Webquest: world's weirdest creatures

The idea for this one came to me from my RSS feed [explanation] from the crazy people at BoingBoing, and looks as if it might make a neat webquest [more information].

The basis of the webquest would be to find what the following have in common:

• The long-beaked echidna ("an egg-laying mammal")
• The Hispaniolan solenodon ("a venomous shrew-like creature")
• The Bactrian camel
• The pygmy hippopotamus
• The Slender Loris ("a shy, nocturnal primate with gigantic eyes")
  

The original (which includes 10 such creatures) is a campaign by EDGE to save the "world's weirdest creatures".

I'd suggest not specifying the URL of the EDGE site, but having your learners use a search engine or online encyclopedia, like Wikipedia (otherwise it's too easy!).

New Year's Resolutions for your PC

Over at the excellent lifehacker.com, one of my favourite RSS feeds, they've got an interesting Seven New Year's Resolutions for your PC.

Things like:

• Regularly backing up your hard drive
• Cleaning out your hard drive
• Organising your hard drive
• And so on...
  

... and links to get you started on the spring cleaning there.

If you've been to the technology session on the CELTA course with me, you might remember that I probably began by asking "What are the five most important things about using technology?" One of the ones I always suggest is making back-up copies of vital documents.

The things listed above aren't things that you should be doing just once a year, of course...

Good teaching

Oh, no! It's Monday...! A good teacher, they say, makes children glad it is...

A good teacher, good teaching... There's an article here that has 10 "requirements" for what good teaching should involve...

• It's about not only motivating students to learn, but teaching them how to learn, and doing so in a manner that is relevant, meaningful, and memorable.
• [It's] about listening, questioning, being responsive, and remembering that each student and class is different.
• [It's] about not always having a fixed agenda and being rigid, but being flexible, fluid, experimenting, and having the confidence to react and adjust to changing circumstances...
  

No mention of "technology", no mention of "computers" (or "grammar", for that matter!)... but there's still a lot there that would apply, no matter how much technology you might be using in your classroom.

Electronic Village Online (EVO) sessions

A reminder that the 2007 TESOL Electronic Village Online (EVO) sessions are about to begin. They run January 15 to February 25.

For anyone wanting to learn more about the uses that can be made of technology in the language classroom, I can strongly recommend them.

Further details in a previous post.

Really stupid technology

$500? For headphones?! Picture: Not the Shure E500PTH...

PC World has just published a list of The 20 Most Innovative Products of the Year...

At number 20, the Shure E500PTH Sound Isolating Earphones (a mere $500, no, that's not a misprint). PC World says the "in-ear, sound-isolating headphones nestle themselves in your ear canal and block 20 dB of outside noise, leaving you with a remarkably quiet listening environment even on a crowded bus or plane. Though that's great for listening to music, it can be a pain if you have to talk to someone for a bit".

I mean, having to talk to someone, why, that's a pain in itself!

However, thanks to technology, Shure has come up with "a unique way around the problem by embedding a small microphone in the cord. Flick a switch on the Push To Hear module, and the outside world is piped in through the headphones -- you have no need to remove them from your ears" (my italics).

Thanks to technology, we can now overcome even common courtesy...

Of course, as with all technology, whether we're using it on a plane or in the classroom, it's not the technology itself that's stupid, it's the use we make of it...