Debisensei's Weblog

All ticked off

debisensei — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 21:11:03 +0000

All 23 things ticked off! Feeling all computer savvy and pleased with myself. And really looking forward to some time off over the silly season to play on my computer! Merry merry jolly happy

teachertubing

debisensei — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 02:31:09 +0000

This is my all-time favourite teachertube. I think it should be compulsory viewing for all presenters!

http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=bebd3f6818359b0f8f6e

podlisteningcasts

debisensei — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 03:00:44 +0000

Listening in English is easy for me and working in a shared office means lots of opportunities to put on the headphones and tune out all distracting noises! Listening in English is not so easy for my international students, so I think encouraging them to subscribe to some podcasts (esp. in Science – their area of interest) would be a really good way for them to practise. I found some interesting science podcasts:
the naked scientists
sleek geek radio
And I found a cool one for me to catch (since I get to work too early to listen to the radio broadcast), on radio national.

Dig, digg, diggg

debisensei — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 04:36:41 +0000

I put an article on digg.com and I’m not sure I’ll do it again. It felt a bit too much like a competition. I’m more interested in obscurity than sensation – or cyber-gossip…

How much water is there in the ocean?

debisensei — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 01:40:11 +0000

I knew the Internet was big – I mean I knew there was a lot of stuff on it – at least I thought I knew… But my learning today is that there are definitely different levels of “knowing”! With just a few subscriptions, my igoogle feed reader is already telling me that there are 547 articles that I haven’t read today!! I’m considering moving it further towards the bottom of my page so it doesn’t guilt me out!

Blind leadership

debisensei — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 21:41:43 +0000

I’m reminded of the blind leading the blind story and I guess willingness must be a strong factor… Certainly I was excited by the idea that my students could all work together on their one group report from anywhere at anytime – and they were mostly more interested in setting up their Google doc, than in actually getting the graphs and research done! Time will tell the extent of our success, but if willingness has anything to do with it, we should all be positively surprised!

I think they’re all pretty impressed with my rapidly increasing technologicalness!! (Thanks 23 things teachers!)

Not-so-secret spying

debisensei — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 22:54:07 +0000

A lovely Chinese boy presented his hometown (Beijing) to the class using street view sometime before the Olympic Games. It was awesome! Since then I have often encouraged students to use this tool to do virtual visits to each others’ cities. Its fantastic for bringing everyone closer together.

Muy rico!

debisensei — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 04:08:22 +0000

I LOVE del.icio.us.com !!

I can see hours spent absorbed in screen-staring morphing into days…

How will I ever have time to go to work again?

face-to-face

debisensei — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 04:01:20 +0000

I have to admit to already being a facebook convert/obsessive. It’s amazing to me to be continually ‘found’ by past students and old friends – quite heartwarming and totally addictive. I can see how it will have to be part of the way we ‘teach’ – but I was surprised when I asked my class how many of them had a facebook or myspace page – NONE! Some of the Chinese students have a similar kind of social networking website that they use, but the others were not as familiar with the idea as me! So it could be a little longer before I will be using it for teaching. Certainly I am continually frustrated by the limitations of WebCT/Blackboard for student contact and continued discussion – so I plan to be a forerunner (or am I already way behind??) in using facebook for student communication!

igoogle therefor iam

debisensei — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 01:18:13 +0000

That’s actually deeper and more meaningful than I first thought… Certainly, allowing google to welcome me into my computer-world each morning (albeit through the artistic creation of Elena Suprun) is adding my voice to the acceptance of googleglobaldomination… I’m not sure I consciously want to say that but I was reading an interesting article the other day about the psychology of risk taking on the computer and how people unconsciously take risks in cyberspace that they would never consciously take in their ‘real’ worlds. Perhaps that’s what the whole 23 things is all about – upping the risk taking ante for we cautious baby boomers…? (Let me hasten to add that I’m very nearly almost not quite a baby boomer!)

Hmmm; I do prefer the flowers to the boring default header…