Experimenting with a new Polling tools

A new polling tool I discovered - Flisti.com



It can be easily embeded into a blog or website.

And here is the link to the poll I created. Please try to answer the simple quetsion.

What videos do you mostly watch on youtube?

Are You Ready to Be Wowed #iTDiMOOC?

Challenges are tests. Either you pass them and celebrate moving one step ahead or just surrender and stay still in your place. Since I opened my door to the online virtual world of wonders, my professional development as a teacher and my whole life have changed a lot. (Ayat Tawel, ELT teacher, iTDi Associate from Egypt)

I can only totally agree with the above quote written by my dear colleague Ayat Tawel. She has recently published a wonderful blog post for iTDi.pro - on the topic of Challenges, Projects and Opportunities and this has reminded me of how I got started. To tell you the truth, Ayat's story and mine are very similar. We both started at TESOL EVO session Becoming a Webhead in 2011 and somehow we ended up doing so many online things: learning, sharing, meeting wonderful and committed educators worldwide because we are #PD fanatics, as I have been told!

This summer it is all about PD. There have been many great and inspirational free online events. And now, at the moment it is all about #iTDiMOOC, a free four week online course that is happening at WiziQ. It has gathered so many wonderful teachers who are willing to share their ideas with everyone.

I presented at the iTDiMOOC as well, together with my dear colleague and a friend Marcia Lima, about our mutual (still in progress) BRAZ+CRO project. Marcia has written a wonderful post about it which you can read here.

If you want to invest more into your own personal development than #iTDiMOOC is the place for you.

Join the movement and follow it on Twitter and Facebook as well.

 HAVE a happy learning and get your own personal badge :) 

What a fantastic #EDU weekend with #RSCON5

It would be hard to summarize a three day free online event known as Reform Symposium Conference #RSCON5 with just one post, but I am sure this message is the one we can ALL agree with  Be inspired to inspire!

A screenshot from Hayfa Majdoub presentation "ICT in the EFL Classroom"

If you ask me why, the answer is simple. This conference was the first one I encountered after becoming a Webhead and stepped in the online world of ELT. It was the one to INSPIRE me even more! Let me put it this way; the organizers, the presenters, the wonderful participants and educators from all the parts of the world were the one who showed me that the best way to learn is to share your ideas, to motivate and to inspire, whether with just one slide or a word, a small project or a lesson idea, you will for sure find the way to those who are willing to try! Maybe they will follow your examples, maybe they will get an idea and try to do similar things, but you will for sure meet some new friends, new colleagues and bond friendships that could last for years. 

My first conference was #RSCON3 in 2011. I was just an active participant who carried her laptop around the house. You can check that old blog post here. But I don't know what happened and in 2014 for #RSCON5 I somehow ended up on the other side, helping presenters, moderating and working with wonderful team of online colleagues/ladies - my #PLN.

Heike Philip(GER), Shelly Sanchez Terrell(USA), Peggy George(USA), Marcia Lima(BRAZ) and me (CRO)

The annual Reform Symposium Free Online Conference (RSCON) took place July 11-13th with an Author Spotlight Pre-Conference Event on July 10th. The online global event featured 50+ presentations, 11 keynote speakers, 3 panel discussions, a tech/app swapalooza, and plenary, Dean Shareski. (Taken from Reform Symposium website - Future of Education - Ning)

My husband and kids supported me, esp. the older son, who was invited to present as a 10 year old non-native English speaker, a young youtuber who shared his vision and insight about "Minecraft" in education. He shared his insight on how he learned English, video editing and even presenting through games and youtube tutorials. It was nice to see messages from participants and educators saying that we can even learn from the kids. So true!

 

There were many interesting presentations for everyone. We could hear keynote speakers and presenters talking about humanity, students voice, bridging gaps with students, online projects, use of ICT in EFL class, poetry reading, rap singing, gamifications, flipping classrooms etc.

 

Just a small insight - find more screenshots Reform Symposium eConference Google+ website

I, myself had the opportunity to present this year as well. I talked about Developing an online Project, pros and cons and Comenius Multilateral School Partnership Project "Enterprising, healthy and creative" 2012-2104. 

Thank you Shelly! My pleasure!

