Got up at 5.30 am, kissed my boys goodbye and went to the Venice airport to catch my flight to Rome. Miha took me there and stayed with me until the check-in. Half the time I fought back tears – not used to going places without my boys. Landed in Rome alright and after some confusion managed to find the right check-in place for Casablanca. Rome airport is funny. At lunchtime people at the ticket counter simply left for lunch for an hour...leaving noone at counter to help out passengers in need of service. Arrived to Casablanca a few hours later and then from then on to Fez. Could not find iEARN folks at the airport, but kind people there called the emergency number I had in my pocket and some 15 minutes later Latife and another gentelman arrived to pick up me and also a nice group from Yemen. The ride in car lasted for some 50 mins, it was nice to see so many people of all ages out in the streets - wearing traditional clotes, modern, all sorts. Chatted with Latife, Mona, Fatima and Nissmh on the way, all sorts of things –about life in Morocco, Yemen, Slovenia, islam, the projects we have been involved in... Before checking in at the University campus, we made a quick stop at the centre – all the shops were alive at 22 pm. Did not buy any food – thought there would be dinner waiting for me but thought wrong and went to bed with a rumbling stomach. Anyway, the room is nice and has free internet access. Got connected as soon as I got in and found all the sockets and caught my Mih online. J
... or even just borrow one for awhile, to t least get a taste of it. I'm fooling around with a HP mini I borrowed from a friend. A neat little thing. It's both - big and small enough to be useful. I want one too!
Checking my Google reader recently I liked these quotes concerning TMI - too much information: 'I’m proud of saying I don’t know much but I know how to get to know what I don’t know.' CogDog I like following CogDog's posts a lot. The other quote is by Clay Shirky and was contributed by Dean in the comment area 'It’s not information overload, it’s filter failure'. I recently read Shirky's 'The power of organizing without organizations' - liked it so much I read it twice. Yet need to watch his TED talk. I admire people who feel comfortable keeping up with the pace of life around them. Is this something one can learn? I'm still working on figuring out a recipe for me.
I'm getting ready for a little bit more than a week in Morocco's Middle Atlas town called Ifrane. Annual iEARN conference is taking place there from 18th-25th July. I'm thrilled about meeting there Isabel, Mbarek and Nouredine - 3 webhead friends from Brazil and Morocco. I'm all excited about the trip but also not quite happy about staying away from my boys for 9 long days. There will be 4 other Slovene iEARNers in Morocco; Nives, Dušan, Darja and Gregor. I'm presenting the Walls Talking project and where it has taken us so far.
Rita and I are launching a graffiti project called Listen to the Walls Talking. Anyone interested is warmly invited to join in. The project site, wiki and Flickr group have just come alive.
The idea behind the project is to collect and share graffiti. If other interested teachers, students, people spread across the cyberspace respond by posting graffiti photos and related info, this could turn into a nice project of the wall/s/talking in our schools, streets, towns, countries, world. Sketches, squiggles, doodles and other more sophisticated street art around us is the part of public spaces usually walked by, unnoticed by people.
Collecting graffiti from our walls, desks chairs and sharing them could provide us with a picturesque collection of expressions of wisdom/boredom/enthusiasm/dissatisfaction etc. from different places. This could perhaps be revealing in quite unexpected ways and could provide us with many interesting possibilities for further interpretations, explorations and manipulations.
This project is open to anyone interested, and will run for as long as there is interest. Anyone is invited to join in (individuals, teachers, classes, students...) and/or help spread the word.
There's not much to be seen yet, what is there is the result of the warm response of my friends (Rita, Kay, Vida and last but not least my Miha, who kindly created the site (said he needed an excuse for fooling around with some new toys... will need to give him more suggestions for excuses in the future ;-)).
Please have a look here and/or here, tell me what you think, and feel free to join in and help spread the word. The more, the merrier :-).
