Tomorrow, our school is moving to a new building. The classrooms will be smaller, but we'll have more, which should fit better with our needs... most of the time. The teachers' room is supposed to be somewhat bigger, so it should be easier for us to move around and organize our materials without always stepping on someone else's toes. Overall, I think the move will be a great thing as we truly need more classrooms.
However, the new building is now quite ready yet, so although the teachers' room will be nice once it's ready, in the meantime, we'll have to make do with using a classroom with no desk. We'll probably be fully settled around June 10th, I was told. Hmmm... Oh! Well... The ride is not always smooth, but I'm still glad that I came here. (Isn't it funny how much you learn about what a good school is when your own is lacking in a few respects? :P)
It's dumb, I know, but as I told my cousin Patrick about an hour ago, I was whistling Christmas songs at work today, so as you can tell, I'm really looking forward to receiving my new computer. Sadly, it will probably take another two weeks if all goes well. I can't wait to triple boot in Linux, OS X and Windows! I can't wait to start testing educational software packages! I can't wait to start "evil" experiments in educational technology with my students as guinea pigs! (Their sacrifice will serve the greater good, I assure you.)
Concision is a great virtue - which I sorely lack -, so I'll stop here for today.
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Sunday, May 28, 2006
First Post
Hi everyone,
I've had a few different blogs over the years. I haven't shared them with all that many people. I guess some things just felt too personal for me to share with people I had to live with on a daily basis. I mean: there are questions and thoughts you should keep to yourself. This blog will be for all those other thoughts that I feel comfortable sharing with the rest of the world, which is much more than it was a few years ago. I guess that's growing up: I've figured some things out, and I am now much more self-confident that I used to be.
I am not entirely sure how I will divide my blogging activities. It seems I would need a personal blog to post random personal ramblings, pictures and videos - which is the purpose of the blog you are reading now. I would also need one for technology-oriented discussions, so as to keep the two separate for those people who care about me but don't give a damn about network attached storage and triple booting, or vice versa. Finally, a third blog would be used to provide my ESL students with various tools to help them learn and practice English. I might also add a fourth at some point in the future to discuss art in all of its forms (but mostly anime, movies and books, I guess).
Hmmm... It is probably not an ideal division, but it should go a long way in helping people keep in touch with the part of my ramblings they care about - and only that. I'd also like to open the last three to contributions and I think the division will make it easier to manage blog permissions.
On a related matter, it seems I will have to use Mozilla or Firefox to format my blog posts with italics, bolds and such. Safari is a fantastic browser for many things, but it also lacks support in certain areas. I might use an external application instead. I used MacJournal with my livejournal account and it served me well. When I have tested a few things, I'll post links to the ATOM/RSS feeds for each of my blogs, so that those who want can subscribe to each blog individually and use an ATOM/RSS feed aggregator to look for new posts easily. (For those who have no clue what an ATOM/RSS feed reader is, I'll explain the basics in my techno blog sometime soon.)
I'm off to test a few things.
I will write more soon. :-)
I've had a few different blogs over the years. I haven't shared them with all that many people. I guess some things just felt too personal for me to share with people I had to live with on a daily basis. I mean: there are questions and thoughts you should keep to yourself. This blog will be for all those other thoughts that I feel comfortable sharing with the rest of the world, which is much more than it was a few years ago. I guess that's growing up: I've figured some things out, and I am now much more self-confident that I used to be.
I am not entirely sure how I will divide my blogging activities. It seems I would need a personal blog to post random personal ramblings, pictures and videos - which is the purpose of the blog you are reading now. I would also need one for technology-oriented discussions, so as to keep the two separate for those people who care about me but don't give a damn about network attached storage and triple booting, or vice versa. Finally, a third blog would be used to provide my ESL students with various tools to help them learn and practice English. I might also add a fourth at some point in the future to discuss art in all of its forms (but mostly anime, movies and books, I guess).
Hmmm... It is probably not an ideal division, but it should go a long way in helping people keep in touch with the part of my ramblings they care about - and only that. I'd also like to open the last three to contributions and I think the division will make it easier to manage blog permissions.
On a related matter, it seems I will have to use Mozilla or Firefox to format my blog posts with italics, bolds and such. Safari is a fantastic browser for many things, but it also lacks support in certain areas. I might use an external application instead. I used MacJournal with my livejournal account and it served me well. When I have tested a few things, I'll post links to the ATOM/RSS feeds for each of my blogs, so that those who want can subscribe to each blog individually and use an ATOM/RSS feed aggregator to look for new posts easily. (For those who have no clue what an ATOM/RSS feed reader is, I'll explain the basics in my techno blog sometime soon.)
I'm off to test a few things.
I will write more soon. :-)
Another Blog, More Ramblings...
[EDIT (February 28, 2007): I have now decided to consolidate all of my writing on one blog: http://franklaflamme.blogspot.com/ This is a post that used to be on "Frank's Tech Ramblings" but was moved here once I became a bit savvier with mixing search and RSS feeds.]
