[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CKK7LcVinY&hl=en&fs=1]

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Wenceslas Square, Prague, originally uploaded by lisibo.

I’ve just arrived in Prague for the European eTwinning cnference entitled Creativity and eTwinning. The conference hall is very full so I am cross legged on the floor – however, I am comfortable, have free WiFi and my crossed legs are the perfect Mac stand!

Edward de Bono – he of the thinking hats – is currently speaking – I’m tweeting his talk as I blog too!

Also blogging on the eTwinning blog so looks like I might be busy!

It’s good to be back in Prague – the picture is from my last visit, also for an eTwinning conference last year!

More as it happens!

I love stickers! I love sticking them on my books, and I love sticking them on children as rewards!

So I am always looking for funky stickers, particularly in Spanish for my classes.

There are lovely ones available from
Language Stickers in French, German, Spanish, Italian, Mandarin, Welsh, Polish, Portuguese, Turkish, Russian and Latin
Superstickers in French, German, Spanish and Welsh
Linguascope in French, German, Italian, Welsh, Mandarin and Spanish.
Brainwaves in French, German, Italian, Polish, Spanish, Turkish and Welsh.

But some of my favourites come from …

Perhaps it’s my juvenile nature or my love of dressing up, but I love the resources available from Pedagogs! And so do pupils.

So I was really pleased to receive an email today offering 15% off during February!

Stickers are available in Spanish, French, Mandarin (tradtional and simplified) and German, and feature little cartoon people dressed as cowboys, firemen – well, see for yourself below!

And I’ve just noticed that the design of their charity tote bag has changed – I’ve got a blue one but the new one is pink with a mermaid… I feel the need to shop!!

7 by duncan
Attribution-NonCommercial License

As I have now been tagged twice for this meme, by @ajep and @stuart422, and as I have an unexpectedly ‘free’ day, guess I’d better get on with it!

Seven things you may wish to know about me….

1. On my very first school photograph I am wearing a Muppets T-shirt and shorts, and look like a boy. My Mum assures me that’s what I wanted to wear – and I guess she’s probably right! I was an opinionated 5 year old!

2. I appeared on Dutch national TV in cycling shorts and a crop top – but did not fair as badly as my cycling mate whose bottom was filmed cycling away into the distance.

3. In the sixth form, I was nicknamed ‘Anneka’ due to my penchant for jumpsuits and dungarees and the speed at which I moved, and was regularly greeted in the corridors with shouts of “Stop the clock, she’s found the clue!”

4. I have an irrational phobia of cotton wool – even the word makes me shiver and my mouth go dry so I have to lick my teeth.

5. I once sang Lucky Stars on stage with Dean Friedman at Ronnie Scotts in Birmingham. I was volunteered by my ‘friends’ :os

6. I had the chickenpox aged 21 on my year abroad in Spain. Not a pleasant experience :o(

7. Although I’m not technically Spanish, I really should be!

So – who can I tag? I think…. Chris Fuller, Andrew Rhodes, Helena Butterfield, Lynne Horn, Joe Rowing, Sinclair Mackenzie and Dave Baynham!

Today I was supposed to be in Leicester speaking about eTwinning and the potential of using Voki, Voicethread and Audacity in projects. However, the snow got in the way so I’m not there but at home. I sent my presentation and notes to Jenny from the British Council so those brave souls that made it could have a look at what I might have said.

Below you will find all that I would have presented today given the chance.

Notes for Madrid – Free Legal Forms

Madrid – Free Legal Forms

And here’s the slideshare related to Whitehouse Common’s awardwinning project – if you want to see examples of the sort of things we did, leave me a message and I’ll upload some of those too.

Yesterday I ran in my first ever running race. At Teachmeet on January I stood up in front of a room full of people and told them what I’d been doing in my classroom with technology.

If you’d told me a year ago that’s what I’d be doing in January 2009, I would have laughed. Lots.

But, as I entitled my Teachmeet presentation – What a difference a year makes!

Below is what I said at Teachmeet, along with links to the work we’ve done (omitted to show any of it on the night as I was so nervous!)

Lisa Stevens (lisibo) @ TeachMeet BETT from Learn4Life on Vimeo.

Our wiki is http://wcps.wikispaces.com and our school website http://www.whitehousecommon.org.uk

And, bless him, this is what Drew Buddie said about me!

Last one of two bits of feedback from TeachMeet at EatMeet from Learn4Life on Vimeo.

