Driving in Greece - A crash course

As I have lessons all over the city I usually travel around Thessaloniki on a Vespa. It's next to impossible to park a car in many areas, and especially in the centre. On the other hand going by public transport is not really an options as it is often slow and unreliable. A journey that takes me 25 minutes by bike would need 1.5 to 2 hours by bus, so it's not feasible.

I found this video on YouTube that was taken in Greece, probably off a traffic camera in Athens. I had a similar collision last year when some idiot did an illegal upturn right in front of me and as a result I went flying over the hood of his car. luckily, I suffered little more than cuts and bruises, though the bike was a write - off. Still, unlike the guy in the video (who was even luckier) I always wear a helmet.

The worst thing about this is that when the driver gets out of the car, instead of asking about the victim or trying to get help she tries to defend her actions!! Even though she'd run a red light (according to the guy).

By the way, Greek law clearly states that wearing a helmet is mandatory. Now if only we can get the cops to figure that out it would be a start.

17th November march, Thessaloniki

Despite all the trouble afterwards, yesterday's commemoration of the student uprising on 17th November 1973 (see here about the event)went off without incident. Indeed, it was a good - natured affair and I had the chance to speak to many of my old students that I bumped into as I followed the march's progress. I thought I'd post a few photos and a some video that I took.

I saw several student groups that had volunteered to protect the university's building from possible vandalism by more violent factions. I saw them arguing with a group of masked anarchists who'd been stopped carrying empty retsina bottles (apparently, they make for more reliable Molotov cocktail containers than beer bottles).

Inside the university there was a party atmosphere as students listened to rembetika music and generally celebrated the anniversary of the fall of the junta in a relaxed, laid back manner (see here for other reports).








And see here for the video I took of the march which wound its way through the centre of the city and ended up at the Aristotelian university of Thessaloniki.

The Aristotelian university of Thessaloniki, Greece

A Google Earth photo showing where last nights dramatic events took place. The university is in the centre of the city and has about 70, 000 students.

Riots in Thessaloniki

Here is a video I took earlier (see here for others)

I was running away from the advancing riot police, the camera tripod fell out of my backpack and went clattering across the road. I stopped briefly and bent over to pick it up as as I got ready to resume my flight an enraged anarchist, stone in hand screamed in my face,

"τι'εν αυτο;" (what's this?)

and before I could answer he demanded to know,

"τι εισαι;" (what are you?)

As quick as a flash told him I was a blogger, and satisfied with my reply he ran off in the opposite direction to throw the piece of paving stone he was holding at the police who were rapidly advancing. I knew one day that blogging would have some practical use in the real world.

Today is the Polytechniou, on 17th November 1973 students at the Polytechnic in Athens started a student uprising that helped topple the military dictatorship that had ruled Greece since 1967. For educators and students of all ages it is a public holiday, marked by events which celebrate the brave stand that the students took against a particularly repressive regime.


I decided to take part in the march which went off in a peaceful manner and was the best attended I had seen for some time. Yet just like every other year I can remember there were riots and clashes between anarchists and the MAT (Greek riot squad). This year I thought that I would see what was happening for myself and hence angry encounter with the masked anarchist.

Skirting past the police blockade I managed to enter the university campus and see what was happening from the other side. The strangest moment was when the dean and university senate came marching out of the darkness chanting,

"We are dean and senate, we've come to tell the police to leave."



At great personal risk (there were stones and Molotov cocktails being thrown as he left the university grounds to talk to the police) he tried to reason with the young protesters, but without much effect. Like a disapproving teacher trying to bring order to a unruly class he argued, reasoned and implored the demonstrators to put down their stones and return back to the campus.

For the second time in three months I've been tear gassed (see here for September's riots). The trials and tribulations of being a citizen journalist, I guess.

Creating a video introduction to your life

Hopefully over the coming weeks or months I will have the chance to get my students to collaborte with students abroad. What I thought would be a great idea is to create a class video that gives students in say, Canada or Japan an idea of what it's like here in Thessaloniki. I was inspired in this by the example of what students at the Mabry Middle School have achieved. The video could take any of a number of forms. Indeed a major part of the lesson would be deciding just that question. Possible ideas might include creating a photo montage of the city using students' and internet gathered images which are then made into a short two - minute video using Window's Movie Maker.

Alternatively, students could shot short films of their own using their digital cameras or mobile photos and we use that as the basis for the video. The final result could then be posted via YouTube to the class blog.

