Jestem jaka jestem i jestem nauczycielem.

It's Thursday so I must be teaching. The class was on IT for English language teaching, which is an elective for second year MA students. They were in the middle of doing some history of CALL but we jumped ahead to later in the course and I looked and using wikis for collaborative language learning. The standard lectures are 90 mins, so you have an opportunity to get students more invloved than in a 50 min lecture. This suits me fine as once a TEFL teacher always a TEFL teacher and the first part of the lecture involved lots of bits if paper and the students doing all the work. I'm not sure they are used to that sort of thing in a normal lecture and suspect they wondered what this mad Englishman up to. I think it went down well or perhaps they were just being very polite.

Although the University uses a VLE I chose not to use it for the class as most of the students are or will be teaching in primary and secondary schools, very few of which have a VLE. I thought it made sense for them to look at something they could try for themselves and with their classes. I used PB Works but could equally have used wikispaces as well.

I used the wiki for the presentation as well as showing a small number of example uses.
http://inveniotech.pbworks.com/

During the last half hour we had an interesting debate on the whys, wherefores and practicalities of group activities, with a number of contributions from the three members of academic staff who also came to the lecture.

After a planning meeting for next week that followed the lecture, I got back to my flat in time to get something to eat and then watch the election debate on BBC World. Interesting stuff but not nearly as interesting as the Presidential election in Poland is going to be. The Speaker of the Parliament was the favourite to win the next election against the former President who has just died , which has now been brought forward. However, as Speaker, he is now the acting President and has to arrange the election. It is also likely that he will be now running against the former Prime Minister, who happens to be the dead President's twin brother! Interesting times in Poland.

Poznan remembers

Lectures were cancelled today as the public universities in Poznan joined together in mourning at the Senate. The Senate building is very impressive, as was the turnout which was standing room only. The proceedings included music from an excellent choir and organist as well as a number of speeches which, although I picked up some of, were quite hard for me to follow. The Senate session was followed by an open air public mass, which was notable for the wide age range there including young children and lots of students. Would that happen in the UK?

Tomorrow I'm lecturing on one of the MA courses on the subject of using wikis for collaborative language learning. Some midnight oil will be burnt preparing that methinks.

e-learning by the people, for the people and of the people

First presentation today on some of our experiences of e-learning at Swansea and some of the lessons we have learnt. There was some interesting debate and the bottle of Welsh whisky I presented went down well. Wednesday will be a strange day as much of it will be taken up with a memorial service in the Senate, Thursday I'll be teaching on one of the MA courses on using technology in language teaching and Friday will be a planning day for the training sessions we'll be running next week. At the weekends a whole different set of students arrive at the university to take their classes, so teaching is really a 7 day a week job. I wonder what the UCU would make of that?

e-learning by the people, for the people and of the people

View more presentations from chrismh99.

Events dear boy, events!

I'm not sure how my first week will pan out as, to quote Harold Macmillan, my trip has been affected by events. I'm giving a presentation tomorrow - e-learning for the people, by the people and of the people - so I'll be working on that today. Everything is quite subdued but people here in Poznan are getting back to work, so there aren't scenes like those in Warsaw. They may all be inside watching the wall to wall coverage on almost every channel on television - except one that seems to be showing non-stop vollyball.

As with Riga last year, I have arrived to wonderful spring sunshine. I hope it lasts but I fear I may have brought some Swansea rain with me.

Greetings from Poznan.........

What is it with me arriving for an Erasmus visit? My trip to Riga last May stated interestingly and, after a good journey to Poznan via Berlin, so did this one. I arrived at the office of the flat I had booked (cheaper than a hotel and all of those were booked anyway) to find it closed. No problem I thought, I'll just call them. I tried to use my shinny new Android phone only to discover that those nice people at Virgin had decided to block it from roaming, so all I could do was ring for an ambulance. Although a little concerned, I didn't think there was any need for that just yet. A little later, someone else with a suitcase in tow arrived along with the building security guard. The fellow traveller, who spoke no Polish, was looking for a completely different set of flats but the security guard, who spoke no English and had that wonderful demeanor of Polish officialdom, insisted that this was where he should be. My basic Polish helped resolve the situation and I was just about to ask if I could borrow the other flat hunter’s phone, when he and the security guard promptly left! Ch****a! No chance of getting a new SIM card as all the shops were shut, for obvious reasons. Just as I was beginning to think about ringing that ambulance the fellow flat hunter returned, thanked me for helping him and let me borrow his phone :-) 10 minutes later I was in my flat - phew!