Just spent a lovely half an hour in my backyard - watched my Tevž fight an imaginary battle on his pile of sand, reading and basking in the afternoon sun. When the last rays of sun hid behind the block facing ours, I noticed a young blackbird perched in the still dormant branches of my wild trumpet vine.... Kind of liked the view, had my phone at hand and took this photo.
Spent a fun afternoon at Mostovna with my boys. A magician performed tricks for the local scout group - taborniki. He revealed some of his secrets and also gave away one or two of his cute rabbits to the kids. Here's another Picasa collage.
My school bought 2 (or 3, not sure) SMART boards (680V) so I am having a look at it. Teachers were invited for a 2-hour demonstration of how it works awhile ago but I was only able to be present for the first half an hour, and am exploring the basics via Google now. The SMART board is now in a conference room at school so interested teachers can try it out. Problem? There is just the whiteboard there, so if you want to fool around with it you need to bring your laptop, install the software, find the cables and projector to get the thing going. M helped me out, we had a peek. First impressions? - looks nice, turned it on, calibrated it and tried the basic writing tools. Felt a bit clumsy for writing - could be because I used my finger instead of the appropriate pen (need to find one). - also noticed you need to be careful where you stand and how you move - not to come between the projector and the SMART board or trip over the USB cable. Want to explore it more. Need to check how people use this in class, see how it could be of use to me.
With the Digifolios evo workshop still ringing in my ears, I was thinking of my step 2 towards e-portfolio (about time after successfully completing week 1 task 4 weeks later ;-)). I had a look at my blogging places - there are many more than I need considering I write an occasional blog post here and there. I decided to rename 2 of them. My blog has to have a name that means something to me. I happened not to think much when opening some of my blogs (did it as a workshop task, part of a project...) and it's a shame. I could forget now about these poorly named sleeping blogs, see many people do that, but I kind of like to keep my stuff, repurpose it if necessary, but not delete it or leave it forgotten out there. When I opened my first blog, I named it cyberattic after thinking a bit - my grandma's attic was one of my childhood's favourite exploratory hideouts. It is long gone now, and I don't have a single picture of it. :-( So I like this name, makes me feel comfortable. This blog is my number 2, obviously named similarly to number 1, but this time after a place in my home - cyberkitchen. Like it too. I am therefore extending this kind of nomenclature to the other previously poorly named places I occupy too - my classblog and a wordpress blog opened at last year's EVO for the purposes of the SMiELT workshop. From today on Cybermill and cybergarden. Now these blogs sound more like one family and I'm happier about them. Step 3? Rounding up all my cyberspots, like Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, FB, Nings, wikis etc. trying Netvibes as my cyberhub. That's how I'm going to call it - Saša's Cyberhub. No more empty names.
It's a photo of my Tevž dressed as Batman turned into a comic. It's literally just a few clicks... simple and fun. There are many other effects too. The original photo is in the collage below.
Made my first video for my Digifolios EVO session a little bit more than a week ago. We were asked to share our stories of our first online learning experience (this was in week 1, I did it, much much later though, in week 5). I knew the topic of my story - my becoming a webhead, but was unsure how to go about it and was thinking quite a bit about it in the back of my mind.
Inspired by a lovely time lapse video I finally decided to type my story and then play it at faster speed together with some photos and music. I knew this can be done easily in Camtasia so I just started putting things together; I recorded my 'typing of the story' in MS Word, picked some photos from my photo album, bookmarked some relevant webhead websites and photos - had a look at the thing, saw it needs rethinking, was too much of everything...
So I started throwing things out, thinking about the music to go with it and remembered Michael Coghlan's wonderful A Webheads Theme Song. I got his kind permission to use it, so I went on searching for images of the internet, tools, web 2.0... When I stumbled upon images of web 2.0 logos these brought to my mind the webheads faces collage from Vance's website - I liked the tools vs. people opposition on the two images so I made it central in the video.