Mind blowing ideas

Photo courtesy of Seth Fisher

In a good month I get about 2000 visitors to this blog, a number that far exceeds my wildest expectations when I started it, however, imagine a school that gets 1.5 million visitors a month to their site. No, not a world famous university, multi-national corporation or big name e-retailer, but a middle school in Georgia, USA.

When I was over at ever interesting Cool Cat Teacher blog I came across an interview Vicky did (listen here) with the Principle of Mabry Middle School, Dr Tim Taylor, who set up the site.
The school is a world leader in the integration of technology into teaching practice and the amazing thing is how low cost and easily accessible most of the tools are. For example, the site itself is, in fact as series of connected Movable Type blogs. What you can't put a price on though, is the sheer inventiveness and creativity of those teachers and students that are making this idea a practical reality.

I found the student produced video particularly amazing. Now that I've figured out how to post stuff on YouTube and have access to broad band at school and at home I'm definitely going to start on some of the video projects I blogged about during the summer.

Check out their film festival here.

Ticking off the boxes

It seems more and more the internet means blogs, I mean that much of what I find interesting or useful on the web comes via blogs or links mentioned on blogs. While over at Ewan MacIntosh's one I came across a short post which linked to an interesting article on young people and technology. Although the article in The Observer was about the huge divide between journalist's and younger people's perception of this technology, Ewan's point was that this gap also exist between teachers and their students.


"These kids have been socially conditioned in a universe that runs parallel to the one inhabited by most folks in the media business. They've been playing computer games of mind-blowing complexity forever. They're resourceful, knowledgeable and natural users of computer and communications technology. They're Digital Natives - accustomed to creating content of their own - and publishing it. (Remember the motto of YouTube: 'Broadcast yourself!')

They buy music from the iTunes store - but continue to download tracks illicitly as well. They use BitTorrent to get US editions of Lost. They think 'Google' is a synonym for 'research' and regard it as quite normal to maintain and read blogs (55 million as of last night), use Skype to talk to their mates and upload photos to Flickr. Some even write entries on Wikipedia. And they know how to use iMovie or Adobe Premiere to edit videos and upload them to YouTube.

Now look round the average British newsroom. How many hacks have a Flickr account or a MySpace profile? How many sub-editors have ever uploaded a video to YouTube? How many editors have used BitTorrent? (How many know what BitTorrent is?)"

See here for the rest of the article.

Spurred on by this I decided to learn to do a few of the things mentioned. Today, I posted my first video on YouTube and despite a few hassles with my first attempt, it proved to be a lot simpler than I had imagined. Although I'm not in Marc Prensky's terms a digital native, I'm doing a pretty good imitation.



I can't see Steven Spielberg losing any sleep over this film, though. LOL

Ideas for EFL/ESL writing

Here are some ideas I used today to help students with their writing skills.

Lesson Plan 1

1 Write the first line of a story (this is a common exam question) on the board.

E.g. "I opened the envelope and inside I saw a plane ticket with my name on it."

2 Write down a second sentence.
E.g "If that wasn't strange enough, there was also $1000 in cash."

3 Ask the class to shout a third sentence and write it on the board.

4 Ask for a couple more sentences and write them on the board.

5 Put students in pairs or groups of three. Get them to write the sentence in their notebooks and explain to them that they'll take turns in adding their own sentences. To ensure that they don't waste too much time, tell them that each person has only 30 (or more) seconds to write their sentences. To make sure they have an idea of the time, count to 30 aloud slowly.

6 Students then swap the book and the other person adds their sentence. If they haven't finished the sentence his/her partner must finish it before adding, their own.

7 Do this four or five times.

8 Ask the student to make a copy of the story in their own notebooks

9 For homework, students correct what has already been written and then finish the story.


Lesson Plan 2

This idea is a way of getting students to practice using relative clauses in a way that doesn't bore them (not an easy feat, believe me).

1 Write a short sentence on the board;

E.g. "Alan is a librarian"

2 Ask students in what ways we can make the sentence longer.

E.g "Alan is a good librarian"
"Alan is not a good librarian."
"Alan is sometimes not a good librarian." etc.

3 If the students don't mention relative clauses the write up an example of your own.

E.g. "Alan, who is married with two wonderful kids, is sometimes not a very good librarian at Kingston college, which is one of the best in the country."

4 Now write a new sentence on the board;

E.g. " Ingrid is the boss."

5 Tell students that they have five minutes to write the longest sentence they can. The winner of the competition has no homework for that lesson.

I did both these activities in my intermediate lesson today and they were a great success with a very lively and demanding bunch of teenagers.

