Thanks Lourdes for your kind words. Something will come up in the near future.
Meanwhile I'll have to do more waitressing.

Anyway, I've had more time to listen to the radio and It seems that England is becoming a caricature of a nanny state. First, it was the drinking laws to keep the workers sober so they could make bullets the right size for the guns during the war, then it was the antisocial behaviour orders
(ASBOs) to keep the country's working class kids under control. And now they want to enforce a code of conduct telling teachers how to behave...when they're not at work! How intrusive this government has become! They want to regulate everything from your work life to your private life.
Beware because things take about five years to cross the channel!

unemployed again!

My contract finished yesterday and I feel a bit down. However, I can see the positive side
and I'll take the opportunity to enjoy my kids, read, rest and do some Uni work.

I need some ideas for the moviemaker project. I hope to start in the next few days.

Hi everybody!

Although I thought I would never finish the story, I've done it! Great!
Now I'm ready for the next challenge!

The Power of Youtube

Hello all.

I thought I'd share this story with you about the power of youtube.

As I work on the computer, I usually listen to BBC radio and at the moment there's a topic of hot discussion around the topics of celebrity and taste. The background to the story is as follows:

2 controversial comedians who host, among other things, a radio programme phoned the home of a British actor, Andrew Sachs. He's best known for playing a rather slow Spanish waiter in a seaside hotel in one of the best-loved comedy series on British TV.

Anyway, he wasn't in when they called so they left a series of rather abusive messages on his aswerphone. This lead to 2 people phoning the BBC to complain; not a particular serious response.

However, someone thought the clip funny and decided to post it on youtube and in no time at all the BBC had received over 30,000 complaints. Eventually, one of the presenters resigned, one has been suspended and various admisitrative heads are set to role. And all because someone put it on youtube!!!

It makes you think.

If you fancy waching it, here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7IHJ66wj9g

Anyway, I really must make a start on that powerpoint assignment.

Bye

Hi everybody!

Yesterday I had to speak to my daughter's teacher because she was worried about the amount of attention my daughter seeks. I had noticed this and had put it down to her being jelous of her brother.

Anyway, the thing I wanted to share is that everything the teacher said was totally negative. But, what'smore, is the fact that the teacher had obviously given no thought as to the effect this would have on me, the parent. It was a real eye-opener as to the importance of the way we interact with everyone, not just the students.

I think that it's important to give positive feedback as well as the negative, as there is always something good. I believe in correcting the negative things, but I think it's mportant to do this alongside highlighting the childs positive points, because they've all got some. Whatever you do, you should definitely avoid giving the parent the impression that you dislike their child. disapprove of behavioural aspects, of course, but not dislike the indivividual.

It's been a good day. I've finished my first assigment and Obama has won the elections.
I cannot believe how excited I was when I heard the news. I don't know why but it feels like
change is on the horizon. Nothing could be as badas with Bush.

Anyway, I watched the Truman Show at the weekend and It's amazing how our lives are beginning to resemble that of Truman's. Everywhere we look there are cameras, we need to give details about our private lifes when filling in documents and so on. The worst is that we don't know the extent to which people will have access to that information and how it's gonna be used.

The thing is that not even Obama will be able to change this manipulation and control.

Students at work

This is a picture of my students working on their blogs .
It's a good tool for getting to know each other and to pass in on information about their subject at school.

See you soon.

Thanks Ainara

Hi everyone!

I´d like to thank Ainara for helping me put this blog list on. Couldn't've done it without you!
That's what I call team work!.

My blog project at school is going really well and they love it (most of them, anyway).
See if Ican take a picture of my students at work, that is if they let me.

I'll keep in touch.

I wanted to share a thought about my teaching. I've got these 16-17 year olds who have never been very academically successful. However, it's amazing to see them work on something they are really interested in. I've decided to adapt the curriculum a bit, and instead of exercises and exams all the time they are doing the subject through assigments which bring in elements of what they are really interested in; for example music, history of punk and so on.

As I teach computers, they are doing power points and creating blogs. We´ve already seen windows and although I should have carried on for another two weeks, I could feel they needed a change of focus and It is great to see how interested they are. And this is a class where it used to be a miracle if all of them turned up.

Hi there!

Now that I have to do an assigment on the new technologies being used at a school, we've decided
to create a blog in class at the school where I work. The students seem to like the idea and it will be a great opportunity to talk about what they've learnt everyday, the positive and negative things and so on.

We might start next week, so I'll let you know how it goes.

Leire

Hi everybody!

I hope you've had an interesting day at university!
I've just worked out how to upload videos and images from the net. One thing down, many more to go.


Apart from this, I intend to start with the assigment about new technologies.
I've chosen the school where I'm working at the moment in Iruña. See how it goes.

See you all,

Leire azkue

Here is an interesting video about why we are doing what we are doing.
Enjoy it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzEjzL6_gyE

Now that we have to watch the Truman show, I thought that this video really shows how aspects of what goes on in the film actually happen everyday as we have this need to broadcast our private lives in any sphere possible.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7663350.stm

Welcome

Hi

I've done it at last. This is Leire, and although I'll not be going to class, I'll
keep up with things by reading your blogs and going in moodle. I'm off to bed now as I've got to get up early to run, so sleep well.

Speak to you soon.

Leire