All I want for Christmas...is YOU!

So I was enjoying a bit of festive fun with Mariah Carey on YouTube the other day (again! I need to re-visit my musical tastes…) when I started to think about what a little fluff ball like me might want for Christmas.  I wonder if Santa will even make it to my dusty computer?  If he does, I’d be stoked if he left me an iPad, or a mini video camera, or a new smartphone, or an interactive whiteboard to play with. Or at least maybe a few software upgrades?

But then I got to thinking about what I’ve done this year without much of this new stuff at all - in fact mostly with just a normal computer, free software, websites and a quite leisurely internet connection!  I’ve tweeted over 220 times, followed almost 100 people and been followed by nearly 80 (fluff only knows why!), uploaded 10 videos to Vimeo, blogged 14 times and started a Facebook page. Once I started sharing ideas, I learned how to record my screen, make videos, share videos, connect with new people online and made heaps of mistakes along the way!

So what now? I want to get better at it. I want to see what happens more in classrooms, and why technology does or doesn’t fit in different situations. I want to keep things simple, but not lose sight of the important details. I want to listen more carefully to advice and ideas and think about the best ways to share them. If Santa brings me new gadgets that would be fun, but I don’t think they’re as important as making connections with people and ideas. As my friend the Dalai Lama says,

"we need awareness of the ways we are connected with others, reflecting on the characteristics we share with others”

Clever chap, that one. Cheeky smile too :-)

Thanks for reading (and writing and listening and clicking and downloading…), and here’s to discovering together - whatever the next year brings!

Of heroes and villains

"A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles" (Christopher Reeve)

Heroes are very interesting, aren’t they? At least people in teaching seem to think they are, if the number of hero/villain topics in course books are anything to go by! Here’s a typical ‘everyday hero’ lesson which is actually quite interesting when you add the real-life bit with the YouTube clips and news reports and things. There are also heaps of terrible songs about heroes and even worse videos (Mariah Carey and Enrique Inglesias, you know who you are!) – though if you’re teaching ‘would you...’ second conditionals Enrique is your man. Personally I’m a retro kinda fluffball, and choose Bette Midler every time (how many tenses are in this song? Wow!). But I digress...

People like to call teachers heroes too, and Ken Wilson did a couple of really interesting blog posts about ELT heroes which lots of people commented on and are worth a read. Heaps of people I recognise from Twitter too. Isn’t it funny though, that technology swings loads between being a hero and villain? Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are heroes one day (yay! New iPad!) and villains the next (boo! They’re taking over! And my iPad won’t work...) and it’s often the same with technology activities. When it works, we’re all like ‘yay, how fluffy does my Wordle look!’ and students gasp in wonder at how the clever teacher created an instant poll they could vote for using their mobile phones. When it goes wrong, though, you better run ‘cause the evil technology demons are in trouble! Where did that amazing video I found go when I clicked the link in class? Why did my perfect Pecha Kucha not save properly? I HATE TECHNOLOGY!

It’s times like these when I get all philosophical and like to search quotes websites for inspiration. Here’s one from random 18^th century Swiss chap Johann Kaspar Lavater:

“the prudent see only the difficulties, the bold only the advantages, of a great enterprise; the hero sees both; diminishes the former and makes the latter preponderate, and so conquers”

In my fluffy interpretation, I think this is true of tech too; those who use it best figure out how to minimise difficulties and keep it simple, whilst making the most of its good points – the engaging, the fun, the up-to-date stuff. I leave you with some final words from author Laurence Shames. I have no idea who he is either, but I like the words: 

“ Success and failure. We think of them as opposites, but they’re really not. They’re companions – the hero and the sidekick”