Where Has This Week Gone?!

I had many plans for many blog posts this week and got none of them written! School has started back, and so the craziness has taken over my life again :) It is just nuts how consuming teaching can be, and how rushed. There is little time in the day for anything other than being in the classroom, and yet there are so many other things we are expected (and want!) to do. It brings back to me the thoughts of taking it slower, and making things easier. I’m getting better at that, but still have a way to go.

I am rapt to be back at school though and have had a great few days - which even included sleeping over at school last night with the year 7s. We’ve only got 17 of them this year and they are just a fantastic group. There are a few interesting personalities that I’m sure will come out a bit more, ans we’ll just have to see how that goes.

I haven’t written anything here or at technoLOTE this week, despite promising I would (for technoLOTE at least), but I have managed to get a new project off the ground. Yes, yes, I know, maybe I should not start so many things. But, to be honest, I just can’t help myself. I have started Friday Vox Pop. Each Friday, for the first half of lunch I have yard duty. This year I will be taking my iPod and voice recorder out with me and asking different students a question about their learning and our teaching. I was out there today and the question was simply ‘What are you looking forward to learning this year? Most kids responded really well (I edited the ridiculous ones) and I’m sure they’ll get used to me asking them things and sticking my microphone in their faces!

To read more about Friday Vox Pop, go to the blog or straight to the podcast page or subscribe through iTunes - although you may need to wait a couple of days to do that as I only just submitted it and it takes a day or two to be approved. I’d love some feedback on it if you’ve got the time!

So, as I recover from my busy week, I turn to my reader and see the mountain of things I want to read, and I’m writing blog posts in my head as I type. Better get to it!

Blogged with Flock

If I was an iPod I’d be…

My first iPod was a first generation Nano. I got to know how to use it, what it could do. I actually didn’t really think I wanted one, but my boyfriend (husband now) thought he’d like to buy me a new ‘toy’ so I got a nano for Christmas. I had no idea what it could actually do before I started playing with it, and I loved it. Loved it loved it loved it. I was downloading podcasts and uploading CDs in no time.

Over time though, I learnt more about my little nano and I wanted to do more with it. I found then that there were some restrictions. The small screen was well, too small. There was not enough memory for everything I wanted to put on it. It wasn’t video capable. I wanted to do things with it and add things to it that it wasn’t able to do.

My first venture into the edublogosphere was technoLOTE. At first I was nervous, and unsure about how it all worked and what I was doing. I thought of some pretty good ideas and wrote about them. I stopped for a while and then went back to it with some new ideas. I was enjoying it and going ok. Then my understandings of blogging grew and I found there were some restrictions with my first blog. I find that I want to write about things other than technology and lots more about my reflections as a teacher. I don’t think technoLOTE is really the place for this as it really is intended to have a language teaching and technology focus which is not what I always want to write about. I was watching many conversations happening over blog posts and wanting to write something similar but felt a bit restricted by the concept and focus of technoLOTE. I just love reading little anecdotes and stories on other people’s blogs about something funny that happened that day or something that engraged or engaged them as teachers, regardless of what subject they taught. The audience I envision for technoLOTE will consist mainly of teachers who know very little about Web 2.0 (well, until they meet me that is!). Initally, they will not be looking for or will be confused by material on the blog that isn’t directly about language teaching.

A few months ago I ventured further into the iPod world and now have an 80GB iPod Video which does everything I want it to do and more than I’m sure I haven’t discovered yet.I can play movies and videos and watch vodcasts. I can store the entire contents of my laptop on it and carry it around with me. I can use it to show photos and videos in class and I’ve recently bought a voice recorder for it which I have got many plans for. (More on them later).

I am now venturing further into the edublogging world and have started this new blog.I have new understandings about what I want from the edublogging world and I am now putting the tools into place to deepen those understandings.

I want this blog to be a conversation about learning and teaching. I want to enhance this blog, and others I have, with some regular podcasts (and to enhance the podcasts with the blogs). I want to have a place in the edublogosphere where I am Jess McCulloch, educator/teacher (as opposed to Jess McCulloch language teacher). technoLOTE is for my language teaching self and technoChinese is for my Chinese language teaching self. Ah, the delight of multiple personalities!

I think also that initially, before I learned about what blogging is really for, I saw myself setting up a website for teachers and so I thought I had to have most of the answers, an idea which can be restrictive and make writing forced sometimes. I love writing (I was the kid who had several diaries and was absolutely rapt when she got a blank notebook and pencils for a Christmas or birthday present) and it was a bit frustrating to feel restricted. It took me a while to understand what things I really wanted to write about and where the best places were to do that.

I still use my first gen nano - I run with it. It’s still helping me achieve some of my goals. I will still use technoLOTE as it will help me be a better language teacher and will hopefully provide some good resources to other language teachers. But my development as an educator/teacher of children - which is what I am first and foremost - will be recorded here.

So, if I was an iPod, at this stage I would be an 80GB Video, with designs on an iPod Touch or, eventually an iPhone. If you were an iPod, which one would you be?

P.S The pic of the ipod with voice recorder attached is mine, but the nano isn’t. I got that image from flickrcc.

Blogged with Flock