocabulary guide podcasts for the homework blog
• organised, planned and arranged our tree planting ceremony to celebrate both World Environment Day and our Connecting Classrooms Partnership (the Welwitschia partnership)
• made a good start on the above mentioned partnership's wiki page
• done all the wonderful and really necessary paperwork for Friday's activity day (we are going out into Huntly to make a film...)
• taught some good lessons (for once)
• got the car repaired
• had a filling done
• checked and submitted our partnership plan and budget for Welwitschia
• almost decided on some resources for the department to use during Refugee Week.

Now all that remains is...

• get my trip to Graz organised
• attend markers meeting
• mark tons of scripts before 21st June
• tweak my Welwitschia presentations for assemblies at school
• ditto for staff meeting
• muck around with my kids
• RELAX.

Just the average working week then.
Had to laugh at myself when I decided to try to fill in my CPD record. 35 hours logged before end of first term, and I wasn't even busy then.

Ho Hum.

Synchronicity

Amazing how staffroom conversations can be repeated throughout the land.
A Colleague today mentioned the programme on recently about a group of old folk making a video of their version of The Who's "My Generation". This reminded me of one of the most wonderful pieces of TV I have ever seen. The documentary about the Young@Heart Chorus and it brought to mind their moving version of Coldplay's "Fix Me" ( which I'd never even heard until then). On getting home I looked up Young@Heart and found I could download the song for a mere $3...so I did.
Then I went to My Yahoo to check my reading and lo and behold I find Ewan's post about The Zimmers and a comment about Young@Heart. Amazing.

By the way, download "Fix Me", its beautiful.

New and Improved In Service Podcast with free extras

  Here's the souped up version of the previous post's podcast.
It includes screenshots of my slides, url links to the relevant web pages and some music.
I recorded this presentation using a Griffin lapel mic connected to a Griffin iMic, connected to an Apple PowerBook G4 and Garageband 3.

Download aberdeenshire_and_city_modern_languages_in_service_day_may_2007.m4a

Notes to accompany presentation:

Promoting School/Departmental Activities
Resource bank / homework details
AifL/Peer Assessment
Reflection
Enterprise Activity
Collaborative Blog

What is a blog?
What is a podcast?
Typepad blogging tutorial
How to make a podcast

audacity download
audacity users guide
audacity tutorials

garageband 3
garageband tutorial

a good starters usb microphone

griffin imic / lapel mic

Some useful sources of information:
Joe Dale's ICT in Modern languages
Ewan MacIntosh
Ollie Bray
John Johnstone@Sandaig Primary
The Ashcombe School
MFLE blogs and podcasts
eggdeutsch

MFL Blogroll (courtesy of Joe Dale...thanks Joe)

This is a great list of links to MFL themed blogs from all over.

• A ship in the country
• Campo's Corner
• Edgehill College Spanish
• Eggdeutsch
• Ewan McIntosh
• Facing the currently unknown
• Inchinnan Primary
• Kirklandneuk Primary
• Langwitches
• Leanne Simmonds
• Lynne Horn
• MFL Innovations and Ideas Bank
• MFLE
• Montrose Academy
• Northgate High
• Partners in Excellence
• Rate my Mates
• Spectacularspanishandfabulousfrench
• Steph Hopkins
• TES ICT Blog
• TGS MFL HW
• Two Stars and a Wish
• Woodhill Primary
• York MFL PGCE

In Service 18th May 2007 (Blogging, Podcasting, Digital Video...in 30 mins.)

Blogging and Podcasting for busy teachers.
As promised here's the podcast of my performance today. This is just the basic recorded version. I'm going to link it with the powerpoint so the slides will show at the appropriate moment.

Download Inservice.mp3

Teaching - gap year for city slickers

Has inner city teaching become the gap year(s) for aspiring city slickers from top universities?

This article (Independent on Sunday) worried me as I read it. Now I'm not going to pretend I have read into the ins and outs of Teach First but superficially I find it worrying as it appears that teaching in the inner cities in England (strangely where recruitment and retention is rather difficult).

What image does it promote of teaching as a profession when businesses contribute to a programme which sends "teachers" into challenging classrooms with 6 weeks residential training with the overall goal that they come out with great leadership training and presentational skills which they can then take back into big business.
What about the students in this programme. What do they get out of it. A glorified teaching assistant for two years at the most?

In my humble opinion this is just another programme which drags down the image of teaching as a profession, which indeed it still is. It's about time that people outside the profession stopped thinking that they know better just because they went to school for 12 years. I agree that we need to look to business for ideas but we should not be a breeding ground for quality candidates. Children need real qualified teachers who are motivated and interested, not people who are in it for a short time as a stepping stone to better things.