This will be my tech blog. I will use it mostly to discuss stuff that is of relatively direct interest to me, so it might not appeal to everyone. Hopefully, however, some of you will discover a few cool things every now and then on this blog, and I will get some feedback from you on those questions where I am absolutely clueless.
I installed Firefox and a bunch of extensions tonight. I can't say that it feels particularly fast, but then again, I probably slowed it down a bit with all the extras I installed. I'll probably uninstall about half of them after I've played with them a bit. In general, I must say I am impressed (except for speed, as I already mentioned). Extensions can be easily uninstalled, and the search field in the top right can use an incredibly long list of search engines. I'll probably try to make a customized search engine to use as default when I have tried them a bit more and know which ones really work well for me.
As an ESL teacher here, in Busan, South Korea, I've been trying to provide students with as much cool English content as possible. I already have tons of anime with English voices, so I will use that as educational material. I also have a lot of English music as well. However, I would like to use more proper ESL tools as well to give my students the grammar and vocabulary explanations that they need. Anime and songs will be more fun, but they'll also be more challenging as they are not intended for lower-level ESL students.
I therefore took a look at the iTunes Music Store's podcast section. It has a decent selection of educational podcast - many of them ESL podcasts! - so I will encourage my students to take a look at the selection and to try a few to see if they like them or not. However, as I do not want to discourage them from using podcasts before they even really start using them, I'll listen to some myself and try to suggest them a short list of podcasts that they are likely to enjoy. With my most advanced class, I might even try to get them to create a podcast, but that sure won't happen until I'm much more comfortable with all aspects of the technology.
Earlier today, I emailed many people to ask them to register for a free account at box.net. The service offers 1 GB of online storage for free. They offer account upgrades for free whenever you refer 5 people. If you want to help me, please e-mail me and ask me for a registration link. I'd to get a few upgraded accounts to use as shared storage spaces for a variety of projects. By registering through the link that I send you, you'll help me upgrade the accounts that need it. Thank you in advance for your support.
EDIT: After using Firefox for a few hours, my whole system started slowing down to a beachball-happy crawl (Mac OS Xtm). Looking into the various extensions, I realized that the weather extension was a bit too zealous in its job of telling me that it rains and that it's 22°C out there. After uninstalling that particular extension, Firefox's performance was much much much much much better. I'll try to find some utility to test the various extensions' use of my computer's resources so that I can better judge which ones are worth keeping.
This will be my tech blog. I will use it mostly to discuss stuff that is of relatively direct interest to me, so it might not appeal to everyone. Hopefully, however, some of you will discover a few cool things every now and then on this blog, and I will get some feedback from you on those questions where I am absolutely clueless.
I installed Firefox and a bunch of extensions tonight. I can't say that it feels particularly fast, but then again, I probably slowed it down a bit with all the extras I installed. I'll probably uninstall about half of them after I've played with them a bit. In general, I must say I am impressed (except for speed, as I already mentioned). Extensions can be easily uninstalled, and the search field in the top right can use an incredibly long list of search engines. I'll probably try to make a customized search engine to use as default when I have tried them a bit more and know which ones really work well for me.
As an ESL teacher here, in Busan, South Korea, I've been trying to provide students with as much cool English content as possible. I already have tons of anime with English voices, so I will use that as educational material. I also have a lot of English music as well. However, I would like to use more proper ESL tools as well to give my students the grammar and vocabulary explanations that they need. Anime and songs will be more fun, but they'll also be more challenging as they are not intended for lower-level ESL students.
I therefore took a look at the iTunes Music Store's podcast section. It has a decent selection of educational podcast - many of them ESL podcasts! - so I will encourage my students to take a look at the selection and to try a few to see if they like them or not. However, as I do not want to discourage them from using podcasts before they even really start using them, I'll listen to some myself and try to suggest them a short list of podcasts that they are likely to enjoy. With my most advanced class, I might even try to get them to create a podcast, but that sure won't happen until I'm much more comfortable with all aspects of the technology.
Earlier today, I emailed many people to ask them to register for a free account at box.net. The service offers 1 GB of online storage for free. They offer account upgrades for free whenever you refer 5 people. If you want to help me, please e-mail me and ask me for a registration link. I'd to get a few upgraded accounts to use as shared storage spaces for a variety of projects. By registering through the link that I send you, you'll help me upgrade the accounts that need it. Thank you in advance for your support.
EDIT: After using Firefox for a few hours, my whole system started slowing down to a beachball-happy crawl (Mac OS Xtm). Looking into the various extensions, I realized that the weather extension was a bit too zealous in its job of telling me that it rains and that it's 22°C out there. After uninstalling that particular extension, Firefox's performance was much much much much much better. I'll try to find some utility to test the various extensions' use of my computer's resources so that I can better judge which ones are worth keeping.
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