It was very exciting, to be a part of it all, because as a Lifelong Learner it is hard to stay away from such wonderful events. As an organizer I am happy we cheered our presenters and participants with lovely badges and certificates made by Shelly and Peggy. 

Mine are here.

My #RSCON5 badges and certificate :)))

Hope I motivated you to listen to at least one of the recordings. Try to join us in future for new & interesting miniCONs. You can find the recordings of all the sessions here.

I will finish this post with the official #RSCON5 team song by @tastenspilerr ft. TamaraS.

#RSCON5 - Online Reform Symposium Conference - it's that time of the year!

The photo image says it all (my post on Twitter)

I will be joining almost 100 educators who will try to share their classroom and teaching ideas, the passion of teaching and learning from 11-13 July 2014 for the not more nor less #RSCON5 conference which has now been going for about 4 years.

I remember to have first learnt of  RSCON in 2011. At that time it was RSCON3 and I enjoyed every minute of it. So, I invite you all to join us at this  free education event - clear your schedule, open your mind as there are some fantastic topics for you to know about.

I, myself was invtited by Shelly who is one of the organizers of . RSCON. To know more about the event soon to come, go to Future of Education site - RSCON. Check the schedule, accepted proposals and hope to see you.

I have two topics accepted. I hope I will cope to the expectations.

First topic is on Saturday 12 July (7pm Zagreb time)- Developing and online project- pros and cons

Created by Marcia Lima

Second topic is on Sunday 13 July (8pm Zagreb time) - Comenius Multilatera school partnership project "Enterprising, healthy and creative"

Created by Marcia Lima

But, what I am even more proud of is that one of the presenters will be a young boy on a topic of Minecraft in Education.  His insight into this great game that even educators are talking about. I will not tell more details, but this :

"I am ready to inspire, are you ready to be inspired!?"

Please join us!

My 11 Random Facts and Answers

There was a blog challenge going on before winter break and New Year 2014 and I was tagged four times. First by our dear Shelly Sanchez Terrell, then the next day by the newest member of my PLN Malu Scimarelli. Third by Fabiana Casella.    And then I didn't even havae the chance to read the blog posts when I was finally tagged by my dear Croatian collegue Sanja Bozinovic. With all the baking and Christmas preparations I barely found the time to share this blog post with my PLN, and now it's end of June, beginning of July so I finally found the time to finish this. Maybe it is a good thing I am a bit late:) While I am doing this at the moment another interesting challenge is going on on Facebook. Of course I am participating in that one as well. All in all let's see what can I share with my PLN as I have kept them in big suspense for months.

The mission was this:
 1. Acknowledge the nominating blogger(s). 
2. Share 11 random facts about yourself. (let's see what I have to share)
3. Answer the 11 questions the nominating blogger has created for you. (that would be 44 as I was tagged 4 times)
4. List 11 bloggers. (will not do that as this is an old challenge )
5. Post 11 questions for the bloggers you nominate to answer, and let all the bloggers know they have been nominated. ( no challange now)
Don’t nominate a blogger who has nominated you.

So here it goes!  11 random Facts about me!

1. I got married on my birthday. :)))
2. I love sports and I used to train handball when I was a teenager
3. I love to dance
4. I think I am a coffee addict, but who isn't :)
5. but, I can't also live without a chewing gum
6. I simply adore my husband and our kids
7. My favourite movie is "The Mummy" as I like both romance and adventure. (My friend Maria Bossa will probably like this as she is a Tutankamon girl)
8. When I was little and still didn't know how to speak English I would invent my own English words, (e.g "plate" would be "Tanjur" - which is actually plate in Croatian but I would use different stress and accent. :))))
9. I sang in a church choir, I don't sing any more but I regularly go to church on Sunday as a good Chatolic.
10. I used to watch western movies with my dad. I still love them!
11. My biggest support is my husband.

Shelly's questions:

1.What is a goal you hope to accomplish from your bucket list?
I don't know if I have a list. I think I have accomplished a lot so far, since I've joined online community of teachers. So my biggest goal now would be trying to spend more time with my boys before they grow up so fast, so this summer 2014 that is my biggest goal.

