Traveloteacher

School might be over, but certainly not for me. I have just embarked upon a new learning adventure at the American English Institute at the University of Oregon. Together with 30 like-minded teachers from all over the world I'm taking part in a 10-week online training course "Building Teaching Skills Through The Interactive Web". We all have the same goal - to learn how to teach with tech.

The teachers from my school recently discovered a fun way of hanging out and testing their knowledge at the same time. Last week we participated in The Ultimate Pub Quiz by Libris communications created by Peter Hopwood, a Brit living in Croatia. Pub quizzes are fairly new here, but they're becoming more and more popular. The prizes are absolutely awesome - a hot air balloon ride over Zagreb or rafting on the River Una. Peter is a fabulous quizmaster and the trivia questions reveal how much we (don't) know. We knew the name of Liverpool Airport the names of three American states beginning with 'O' and two American states that begin with 'North' where the show Magnum is set which of these (Vienna, Toronto and Brussels)(Rio, Prague, Marseilles) has the highest number of metro stations when was Do they know is Christmas released the name of the character played by Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop who was the mayor of NYC in 2001 the names of the cities written ...

The exam coordinator from my older son's school phoned me this morning. Exam coordinators don't usually call home. I froze up. She said my son was one of the 39 top ten students in Croatia who scored 100% in their maths school leaving exam. She wanted to know if he could come to school and talk to the newspaper reporters! My knees turned into jelly. I wanted to hug her! I wanted to hug my son too, but he's at the Adriatic, with a bunch of his classmates and has no intention whatsoever of cutting short his holidays for the sake of a newspaper article. Gosh, I'm so proud of this (little) boy of mine....

Shakira: Waka Waka (This Time For Africa)

I have just noticed that I tend to put my computer on stand by rather than shut it down. Firstly, because I don't have time to exit all those open tabs and applications as I sit at my computer until I have to literally run off if I want to avoid being late to school. Secondly, my computer is ready to take me back to where I left it in a jiffy. Am I hooked on technology? I don't think so. It's all about relationships and learning , says Kevin Jarrett in his thought-provoking post.

Fancy a Robbie Williams ESL Video Listening quiz? Robbie Williams: Morning Sun

What I like about Twitter is that it connects me with people who are on the same wave-length as me and who can't wait to let their imagination go wild with ideas, projects, activities, wikis.. and yes, skype chatting. Eva and I tried to connect our classes via Skype several months ago, but for different reasons I wasn't able to use the computer lab at the arranged time. About a month later we gave it another try, but this time I managed to be at the right place at the wrong time (time zones have always given me a headache!). But then came trecha srecha as we say in Croatian ('e' is pronounced as in pet), or the luck of the third adventure. On June 1, Brazil and Spain came to my classroom. Ana Maria , Guido and I successfully connected our classes via Skype. It was a bit chaotic, but absolutely amazing for all the teachers and students. Here you can read Ana Maria's post about the chat and watch the video she kindly recorded.