alice’s posterous

What do I remember from school? a song by Sting we learnt in my English class,  a trip to Verdun during my history class. This trip made me understand the word "war" as well as this book our enthusiastic History teacher made use read A l'Ouest rien de nouveau by Erich Maria Remarque. Apart from that, I don't remember much. Why? maybe because lessons were boring. We never took an active part in our learning, most of our lessons were about listening to the teacher's monotonous voice and to take notes. I have found that since I have a PLN, Google reader, Twitter and Friendfeed I have learnt so much more than I did during all the time I spent at school!
Maybe because now I can explore and discover new things, whereas before I was just a passive learner. And maybe that's why many students are not involved in lessons.

This video I found on Shelly Terrell's blog shows what learning should be about: FUN!

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In an attempt to get my Spanish students to practice their Spanish outside the classroom, I decided to set up a blog for them to be able to view, read and listen good stuff related to Spanish culture and language. To also share and view their work. The main objectives of this blog are for more students to keep up with their Spanish and to also make them share their views in the "comments" section. Especially when they listen or read other students' works, they will be able to compare, assess and see how work can be improved.

At my last school, I already set up a school blog using Edublogs. I chose http://edublogs.org/ because it was free and I suppose their tag line "Blogging for students and teachers made easy"! drew the attention on me. Nevertheless, it was not that easy to set up and at times, it took a long time to download resources.

My personal blog is with http://posterous.com/ and I find it so much easier to use, especially if you're not a geek :)
All you have to do is to write an email as your post (as I am doing now) and send it to Posterous. Posterous takes care of the rest. If you want to send a video, you attach it to the email or copy the URL into your email and Posterous will show the video in your post. If you want to send a picture, just copy the image location or attach it to your email. Again Posterous will show the picture in your post. If you want to send a slideshow or a document, attach it to your email, Posterous takes care of the rest.
I did a lot a recordings this year with students using a little microphone plugged into my laptop and Audacity. I save the recordings as .mp3 files and attach them to the emails I send to Posterous. Posterous insert the audio files into the new posts and this way, students can listen to their own recordings (which they looove!).
So far so good... They are not many comments made by students yet, but I know it takes a while and it is a learning process. The blog is http://spanishblog.posterous.com/ and of course, your comments are welcome as well :)

What about you? which platform do you use to blog and why?

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Today I received an email by Carla Arena (one of the organizer of Images4Education) mentioning an exciting project.

Alison Miyake was the one who suggested it on http://images4education.ning.com/forum/topics/exchange-of-photos-with

She says : "I am teaching English at my daughter's elementary school this year (in the south of Japan) to grade 5 and 6 students. I was wondering if anyone here would be interested in exchanging photos of school and everyday life in other countries with us. My students are always asking me about what is popular with kids their own age in Canada (where I am from), and I have to say that I honestly don't have any idea! My students don't have a lot of experience with the computer, although they do have access to computers at their school. I am envisioning possibly creating a special Flickr page for our project and then deciding on themes to last a month or two (ie school, school bags, classroom photos, lunch, lunchtime play could be the first starting in September, then school events or holidays, popular books, favourite foods, my house, my neighbourhood, unusual objects - ie something the kids think might be unique to their country, etc.) and having the students take photos."

It is such a fantastic idea, I want to join next year with my new school (although it is supposed to be only for elementary school?).

And you? would you be joining as well?

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