2. What is one goal you hope to accomplish in 2014?
Well, I do hope all goes well with EU LLP Comenius project I am coordinating in my school which will be finished  by 31 July 2014. It was hard work and had taken me a lot of free time from my family, but it was really interesting.

3.If you could host a reality TV show, what would it be about?
Well, that's easy. Since I love dancing I would like to host "So you think you can dance!?"

4.  How do you blow off steam?
I have direct and indirect support from my husband and I do bother him a lot. He is my shoulder to cry on. I will never thank him enough for all.

5. What is one of your personal theme songs?
It's hard to say, but I like "Footloose" by Kenny Logginns and "Stronger" by Kelly Clarkson. They are like boost energy for me.

6. What are you incredibly proud of accomplishing?
Well, in three words: "having a family"

7. What was one of your favourite gifts?
A gift of life and two beautiful boys (our sons)

8.How have you dealt with a past failure?
Hmmm, the main thing is that I encourage myself with these words: "We learn on our own mistakes."

9. What is one piece of advice that has helped you throughout life?
There were many of them, and those made by my dearest once, but I think the best was by my father: "Knowledge is something that nobody can take away from you!" - he always encouraged me to learn, read, study, I remember he would by books, encyclopedias for our home library.

10. What was your favourite toy when you were a child?
I don't remember! I was always playing outside, running around, climbing trees, playing football with boys, but I do remember I was very proud when I got my first Barbie doll. I was very proud as they were very rare and couldn't be bought at that time in Croatia.

11. What's your favourite piece of art?
I love art in general, but I don't know if I have a favourite. Maybe Michelangelo's "Pieta"
Source: wikipedia


For Malu, Fabiana and Sanja's question answers I decided to take 3 short recordings, so here there are.

Listen to ‘11 answers for Malu’ on Audioboo

Update of Fabiana and Sanja's later tonight! :)

Here are the UPDATES - 18.00 (July 1st)

Fabiana's questions

listen to ‘11 answers for Fabiana's questions’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘11 answers for Sanja's questions’ on Audioboo

Virtual Round Table Online Conference #vrtwebcon

If you are a teacher, educator, technology fan than you should definitely attend the annual VRT conference which starts on 25 April - 27 April. The conference has gathered more than 70 speakers in 66 sessions. More about the conference you can read here.  The conference has been carefully prepared by great organizers like Shelly Terrell, Heike Philip, Russell Standard, Berni Wall, Jennifer Verschoor, Vance Stevens, and if I haven't intrigued you by writing these great names in the online educators world, maybe this photo from the Opening Session will.

Here is the Programme Overview, hope you will find something for yourself.
You can follow Livestream here.
And a twitter hashtag: #vrtwebcon

I will be there, attending and moderating some of the session :) Go, go #vrtwebcons

What is #ETWION? Who are #PINKETWIONS

As usual I don't have much time for writing, but I had to write a short post for #etwinning Learning Event about eTwining and Social Media which is run by two most popular teachers/presenter on eTwinning; Arjana Blažić and Bart Verswijvel (always have problems spelling Bart's surname).
If you are a teacher from Europe, then you should sign up for etwinning and join many other Learning Events that usually last from 7 to 15 days.

This is my third Learning Event and my second run by Arjana and Bart. Teachers from all around Europe, I would say about 140 of us communicate using modern and very popular social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. We also meet in the Learning Event for our daily activities - where we follow and learn the "Magic" Bart and Arjana serve to us!

"ETwinning and Social Media" Learning Event is very popular as we get to explore other interesting tools that are closely connected to Twitter and Facebook but we also learn the pitfalls of this Media and if it is possible to use it with the students.

Face my Manga :)

I must say I have been using Facebook with my students before.( I also had a webinar #RSCON4 about it.)
I know some of the students also have twitter account, but it's always good to know, to explore the Social Media in more depth by doing it in a FUN way just as we are doing it #ETWION. That's why I am so happy to have signed up to this Learning Event as every day there are so many new tools to know about.

Bart and Arjana put me in the #pink group with other collegues in the Learning Event. What do we do and who are we? We need to make #PINKETWION a viral in the google search! Why - well it's interesting to see how the things change quickly on the Internet - so if you are reading this post please tweet it, retweet it and let's see how the Pink group will do opposite to the Browns, the Yellow and the Green :)))