Using music in class

Last week I posted a Rage Against the Machine video, Wake Up and said that I was going to do the song as a lesson. Here is the lesson plan for post intermediate classes. For this you'll need the song along with copies of the lyrics and some information about the song and singer/group (see here).

Wake Up - Rage Against The Machine

"Come on!
Uggh!

Come on, although ya try to discredit
Ya still never read it
The needle, I'll thread it
Radically poetic
Standin' with the fury that they had in '66
And like E-Double I'm mad
Still knee-deep in the system's shit
Hoover, he was a body remover
I'll give ya a dose
But it can never come close
To the rage built up inside of me
Fist in the air, in the land of hypocrisy

Movements come and movements go
Leaders speak, movements cease
When their heads are flown
'Cause all these punks
Got bullets in their heads
Departments of police, the judges, the feds
Networks at work, keepin' people calm
You know they went after King
When he spoke out on Vietnam
He turned the power to the have-nots
And then came the shot

Yeah!
Yeah, back in this...
Wit' poetry, my mind I flex
Flip like Wilson, vocals never lackin' dat finesse
Whadda I got to, whadda I got to do to wake ya up
To shake ya up, to break the structure up
'Cause blood still flows in the gutter
I'm like takin' photos
Mad boy kicks open the shutter
Set the groove
Then stick and move like I was Cassius
Rep the stutter step
Then bomb a left upon the fascists
Yea, the several federal men
Who pulled schemes on the dream
And put it to an end
Ya better beware
Of retribution with mind war
20/20 visions and murals with metaphors
Networks at work, keepin' people calm
Ya know they murdered X
And tried to blame it on Islam
He turned the power to the have-nots
And then came the shot

Uggh!

What was the price on his head?
What was the price on his head!


I think I heard a shot
I think I heard a shot
I think I heard a shot
I think I heard a shot
I think I heard a shot
I think I heard, I think I heard a shot

'He may be a real contender for this position should he
abandon his supposed obedience to white liberal doctrine
of non-violence...and embrace black nationalism'
'Through counter-intelligence it should be possible to
pinpoint potential trouble-makers... and neutralize them.
Through counter-intelligence it should be possible to
pinpoint potential trouble-makers... and neutralize them
and neutralize them, and neutralize them, and neutralize them'

Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!
Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!

How long? Not long, cause what you reap is what you sow"


Lesson Plan

1 Explain to the students that they will hear a short extract from a song (20 - 30 seconds). As they listen they should think of some questions using the following question words;

What
Where
Which
When

E.g Where is the band from ?
Which album is it from ?

2 Students write down their questions. Get them to check their grammar with each other before you go around and check them.

3 If a student recognises the song and/or performer then they take over your role. All the class's questions will be directed at him or her. Otherwise you answer them.

4 Write questions on the board;

This might be a good time to deal with any vocabulary issues. Just don't get too bogged down in explaining every possible nuance.

1 Why do you think the song is called "Wake Up"?
2 What do you think the song is trying to tell us ?
3 What names (people, places) are mentioned ?

5 Hand out the lyrics and play the song.

6 Students discuss their answers in pairs and groups.

7 Elicit answers from the class, and ask them if they know any of the names/places mentioned.

8 Now tell them that for homework they have answer a longer list of questions(see below) which I've posted on their class blog (I also posted a video and the lyrics to help them). The answers can either be written in their notebooks and discussed in the next lesson or posted on the blog.


Questions 1 Why is the song called "Wake up"?
2 Who was (Martin Luther) King?
3 How did he die?
4 What was happening in Vietnam in 1966?
5 Who was (Malcolm) X?
6 How did he die?
7 Why do you think the song was used in the Matrix movie?
8 What does the last line mean?

Student blogging - The rules

I came across these guidelines for student posting on their class blog at The Believe It or Not blog, which has been set up by RE department at Nodehill Middle School, Newport, Isle of Wight.

"Before we start, let’s agree we all stick to these ten rules below. They are designed to keep you safe and help you learn from each other.

1. I will only use my first name
2. I will never give out my email address
3. I will never give out my home address
4. I will never give out my telephone number
5. I will respect others
6. I will not use rude or threatening words
7. I will not use text talk or chat language
8. I will not copy other people’s work
9. I will be responsible for everything I write
10. I will check my spelling before posting

All comments will be seen first by us before going live. So we can make sure all the rules are followed. Remember, BELIEVE IT OR NOT is like a virtual classroom. Don’t do anything here that you wouldn’t do at school. That way, we can all enjoy the blog and improve our RE at the same time."

I'm going to be explaining and implementing these rules with my students' blogs over the next couple of weeks.