Needed to rerecord a shorter version of my typing (less IS more!). Grabbed more photos from Flickr group to add faces to the story and fill the whole length of Mike's song - would be a crime to cut it up. Loved the result - Mike's song and the faces were great together. Almost too good - felt like my lurking self doesn't quite belong there... Carla's collage too was perfect for conclusion. Asked my M what he thinks - helped improve transitions and photo sizes, suggested to stick to my natural snail-paced typing. Listened to him, always do. ;-)
Titled it From Learning to Teach to Learning to Learn; Becoming a Webhead.
Here it is:
Webheads liked it, dropped nicest comments in the world - in Slovene too! :-) Even though I played with their photos and only asked if them if they minded it afterwards... Needless to say, they didn't. So, thank you, Webheads dear. Webhead Michael in particular.
This week's task was to explore BigHugeLabs slideshow, Animoto and Slideshare. So far I've used Slideshare, Flickr and Picassa slideshows. Animoto and BigHugeLabs are new to me. Here are my examples:
1. My BigHugeLabs 'Glimpses of Slovenia' slideshow: View slideshow I chose the topic because I already had a set in Flickr, and I wanted to compare the Flickr slideshow and the BigHugeLabs slideshow – kind of like better the Flickr one, because it has the full-screen option ( see http://www.flickr.com/photos/7920247@N04/sets/72157603036788662/show/)
2. My Animoto 'Circus in Town' slideshow:
http://animoto.com/play/tAvqx5ugdLbmNAgG9BotJQ?autostart=true I had some problems to make the embed code from the site work here. I chose this topic because I thought it would go well with the music and lively Animoto transitions… Was kind of surprised to see how quickly 30 seconds end – I uploaded 15 photos, set the timing at middle pace but only the first 5 or 6 photos are shown and the rest was cut off. Since it took me awhile to reduced the number of photos from 30 to 15 I was kind of disappointed to see only a fraction of the photos shown, so I resorted to good old Flickr and created a flash badge using my 'circus' tag - but the embed code does not work here for some reason.
This is a Flickr badge showing public items from SasaSi tagged with circus. Make your own badge here.
Another option is to create a Flickr slideshow using the tag, but the down side of this is you can't arrange your photos, they are shown in the order they are uploaded. Creating another set unfortunately is not an option for me, because I have a free account and I've already reached the limit of 3 free sets.
I did this slideshow to celebrate Earth Day last year and promote the Earthcast project. I used creative commons photos from Flickr together with quotes from here and there and posted it to my class blog.
My comments: I like best Flickr slideshows. It's a pity they are limited to 3 sets. BigHugeLabs are nice and simple to create but I miss the whole screen view of photos. Animoto is cool, but 30 seconds is very very little time. I had the feeling that the example videos shown in this group lasted longer… I guess this was a paid service. I like Animoto because it adds sound and movement, videos are dynamic and energetic… Good to use with a small number of photos. Slideshare is nice for ppt viewed in landscape mode. When I used it for sharing photos, I hated the fact that the layout of the presentation does not follow the layout of the ppt – so if you use portrait layout a whole lot of space is wasted, which is a shame. I also like the fact that you can add audio here – haven't tried it yet, but it's cool. For me it would be great if Flickr slideshow offered some more options for various transitions and also to upload audio. They look neat and it's cool to have everything in one place. I guess going Pro is the solution.
I'm not much of a poet... but here's another week 2 task from the Images4Education EVO session :-).
I am from toy cars, lego bricks, paper, paints and brushes, from computers, cables, gadgets, from pots and pans and steaming stew, from violets, pansies and mimosa.
TESOL's wonderful EVO sessions started today. They bring together language teachers from all over the world. I can't resist coming back year after year. It's the place where I'm comfortable learning about technology. I'm not an expert, just an English teacher. So it often happened when I attended such sessions at home, in real life, that I returned empty, disappointed, confused....because in my country it is mostly techies giving workshops to teachers. They concentrate on various technical details and features, leaving out the most important part - the pedagogy, hands-on experience, practical use in class... Well, EVO is different. It's from teachers to teachers. It's hands on. It's useful. It works. It's free. I love it. I can't help coming back year after year. This one is my 4th. Together with Monica, a wonderful English teacher from Brasil, I moderate week 1 in Becoming a Webhead (there are more than 150 participants already). I also signed up for Images for Education and Digifolios and Personal Learning Spaces. We'll see how much of this I'll be able to keep up with. The mind is willing but the flesh is weak ;-).
