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Reflections on ten years of blogging - part two

"When thinking about technology and society there is a natural tendency to look forwards rather than backwards. Like in many other areas of life, it is often more compelling to anticipate what is about to happen with technology than attempt to make sense of what has already happened."       Neil Selwyn, Education and Technology: Key Issues and Debates , 2011 Following on from part one of my reflections in my tenth year of blogging , here are ten observations about blogging in ELT . The last post concentrated on some of my recollections from the time when I started blogging. This post is about conclusions I've come to about blogging with English language students. Back in 2005, I remember telling someone that I was facilitating a 6-week online course on blogging for ELT , and he was surprised that anyone could spend so much time just on blogging, but, there's a lot to blogging with learners, and unless you think carefully about it, then your blogging project is not

Is this a golden age of innovation?

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I've just been reading about the Innovation in Education conference in the UK , where the closing session asked the question ' Is this a "golden" time of curriculum innovation? ' One of the first responses was another question: ' Why are children being taught the way they were 200 years ago - all too often in rows of desks, in large groups in large schools - when advances in technology offer far more stimulating and exciting alternatives? ' Social Think Tank - Dell in Education http://www.flickr.com/photos/dellphotos/7450724500 It's great these conversations are taking place, and I do think we are now in the middle of a shift that seems to be happening from both the top-down and bottom-up in education. Thinking back to when I started this blog, I remember wondering why there weren't that many educators embracing new media and other exciting developments taking place online. Things have definitely changed, though - as the T

Reflections on ten years blogging - part one

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From  http://www.educatorstechnology.com Just realised, thanks to Vicky Loras celebrating her third year blogging that I've now started my tenth year as a blogger, and my tenth year using this blog for blogging. Here are ten of my blogging memories from back when I started: 1. My introduction to blogging . My good friend, David White , who's not a teacher , introduced me to Blogger, thinking it was something I'd be interested in, and I set one up early in 2003, but I didn't see the point of it then, so after creating a blog and posting once, I abandoned this. I'd love to recover the account and see what I wrote then, but I now can't remember what email I used to set it up. 2. Blogging with students.   9th July, 2003 . Teaching a summer course with two groups at the Young Learner Centre, British Council, Barcelona, I'd asked for regular computer room slots as I was keen to try out a new British Council learner community ( Global Village ), getting

Edublogs 2012 nominations

Well, it's been a long time. Can't believe just how long, but then I've not made it here because I've felt guilty about blogging while I had deadlines hanging over my head for a new book, another chapter of a forthcoming book, and lots of work to do on two European projects that are coming to an end. Thanks to  Joe Pereira for bringing our attention to the 2012 Edublog awards , and, of course for nominating Digital Play for an award - you've always been one of our greatest supporters, Joe. Say what you like about the value of awards such as this, but what Joe says in his post about being supported is important - the thing I particularly like about these type of awards is that it's very democratic and it does bring people's attention to some great sites that otherwise might not be so well known. So, without further ado, here are my nominations for this year's Edublog awards:- Best individual blog - Barbara Sakamoto's Teaching Village http://www

The small town photographer - an interactive story

The following is a story I wrote to use as an interactive story with an advance class some time ago. I deliberately left the ending open to encourage the students to finish it themselves (for homework). ___________________________________________________________________________________________ A photographer (What is his name?) lives in a small town (Where is it?) where he has successfully made a good living for many years. In the window of his shop he proudly displays some of the wedding photographs he has taken of happy couples over the years. He is very fond of one photograph in particular (What does it show?) It’s of a couple posing next to a ruined tower with a brilliant red sunset in the background of the picture. (Why is he proud of it?) It’s a particularly good photograph and ever since displaying this photo in his shop window, he has noticed an increase in the number of customers his studio has received, especially for weddings. And people enquiring about wedding

IATEFL Glasgow

Last week saw the end of the 46th IATEFL conference in Glasgow, with 500 presentations, 2300 delegates attending and more than 50,000 people attending online through Glasgow Online , organised by the British Council to allow people not at the conference to watch the plenaries live and view recordings of other sessions and interviews with some of the presenters. It's a fabulous way of giving people who are unable to come a flavour of what IATEFL is all about, and I think it goes from strength to strength. This year, one of the new initiatives is encouraging bloggers who are writing about the conference to register. This means that there's an official list of all of the people who are writing about Glasgow Online , and it makes it easier to find what the blogosphere is saying about the conference. Anyone can apply to do this, even now that the conference is over - it's worthwhile doing as there's still so much content from sessions that were recorded that can be blogge