And here’s the last 50m of the race in Sutton Park yesterday. It was a handicap race, with each participant estimating how long it would take them to run 5km. We were then set off that amount of time before 1a so in theory we should all have arrived in a bunch together. As it was, I finished in 26 minutes 46 seconds which was 14 seconds off my estimate, and won a prize as I was 5th nearest! Ironically, if I hadn’t had to stop on the final corner because I was heaving s much, I wouldn’t have won anything because I’d have been too fast.

So – what will you be doing this time next year? You never know!

Long time no blog, eh? Life’s been rather hectic over the last week or so – and I really should blog about it!! However, thought I’d flag up this opportunity as it has just arrived in my inbox and looks great!

The Consejería de Educación, in collaboration with the Instituto Cervantes Londres, has arranged a full day of activities for teachers of Spanish in primary schools. Taking place on Friday March 27th at The Instituto Cervantes, the day looks packed like ‘una lata de sardinas’ with fun and examples of good practice, with workshops on things like storytelling, food, CLIL, .. showcases and a performance of a play written and produced for children who are learning Spanish in KS1 and KS2. And all for £25!

It doesn’t matter if your Spanish isn’t brilliant as the email stated –

‘The whole event will be friendly to teachers with a limited competence in Spanish.’

You can download details of the day, the programme and abstracts of the sessions here on the Consejeria site.

Despite living in Birmingham, I’m seriously considering going, as the sessions on storytelling, extending writing, five minute activities and starters for the Spanish classroom all look very interesting – and that’s just from a curspry glance. Added to which, I’d love to see El viaje de Matilde presented by A cuerpo as I blogged about it a while back and, now that we have a new Head at school, now might be the time to plant my suggestion…

Closing date for applications to attend is March 16th so if you fancy it, why not ask your manager if you can attend?

Many of you will know of Joe Dale and follow his marvellous blog, Integrating ICT into the MFL classroom. Joe is an SSAT Lead Practitioner and as part of his role, he delivers an SSAT seminar each year. This year he ran a day in Colchester on Blogging and Podcasting, and I am really pleased that he is going to repeat that day in the Midlands soon – on Thursday 29th January at Shirelands CLC to be precise.

As Joe says –

If you are interested in finding out more about the potential of blogging and podcasting to enhance language learning and offer personalised distance learning opportunities to your students, why not click here and download the flyer to apply to attend the course? It only costs £69 which includes lunch.

I can thoroughly recommend Joe’s seminars as they are always very instructive and full of ideas for enhancing language learning – and the ideas are all easily transferrable to other areas of the curriculum so it would be easy to share the outcomes with your whole school and for everyone to benefit.

If you need further persuasion, check out some of the comments from his session in Colchester– (bottom of post!)

This time next week, TeachMeet09 will be drawing to a close and about 60 people will be descending on PizzaExpress to carry on the networking and discussions. And I can’t wait!

As Drew Buddie has put it so eloquently on his blog, I’ll leave it to him to explain –

The TeachMeet model is one which encourages anyone with something of interest regarding the use of technology in the classroom to talk about, to speak to a gathered audience of people who (in a nutshell)want to be inspired. It makes for an excellent antidote to the BETT Show which is effectively a showcase for hundreds of companies trying to sell teachers their products. This is because you know that the people talking are genuinely talking about THEIR classroom practice, as opposed to a salesman peddling their latest tool or software package.

Last year I went to BETT for the first time and must say that I got far more out of TeachMeet than I did from BETT. I love the fact that each presentation is short – 2 or 7 minutes – and that everything is based on classroom practice! And because presenters are chosen by random generator from the list of volunteers, you’re neer sure what’s coming next.

Last year, I watched in awe of everyone, rather like a rabbit in headlights. One year on, I’m helping to organise the event and have volunteered to speak – name is down for 7 minutes as I was told by several people that there was no way I would be able to limit myself to 2 minutes!! And that’s what I’m going to talk abut – how I got from one to the other!

So, if you’re coming to BETT next Friday, sign up on the wiki – it’s free!

And if you can’t be in London, why not join in virtually? As Drew also points out, there are Facebook , Twitter & Flickr groups and a Ustream feed already set up for the event as well as a Flashmeeting providing a backchannel which will run throughout the event so that attendees all around the world can participate in the event, and there are plans afoot to have all videos hosted on a TEDTalks-like portal so that the talks can be used to inspire others once the event is over.

There are lots more details on the wiki – well worth a look to find out what’s going on. And I’ll try and blog as much as I can!