Sunday, January 30, 2005

Getting ready for Will Richardson's talk

I have been reading the articles suggested as Pre-reading for Will Richardson's chat and now start to understand how Bee, Aaron and Graham manage to keep up to date with the additions to our blogs. Up to now I had my doubts about whether it would be practical to have to check 25 or more blogs. This RSS tool seems to be the solution to the problem. I have already registered with Bloglines and have started adding feeds to my list. From the technical point of view, I think we have added one more piece to the jigsaw ... But then, there's the content to deal with, not just the form.
As for the articles by Will Richardson, I found this work he did with his literature class an excellent way of involving parents in their kids' learning process. As for the book, The Secret Life of Bees, I wish we could get it for the school library. At this point I am definitely positive I will use blogs with at least two of my classes, 6th grade and 5th Junior. The 6th grade blog is already in progress and I will try to link it to literature activities. 5th Junior ... there's so much I can do with them ...

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

Too much?

I now realise that I missed the session at Tapped In. I had it down for 9pm but it was at 9am. Anyway, I would have had to choose as it clashed with the Michael Coghlan's talk.Well, the fact that I am trying to cope with 2/3 groups + working on a paper for the next LABCI Congress is definitely showing ... Anyway, glad this session was at Tapped In and the transcript was already uploaded. We are so lucky to have such efficient moderators!

Also had a chance to chat to Hans today. We started working on plans for applying all we are learning in a joint project again. Moving beyond MSN The Netherlands - Argentina Group into blogosphere? Hopefully ...

Too much?

Michael Coghlan's talk

Just came back from Michael Coghlan's talk on Using Voice Communication Tools. I found it clear and concise. As for the environment, I found Yahoo much better than Alado. Or is it that when we use these voice communication tools we have to be aware of the fact that there is an international audience and therefore adapt our speed of delivery when speaking? A point to consider when using these tools with our students if we know that our they may have different levels of expertise, some may be newbies and their attention is constantly shifting from the audio, to the text chat window and the Powerpoint slides ... not to mention the fact that technical problems may arise and we might want to give live-blogging a try. No, not yet, maybe next year, Bee, I'll be ready for that... By the way ... I think I have finally learned to link text to URLs ...



Monday, January 24, 2005

Cutting Edge Tools in the ESL Classroom

I was reading Bee's blog today and felt it might be interesting to have a look at this online conference on Cutting Edge Tools in the ESL Classroom http://learningtimes.net/learningtimes?go=638193 . I had been chatting to Daf on the 21st and she had mentioned that she had a presentation with an Australian colleague in half an hour. At that time I really didn't understand how that could be done so I thought it was time to learn what these online conferences were like.

I had to wait for the download as Bee had warned but it proved really worth the wait. It was great to be able to "be" there and listen to Daf and Bee and Michael Coghlan as if I had been in a conference room. Lots of ideas, excellent conference.

trackback

I have added this Trackback feature to one of my blogs - Ale's Webpresence- but I still don't know what I can do with it ... wondering whether I should add it to this blog too ...

Friday, January 21, 2005

I attended the session with Anne Davis at Tapped In today. I thought it was enlightening. Of course after having listened to what she had to say about the possibilities blogging offers I would have to add quite a few more ideas to my mindmap ... lol. I browsed through her blogs later in the morning and I found them lovely models of what can be achieved with young learners. I especially liked her Idioms are Fun blog.

I have also had a look at this other site for Blogging Mr Ascanio mentioned ... 20six ... looks user-friendly indeed. I will have to devote some time to exploring it once I finish the course to make up my mind which is more convenient. For the time being I have enough with mastering Blogger ...

I am also considering using this topic with my FCE students when I have to deal with Writing a Report. One of the tasks I could assign my students is to compare and contrast different blog sites. Authentic tasks are definitely more motivating ...

After reading Bee's suggestion in today's Digest I changed my blog settings to allow anonymous users to comment. This will definitely encourage more comments.



Thursday, January 20, 2005


brainstorming blogging ... using CMap for the first time Posted by Hello

Monday, January 17, 2005

Ale's blog

Ale's blog
Monday night and after an hour of working on my blog I finally managed to get some links to the sidebar ... this was not as easy as creating the blog ... lots of reading and re-reading Vance's tutorial ... a bit of trial and error, but in the end it worked out nicely.

Sunday, January 16, 2005

Ale's blog


Ale's blog

Ale's blog

Again trying to add links ...

http://www.abci.com.ar

creating links

Well, here I am, trying to add my cool links to my site ...

Friday, January 14, 2005


Who wouldn't like to visit Patagonia?  Posted by Hello

awesome ... Posted by Hello

View from a lodge ... and, oh those roses Posted by Hello

on our way back from El Bolson Posted by Hello

Lago Mascardi ... breathtaking view ... Posted by Hello

The whole family in Llao Llao Posted by Hello

Lago Gutierrez Posted by Hello

Alberto and I with our friends, Jorge and Ale in Llao Llao Posted by Hello

The cabin we stayed in, in Bariloche Posted by Hello

In Piedra del Aguila ... see the eagle? Posted by Hello

trekking in Neumeyer, Bariloche Posted by Hello

Tuesday, January 11, 2005


My husband, Alberto Posted by Hello

My sons, Agustin on the left, Gabriel on the right Posted by Hello

That's me by the Nahuel Huapi Lake in Bariloche Posted by Hello

Who I am

Hi everyone,
So let me see how this works ... looks like I have to introduce myself to whoever is going to read this. My name is María Alejandra Gattorna de Weser, I am 44, I live in Bahía Blanca, Argentina. I am married to Alberto, who is a naval officer and have two teenage sons, Gabriel (18) and Agustín, (16).
I am a teacher of English and work at 3 schools in Bahia, one is a public school, school 39 - here I teach 9th grade, another is a private school, Escuela de la Ciudad, where I teach 6th grade. The last, and where I have more classes is Asociación Bahiense de Cultura Inglesa - an English Language School.

Well, I think that is enough for you to get an idea of who I am.

Ok, here I am on my second day blogging ... Enjoying my holidays ... spending part of the day at the club, sunbathing mostly and spending the rest of the day - it is almost midnight here! in front of my PC reading articles suggested by the EVO(Electronic Village Online) moderators.

The event hasn't started but it all looks so promising ... and reading one article leads you to another and a link (Teresa's webpage, Webcollaborator, Tapped In, etc) leads you to learning about so many programs (Handybits, Hello, Skype) that are available and which we could use at school to enhance communication with our students and even among colleagues ... it is like my mind is bursting with projects for our 2005 schoolyear!

Enough for today I guess ... want to do some more reading on Blog Netiquette ...



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