Thursday, May 31, 2007

My Goals

My Goals
Present and Future

I've been tagged for a meme by Kelly -and by Eduardo Peyrano a few days later. This has rules fully detailed in Educational Discourse blog.

This meme is kind of difficult to play. When I read this, my mind got puzzled:

"List and write about the top 5 to 10 goals that you gotta’ get so that
you can truly say you have achieved your wildest dreams in life. These
have to be your best, most exclusive, and over-the-top goals that you
can pick off your goals list."

The thing is that although I keep lists for almost anything, from supermarket and to-do-lists to wish lists for the next holiday, I do not have a list for my life. I am joining because I like what I have learnt about Kelly and Eduardo in their posts. Because blogs can bring us closer.

I'd rather replace the word goals for dreams. (Blame my capricious nature for it). The ones that came true will be outside this post -many things will be out, ouch! But we are interested in learning about those things that drive us towards the future. Things we do not always mention, but they underpin our posts.




Image attribution: punkasz
That picture reminds me so much of the days when I commuted for about 4 hours a day from my parents' to College and back. Getting a degree was indeed a goal/dream come true.

Here

1) See the Egyptian pyramids. I think I was ten years old when this wish shaped in my mind. This is what I call a dream without a due date. That is, as long as it happens one day, I will be ever so happy. Needn't be soon. No anxiety about it at all .

2) See The Police concert next December in Buenos Aires. I thought this reunion would never happen. You cannot imagine how thrilled I am about this. It is strange to have wanted something to happen for 24 years.

3) Celebrate my parent's 50th wedding anniversary next December (same day of The Police concert!). They are incredible people who have drawn even closer in the face of adversity. They are like. no. other.

4) Travel again. Same places and different places. The more, the merrier. Feel the delight of meeting different people in their familiar surroundings.

That is all about the future. My mind is here and now focused.

5) Recent Achievements
I was very happy this week when I posted this in my fceblog for students. That blog experience has taught me so much. So much. Now that the blog has been singled out in a book as a model to encourage teachers to get blogging for their students, I feel a goal has been achieved.

A blogger wants to get attention first and then spread the word. Make an impact in the blogosphere. But there will always be those teachers who feel puzzled or overwhelmed with info. They go to the printed word first. Will I reach any of them via the book? Hope so.

The donation to charity I mention at the end of that post came without my asking for it. Somehow, it is making me close an inner circle. A path that has to do with losing, recovering, dedicating an action and now giving back. I feel content.

....................
Education is about making our life quality better, without imposing any model of what is to be understood by 'better'.

There will always be people who simply do not get it.

-People who are suspicious of technology integration, for example.
-People who think technology is dangerous because there is no perfect security online. Risk management does not occur to them.
-Students who crave for lots of structured guidance and not the marvelous open-ended activities we can think of -now that we are empowered by Web 2.0 tools.

I hope I do not get too despaired when I see they do not get it. I will have learnt very little if I cannot tolerate the divide between the blog-haves and blog-not. My goal is to keep the dialogue open.

One last wish before I tag you.
6) Hope this blog continues being a means to meet and converse with people.

Yet another,
7) Hope one day my posting frequency matches the speed of my thoughts. Well, let's be reasonable, keeping up the pace would suffice -or I will get a ticket for speeding on the blog.

How about your goals?
Karyn Romeis
Teacher Dude
Chris Craft
Steve Dembo
Baxter Tocher
....
Related post: Not part of the meme, but inspiring post from Will Richardson
http://weblogg-ed.com/2007/note-to-self/

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Monday, April 02, 2007

ESL/EFL Wikis

ELT Teachers Using Wikis
(a mini directory)

As part of my summer learning in Jan and Feb, I joined an EVO Online workshop B4B (Blogging for Beginners). I joined quite late because I was busy designing my wiki for students. Among the participants, I found a few 'false begginers' in blogging who caught my attention for a number of coincidences:


Coincidences
  1. We have all set up our firsts blogs roughly around the same time (March 2006)
  2. We were thinking and designing our first wiki projects in January 2007
  3. We have chosen the same tools -Blogger and Wikispaces
  4. We all use del.icio.us- pab, monicabh, jenverschoor, fceblog (only Mary, kushikatsu , uses the network)

Interesting, I thought. Similar experiences, objectives and potential seamless integration of the tools we are using. Lots of collaboration/network possibilities here.

I left comments in their blogs (here and here) and emailed them separately. Only to find even more coincidences:
-Jennifer and Mônica also teach Cambridge FCE courses.
-Mônica is also studying at university and intends to use the wiki project as part of her research.

Can it get any better? We'll see.

I think you've met but...
Now it's time to get to know each other better. Here is a detail of our online work:

Mary Hillis
Blog: One Teacher's Journey
Wiki: ESL for Migrants

Paul, Pab
Blogs:
Pab's Potpourri (for teachers)
The Writing Studio (for students)
LTD Project Blog
(for teachers)
Wiki: The LTD Project
(I'm a member of this wiki)

Mônica Veado
Blog:Movie Reviews (for students)
Wiki:Movie Reviews

Jennifer Verschoor
Blogs:
My Integrating Technology Journey (for teachers)
Open Classroom (for students)
Wiki: Open Classroom

And mine
Blog: The FCE Blog (for students)
Wiki: Corpus

I will be watching how these projects evolve. I hope you also post about them. Lot's to learn from each other, don't you think?

Apart from my posts here, I will also post brief updates from my Corpus wiki (see About this project).
I'll call it PLOG, i.e. production blog.


My questions to teachers with wikified classrooms
-How are your projects getting on? What are the difficulties you are encountering? Have your students welcomed new ways of learning?

Stay in touch.
(If you write about this in your blog, please link to this post's permalink so I'll find you.)
...............................

While we wait for comments, here's a reading list:

Links to other EFL wiki projects

For teachers
Dude has a wiki about Web 2.0 tools and innovative lesson plans and ideas,
EFL and Web 2.0

EFL Geek has an ESL & EFL wiki with forums.

And Graham has more than one, I am a member of this one:
Pod-EFL all about Podcasting ideas.
Evogaming

And the Webheads love wikis too, of course!
BaW07
Open Webpublishing
Barbara Diew's authors and participates in many wikis
Not so new and with an intriguing title, Writing Matrix, makes me wonder why sometimes collaborative wiki projects do not take off.

For students
Nancy, from Canada, has a well organised wikidot. She is concise and clear. Love her style.

Illya, who teaches CAE, has a wiki to organise vocabulary.
CAE Words

From Argentina, Rita Zeinstejer -the pioneer- worked with CAE in wikispaces last year. Her students took part in the IWE wiki. I saw a wiki of hers with students describing their city. Beautiful.
(Unfortunately I lost the link. Can you add it here Rita? Your work is a seed for mine)
...............

More in my del.icio.us
http://del.icio.us/fceblog/wiki

If you are not in my del.icio.us already, would you like to let us know about your wikis?


Attribution: Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net


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