Yesterday I attended 'moodle.si' conference in Koper, Slovenia. The event was organized by Faculty of Management Koper, School for Headteachers, Artesia, and Open Source Center - Slovenia This was the second time this conference was held there, the previous one took place in May last year but I somehow missed it. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting other Slovene moodlers. Presenters focused on various aspects - technical requirements, settings, usage, m-learning, testing students' knowledge, apps to use for subjects such as maths or chemistry, etc. A Slovene Moodle community is slowly being built up. Great! J. Čač from the Ministry of Education talked about what the ministry does to encourage teachers to develop and use e-materials and e-classrooms. They plan to set up exemplary e-classrooms for primary and secondary school subjects so teachers could get a better idea how to use Moodle. Good. I remember how we plunged into Moodle some 3 or 4 years ago at our school. Had a quick few hour course to walk us through the technical part and ended up with a pretty vague idea how to fill up our classrooms... Technology is good, but you also need to know how to use it, the methodology. I am greatly indebted to my Webheads here for putting my feet a bit more firmly on the cyber ground. The international part of the conference was fun too. V. Sulčič and P. Purg talked about their experience in using Moodle for e-learning, teacher and tutor-training, etc. C. Surridge from Korea, G. Rossini from London, England, and Daniel Livingstone, also from UK, talked about Sloodle, a Moodle module for organizing and tracking Second Life interactions. They all presented in Second Life, the event was hosted by Rockcliffe University. It was possible for F2F audience to participate in the Second Life backchat through the Sloodle WebIntercom. My iPhone unfortunately refused to log me in the chatroom, complaining I've got too many windows open... Eh.
I just heard from a dear friend. She apologised for being just a lurker at BaW, feeling a bit bad about it... I was a lurker at SMiELT this year... (also feeling a bit bad about it honestly)... It just happened so that I had so many things on my mind that I simply felt too overwhelmed to get involved more actively... so I kind of helped at BaW during week 1 but didn't do much else really... I thought I had kind of internalized the webheads attitude that it's not worth taking things too seriously and ambitiously and then feeling bad about falling behind or giving up... that it's more important to have fun and enjoy doing what you do... to have fun and learn... you never really miss things this way... EVO goes on for 365 days a year in the Webheads world. ...you respond when you can, do what you want, follow what you like, help as much as you feel you can... Things run smoothly thanks to the many dedicated webheads who are always out there, keeping the ball rolling... there are never bad feelings, nagging, words of reproach... no hierarchies or internal divisions... I like it immensely how all teachers (primary, secondary, tertiary) find themselves at home here. I started teaching in a secondary school in Slovenia and then moved to a primary school and later to college... I feel this hierarchy present here and it kind of bothers me... hope things will change in time. Thankfully our SDUTSJ group is taking the direction of bringing together Slovene teachers. There's no use in making divisions according to the level you teach - teachers can learn so much from each other if they learn to share ideas, doubts, problems, solutions... It's not so much the 'what', the contents, the curriculum connecting the teachers, it's more the 'how', your approach to learning, to teaching... I'm starting to see thing differently as a learner and as a teacher after fooling around with the Webheads for awhile... I used to complain about the diverse level of English in my classes... Now I don't. Everyone can contribute in this multiliteracy world... even weaker students can create impressive contents...if they want to.
Children have winter holidays this week. We are at home. Tom is sleeping, Tevž is drawing. He has drawn our family. Heh, and this is us a year and a half ago, in my old blog: http://sasasirk.edublogs.org/2007/01/25/my-b4b-week-2-task/ I seem to open a new blog every EVO season; here's this year's one opened within the SMiELT group (pretty empty for now).
