Random Quote
We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything.
---- Thomas A. Edison
One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain't nothin' can beat teamwork.
---- Edward Abbey
Always be wary of any helpful item that weighs less than its operating manual.
---- Terry Pratchett
it's probably not a good idea to underestimate my ability to make an ass out of myself—just when I seem to have it under control, I'll turn around and surprise you.
---- Tenser said the Tensor
Drink coffee! Do stupid things faster!
---- unknown
Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.
---- Robert Frost
As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life - so I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls.
---- M. Cartmill
America believes in education: the average professor earns more money in a year than a professional athlete earns in a whole week.
---- Evan Esar
It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.
---- Franklin D. Roosevelt
Don't knock the weather. If it didn't change once in a while, nine out of ten people couldn't start a conversation.
---- Kin Hubbard
Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.
---- Malcom Forbes
I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.
---- Albert Einstein
Those who know nothing of foreign languages, knows nothing of their own.”
---- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749 -1832)
I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.
---- Isaac Asimov
I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it.
---- Terry Pratchett
Isn't it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fiction listen to weather forecasts and economists?"
---- Kelvin Throop III
The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.
---- George Orwell
Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.
---- Lily Tomlin
As soon as I buy the moose head, I have to go pick up some KY jelly.
---- Mary Roninette Kowal
Hanging is too good for a man who makes puns; he should be drawn and quoted.
---- Fred Allen
I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
---- Thomas A. Edison
The important thing is not to stop questioning.
---- Albert Einstein
Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy.
---- Isaac Newton
Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.
---- H. G. Wells
Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar.
---- Edward R. Murrow
Using Weblogs in Education
I read a post at Teachnology about another post at Edublog regarding teaching about or with weblogs and potential resistance by other educators. Some of the more obtuse comments the author reporst hearing include:
I’ve seen many educators who just can’t see possibilities with it. It is a little disconcerting at first. It is not a way that educators traditionally teach or communicate. Their immediate reaction seems to be one of trying to make it fit into something they already know. They want to convert it to a “regular” web page and don’t see how. Then they view it through one lens like a list of links, assignments, or random thoughts and they immediately toss it out as being of no value to what they do or want to do. Some equate it with teenage diaries and can’t get past that. Then some complain about the writing that their students do on the posts or comments.
The author goes on to say that this is where good teachers are need and I agree 100 percent. The benefits of using a weblog should be immediately salient as a means of authentic communication with a real audience.
As an EFL instructor I can see the value of having students write on topics of interest to them as a means of practicing writing skills. But for so many students it is just an assignment to be completed with the minimum of effort. I imagine that if students knew that their work is going to be read by others they would put more effort into it and it would raise both their intrinsic as well as extrinsic motivation.
By further networking ESL/EFL student blogs across the globe it would be easy for students to find others with similar interests or hobbies and become involved in discourse conducted in English. This is important to me as my students have little opportunity to interact in English with others. They find it difficult to speak in English with other Koreans, but if they can have real communication with others who do not understand Korean…
I will have to wait and see what my new position is like before implementing this, but it blogging for EFL students is defineately high on my list. I have a meeting next week on Friday before we start classes on Tuesday and at that time I will have to discern how much freedom I have.
