Thoughts so far on blogging in education

I'm participating in two different TESOL EVO 2006 sessions, one on collaborative blogging in education and the other on using drama in second language acquisition. So, for a while at least, this blog will have my thoughts about what we've been discussing so far in the blog session.

Shouldn't technology make our lives easier, not more difficult? The students may enjoy it, and so might I, but how much are they actually learning? And how much time is wasted? These things exhaust what little is left of my energy at five o'clock on a Friday afternoon.

I'm enjoying the blog06 session the best so far, mostly because it goes hand-in-hand with the activities I'm attempting to develop for my students here.

Life on the Road

I found a blog this morning called Driving to South America, about tales of a retired couple and their road trip through South America. This could be you, Dad! How long do you think it would take you to get from Ohio to Barranquilla?!

I knew I was back in Barranquilla when...

• I got to the Avianca desk in Miami and I had to pay $53 in airport taxes
• I was on the airplane and no one stayed in their seats, the kids behind me were playing videogames with the sound on and turned up loud, and the lady sitting next to me said the airplane food was "delicious" (hint: airplane food is never delicious)
• In the baggage claim area, passengers and their kids were jumping over and on the conveyor belt. On the conveyor belt
• I smelled the gas fumes from all the cars in the 5:00 traffic and wanted to gag.

Happy New Year, a little bit late, resolutions, etc.

Haven't posted for a while, even though I wanted to, 'cause McAfee on my dad's laptop blocks everything and even after playing with it for a while, couldn't figure out where to un-block Blogger.

I have to say, one of my resolutions for the new year (what I'm going to fix in 2006) is to take more pictures. People have been asking me, and I really don't have many good ones. I have no excuse really, now that I have a digital camera, other than I am extremely lazy when it comes to taking pictures!

And I have to find something useful to do with my time. I've spent the last I don't know how many years volunteering and I NEED to find me someplace to feel like I'm contributing something to society in Barranquilla. Even if the locals don't have that need, I do. What have I done with the past six months? It's not like working with the students is very fulfilling (sorry, those of you who are good students). And what do I do, really, other than work, sleep, and kind of eat? So much for my idea of working in Colombia being at least more relaxing than being a full-time grad student. It's not, in many ways. I don't want to keep losing hair from all the stress! So that's another resolution-don't lose any more hair from working too much.

I WILL finish my first knitting project this year, I swear. I WILL pay off my $26.50 overdue book fine to the Cincinnati Public Library. I WILL at least start doing yoga again 4 times a week because I realized I have no muscles left in my body.

I had a great New Year's Eve with my friends in the 'Nati. And it was 60 degrees the next day! Balmy! Amazing! Even thought 60 is still a shocker after 85. I wanted it to look like this (Christmas last year), but I can deal with not having to wear a coat all the time when it's January!

And we went salsa dancing at the Mad Frog, where people know how to turn! I truly miss living in that city (mostly because of friends and connections) but also because even though there's really not much to do there, there's 10 times more to do than in Barranquilla (which how is that possible?).