As yet this is only affecting England, where I first qualified and taught, and I am thankful that it is harder to obtain   registration here (I know from experience) in Scotland than down south. Let us hope this remains so.

An Interesting Week

It's going to be an interesting week.

I thought that on my return from Addis things would get back to some kind of normalcy. No chance. I thought I'd at least be able to do some room tidying during my now free S4 periods. No chance.

So much stuff to try to organise and do.

• multi cultural day
• edit films
• teach
• P7 Languages Work to film
• teach
• INSET presentation in front of all MFL teachers from Grampian
• Blogging workshop in Graz to prepare for
• Blogging/Podcasting workshops in school for teachers

Thats what I can think of at the moment...oh I forgot another one TEACH.
Often have to remind myself that's what I'm actually paid to do, compared to most of this other stuff, which I'm not.

At the moment my S1's are trying an experiment wherein they are learning their school unit stuff by doing. Instead of teaching them the vocab they are preparing films and radio shows about the school. As ever in their eagerness to produce something interesting they keep  forgetting to use their vocab guides which leads to all kinds of internet translator-ease. I have given them til the end of the month. I'm quite prepared for failure in this venture as I'm not convinced that we've gone about it in the right way. I think a certain level of direct teaching will be necessary if there is to be a next time for such a project.

Anyhow. I've been putting together some more of my Addis footage so here's a video trip through Addis Abeba starting at Mount Entoto.



 

Consumerism is really crap.

Somebody please tell me what is good about shopping.

Am I getting older or am I just becoming infinitely more cynical about the society in which we live?
I had to go into Aberdeen today for a couple of reasons.

1. to buy some great African food from The Spice Shop
2. to put my wife's mobile in for repair
3. to get some kabanosi from Lidl
4. for my wife to get a ring she has been wanting from M&S

First reason was fine, 'cos I love eating plantains, halal lamb, carp etc which we can only get from the brilliant Spice Shop on George Street in Aberdeen.
Third reason was fine because Lidl is just ace. I know it from Germany and the quality of some of its stuff is great especially the Polish Kabanosi, which we put in Spag Bol, Chilli, or "petits porcs" (smoked bacon lardons in a tomato sauce).
It's the second reasons which **** me off. How on earth can a cracked screen on a mobile phone seriously cost £45 to repair/ replace. I bet the person who repairs it will spend 30 mins max on the job and he/she will be on max £8/hour. No way the part costs £37. Nice little earner for a certain mobile phone shop that sounds like a huge storage facility of in-vehicle communication systems.
Next and this is what I get really brassed off about. Into M&S racks and racks of similar looking stuff. Hordes of folk looking as miffed as me holding carrier bags full of crap. WHY? WHY? WHY? What purpose does spending your Saturday (beautiful weather as well) hidden away in mall spending cash that if you are like me you don't actually have. As you all know I was in Ethiopia recently and went to the market there. Still loads of people all still rushing around, 2 major differences:

1. you could chat to them (I did)
2. they were buying what they NEEDED

I think we here have a great tendency to buy what we want, thinking it will make us feel better. I do the same but thankfully not to the same extent I have in the past. Shopping can never be the way to a better life. The way forward for us is to start to think more about others again and what we can learn from other people's way of life. Our society is so stressed by the desire to have the latest stuff that it is forgetting how to enjoy the simple things...listening to your kids laughing, birds singing in the garden, going for a bike ride, eating simple no frills home cooked food AND NOT READING MY OWN AND OTHERS' BLOGS FOR 24 HOURS.

POSTSCRIPT: IDIDN'T THINK I WAS THE ONLY ONE WHO THOUGHT THUS BUT READING JANET STREET-PORTER YESTERDAY REALLY MADE ME HAPPY. CHECK OUT THE ARTICLE.

 

More pictures from Addis

Here are some more pictures from my jaunt to Addis Ababa.

This time they are all pictures of us working. Strangely this is a smaller file than that of us at play...hmmm? Honestly Boss we did have to work.

Download connecting_classrooms_at_work_small.mov

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Slideshows of my trip to Addis

I am pleased as punch this week.
I have had first communications with both our African cluster partners and  we had a very positive cluster meeting. I now have to go and face up to hordes of primary kids as I give presentations in their assemblies over the next couple of weeks.

Here are  slideshows I have made of my trip to Addis Ababa. You will need quicktime to view them. (Click the link to download it if need be.) This first one is entitled "At Play" - because we didn't work all the time.

Download connecting_classrooms_at_playsmall.mov