When I become a teacher.....

" I want to cover rather than uncover material... and use chalk."

" I going to teach one year 25 times."

"I want to use my computer only for recording grades."

Check out this wonderful video by The Apple Teacher Institute, Lesley University which parodies teachers' attitudes.

Support Blogging

Well, I've had a strange, if interesting morning so far. I was interviewed via Skype by Steve Hargadon , a Californian blogger and podcaster who writes about the use of technology in education. We talked about how I use the internet, more specifically blogging when teaching. I look forward to seeing the final result when he's finished editing it. The only problem is that I can't remember where he's going to post it. Oh well, never mind I'll ask him later and let you know.

Also check out his wiki page (Support Blogging) which has loads of links to other educators who use blogging, podcasting etc in their teaching practice.

UPDATE

Steve has just finished editing the interview, so if you go to The Infinite Thinking Machine you can read about it and you can listen to it here.

Great blog and video

I came across this wonderful video at 21st Century Collaborative Blog.



As she says;

"Sure-- this is a Linux commercial, but forget that. Rather look at the real message. The message of information and how this generation of digital learners are being given an advantage over those who do not have access. As I watched this commercial I was taken with the fact that children of parents with digital access have a distinct advantage over children with parents without access."

Her post talks about the responsibility we have as educators in bridging the digital divide, that not to do so will severely disadvantage students in the future;

"In my opinion, we are the last generation of teachers who have the prerogative of deciding whether or not to master technology. Many of us chose not to acquire proficient skills and still have experienced a high level of success in our professions. However, the children we teach today are not going to be afforded that choice."

See here for the rest of her post.

Don't think - learn !

I came across this Remote Access blog today which really crystallises many of the thoughts I've been having over the last few years;

"I'm getting to the point where I want to be finished with old ways. I truly believe that we are actively harming the kids in our classrooms when we are not preparing them for the society they live in. But more and more I roll around at night, get up early in the mornings and wonder what those new ways look like. Do we even know what we want? What would a classroom that actively supports kids in learning the skills which will best prepare them to be active, informed, concerned citizens in the twenty first century look like? If we could do anything, what would it be?"

As my daughter gets older and has entered the Greek educational system I become more and more worried about the quality of education she's receiving. It's not just the endless strikes and lost days but something much more fundamental. What exactly does this system want to achieve? If you've listened to the various ministers of education over the years, they all say that they want well-rounded individuals able to deal with the challenges of the modern world. Yet, like so many of their pronouncements, the wonderful statements bear little or no relation to the reality I see in schools and in the knowledge and skills that the students acquire.

Whilst the system may not be preparing kids for the demands of the twenty-first century,

"it was the ideal preparation for the Organization Man economy, a highly structured world dominated by large, bureaucratic corporations that routinized the workplace. Compulsory mass schooling equipped generations of future factory workers and middle managers with the basic skills and knowledge they needed on the job. The broader lessons it conveyed were equally crucial. Kids learned how to obey rules, follow orders, and respect authority -- and the penalties that came with refusal."

Daniel H. Pink - School's Out

The problem is that world is fast changing, disappearing even, and still the curriculum, with its heavy emphasis on theory and it's chronic distaste for practical application of knowledge continues to churn out thousands of students with precious few marketable skills, crammed with "facts" like some kind of goose being prepared for the production of liver pate.

I think the most damning indictment of the present situation came from the mouth of an ten year old student I was teaching English to last week. At the end of the lesson she sighed that she now had to study her history homework. When I asked her what she had to do, she replied that she had to learn a page from the book by heart. The passage, which was about the difference between an aristocratic and a democratic form of government in ancient Athens, was way beyond what you could reasonably expect from an ten-year old. She read out the passage and when I asked what she understood, she said, "nothing". But as her sister, who is seventeen said, if she wants a good grade what she had to do was learn it by heart. The saddest thing about this whole story is that her sister is right. As long as she can repeat in class the teacher will be happy.

The moral of the story?

Don't think - learn !

When the impossible becomes a matter of routine

Forget the numbers, ignore the jargon, pay no heed to mbs or mps, the thing that makes technology so great is the way it allows ordinary people do extraordinary things. I'm now watching my niece's birthday party live on the web. Today Maisie will turn four and she is having her party at her grandmother's house.

Luckily, the room were everything is laid out also has a computer with an internet connection, Skype and a video camera. this means that I, too can follow the event and take part. With the computer connected to the speakers it almost sounds as if I were in the room with them. What was once a science fiction fantasy has become a piece of everyday reality. It's like being there when people saw their first motion picture or made their first phone call.

