Open Brackets

An interesting thread has opened up on Open Brackets, a weblog dedicated mainly to translation:


"French employees will accuse a US multinational in court today of discrimination, claiming that they are being forced to speak English. [...]

“We think that employees should have the right to understand the instructions they’re given and to follow what is being said in meetings.”

The staff say it is not a question of national pride, but of discrimination. They claim that people have been denied promotion because they speak poor English, and that those who protest are accused of rejecting the company’s ethos."

Google Scholar

Google Scholar

"Google Scholar enables you to search specifically for scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from all broad areas of research. Use Google Scholar to find articles from a wide variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities, as well as scholarly articles available across the web."

Jotspot

I haven't had time to take a look at this yet - Jotspot - so I can't vouch for it, but my brother recommends it. At the moment, they are accepting registrations for beta trials.

Bloglines

I must admit that I came late to RSS and Bloglines, but now that I've discovered what it can do for me, I wouldn't like to live without it.

If you haven't discovered it yet, try rerading Alex Halavais' article about what it can do for you and give it a try.

Thanks to Stephen Downes for the tip.

ADE Bloggers

ADE Bloggers is a collaborative blog that has a nice summary of why a teacher might want to use blogging tools. Here's an extract:

"You might like to create a reflective, journal type blog to...


reflect on your teaching experiences.
keep a log of teacher-training experiences.
write a description of a specific teaching unit.
describe what worked for you in the classroom or what didn't work.
provide some teaching tips for other teachers.
write about something you learned from another teacher.
explain teaching insights you gain from what happens in your classes.
share ideas for teaching activities or language games to use in the classroom.
provide some how-to's on using specific technology in the class, describing how you used this technology in your own class.
explore important teaching and learning issues."

There are other answers relating to class weblogs, learner weblogs, shared weblogs, etc...

The Report Card

The Report Card is a blog-rant by an anonymous teacher who doesn't sound too happy with the school he works at. Here's an example:

"MrTeacher: 'You've got to be kidding!'
YS: 'I'm not.'
MrT: 'My class is six weeks away from a major exam [that they have paid €150 for], and you want a teacher who has never prepared anyone for the exam to teach them, just because she's afraid of driving on the motorway? She can take backroads. I'll find her a route on the map!'
YS: 'She can't do it. I'VE RIDDEN WITH HER! She's way too nervous. She'll crash the car.'
MrT: 'SHE CAN GO ON THE BACKROADS.'
YS: 'NO SHE CAN'T. IT'S TOO FAR FOR HER TO DRIVE'
MtT: 'HOW IS THAT MY CLASS' PROBLEM ? This isn't fair to them. I'm going to call Bossman.'
YS: 'Go ahead.'"

Blogbox.com

I've yet to try this out, but Blogbox.com offers "free, open-source rich internet applications for your personal website, wiki or blog"

What I've seen looks good, so I'll be coming back here to try some of these widgets out!

Blogging in Paris

Claude Covo-Farchi at http://covonline.com/ has a very colourful blog that will be of interest to many. There are lots of links to ESL sites, and many other snippets that could be used with classes.

A Hong Kong English teacher blogs

Hong Kong English teacher: "I would like my students to have perfect English. I would like them to be able to write in a variety of styles to meet different requirements, to be able to write complex interesting sentences that are not filled with errors. I would like them to be able to take part in discussions, to be able to argue their points forceably and coherently in English, to be able to give fluent presentations without pronunciation errors, and to be able to converse in English naturally and confidently.

I know this is not going to happen. It is unrealistic. I can have an ideal though."

This self-reflective weblog makes interesting reading - it's another good example of a practising teacher using a weblog to reflect upon teaching, etc.