At no cost, I can chat to my family in England and share with them these special moments. Now that's what the best technology is all about; allowing us to do what would have been unimaginable just a few decades ago.

The Edublogs Awards 2006 - nominations

Picture courtesy of Stalinsunshine's flickr page

Nominations are open from 8 November to 30 November 2006. So don't forget to email in your nominations (maximum 2 per category) to the awards email address:

2006awards@googlemail.com

Please remember to include the address of your site!

• Best audio and/or visual blog

• Best group blog

• Best individual blog

• Most influential post, resource or presentation

• Best library/librarian blog

• Best newcomer (2006)

• Best research paper on social software within learning and teaching

• Best teacher blog

• Best undergraduate blog

• Best wiki use

Films and teaching

As people who read this blog regularly (hi, mum!) will know I just love using films when teaching as I believe they are a rich source of language opportunities. My only gripe is that the vast majority of EFL/ESL teaching exercises based around movies treat them as little more than listening comprehension tests with visuals (I think I will scream if I see yet another gap-fill exercise). Given the vast range of possibilities the medium offers it seems a shame just to repeat tired, old teaching techniques that were created thirty or forty years ago for use with cassette recorders.

So, once again I've had to look out of the well in order to find fresher, more up - to - date activities. Luckily, today I came across the BFI (The British Film Institute) site (see here) which has a lot of educational material aimed at British students studying for their GCSE's. While, the materials are not tailored for the EFL/ESL learner there are loads of teaching possibilities and activities which could be used with post intermediate classes.

The only drawback is that the exercises are based on short films that you have to be a member of the BFI to access. However, I'm sure that they can be substituted by other film extracts.

Amnesty international

As a result of the Blogme case here in Greece, I've decided to join Amnesty's Irrepressible Info campaign. The idea is that bloggers and other internet users can circumvent government censorship;

" Chat rooms monitored. Blogs deleted. Websites blocked. Search engines restricted. People imprisoned for simply posting and sharing information.

The Internet is a new frontier in the struggle for human rights. Governments – with the help of some of the biggest IT companies in the world – are cracking down on freedom of expression.

Amnesty International, with the support of The Observer UK newspaper, is launching a campaign to show that online or offline the human voice and human rights are impossible to repress.

Find out more about this campaign"

If you wish to have a similar badge on your site (click here) and follow their simple instructions.

Art for art's sake

Rage Against the Machine

Wake Up!


"Come on!
Uggh!

Come on, although ya try to discredit
Ya still never read it
The needle, I'll thread it
Radically poetic
Standin' with the fury that they had in '66
And like E-Double I'm mad
Still knee-deep in the system's shit
Hoover, he was a body remover
I'll give ya a dose
But it can never come close
To the rage built up inside of me
Fist in the air, in the land of hypocrisy

Movements come and movements go
Leaders speak, movements cease
When their heads are flown
'Cause all these punks
Got bullets in their heads
Departments of police, the judges, the feds
Networks at work, keepin' people calm
You know they went after King
When he spoke out on Vietnam
He turned the power to the have-nots
And then came the shot

Yeah!
Yeah, back in this...
Wit' poetry, my mind I flex
Flip like Wilson, vocals never lackin' dat finesse
Whadda I got to, whadda I got to do to wake ya up
To shake ya up, to break the structure up
'Cause blood still flows in the gutter
I'm like takin' photos
Mad boy kicks open the shutter
Set the groove
Then stick and move like I was Cassius
Rep the stutter step
Then bomb a left upon the fascists
Yea, the several federal men
Who pulled schemes on the dream
And put it to an end
Ya better beware
Of retribution with mind war
20/20 visions and murals with metaphors
Networks at work, keepin' people calm
Ya know they murdered X
And tried to blame it on Islam
He turned the power to the have-nots
And then came the shot

Uggh!
What was the price on his head?
What was the price on his head!


I think I heard a shot
I think I heard a shot
I think I heard a shot
I think I heard a shot
I think I heard a shot
I think I heard, I think I heard a shot

'He may be a real contender for this position should he
abandon his supposed obediance to white liberal doctrine
of non-violence...and embrace black nationalism'
'Through counter-intelligence it should be possible to
pinpoint potential trouble-makers... and neutralize them.
Through counter-intelligence it should be possible to
pinpoint potential trouble-makers... and neutralize them
and neutralize them, and neutralize them, and neutralize them'

Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!
Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!

How long? Not long, cause what you reap is what you sow"


I'm going to use this in my lesson next week, any ideas?