Childhood

The musical task has been a success, don't you think? :) I can see how important music is for almost everyone, and how hard it is for you to limit yourselves to choosing that one special song. I know, it is next to impossible. I'm sure many of us have become intrigued by a newly discovered singer or band, thus expanding our list of favorites.
Now, with Christmas approaching, I want you to get a bit sentimental and think of your childhood. As I said in my e-mail, I would like you to embed a photograph of yourselves in your early years. The picture does not need to be connected with Christmas, but in your post please write about your memories connected with the season. I'm sure you remember many things: how you waited for Santa to come, how you caught your parents hiding presents for you, how you couldn't wait for the supper to come to an end...
If you want to see a childhood photo of yours truly, you need to go to my post from a few years ago, when a similar task was given to your older colleagues.
PS. We have a scanner in the IT room, so bring the pictures with you, if it's a problem.

Our music

It seems we got off to a good start with our blogging project and your posts about your hometowns are all very interesting. Time has come for a new task:
Following suggestions from some of you, I am asking everyone now to write something about the music you like most. To make it more specific I want you to find one song of your favorite band or singer on YouTube, and share it with others. Say why you've chosen that particular song, how it makes you feel, and add whatever you want to say about it. Please paste the video into your post. Here is how you can do it (in case you don't know, of course):

Write your post. Then, in another browser window/tab, open the video clip on YouTube. To the right of the video window you can see the Embed window (in the Polish version of YouTube it says "Umieść"). Copy the WHOLE code and paste it into your post window. Should work. :)
There is another way, very useful if you plan to use the feature more often: you need to configure your YouTube account so that it would be linked with your blog. Then you can place any YouTube video on your blog with one click. I leave this to those of you who are interested enough to figure it out.

Now, I would like to share with you one of my own favorites - Peter Gabriel's song In Your Eyes. It's not that I don't listen to new music - I do. But if I am to choose something really special, somehow it's easier for me to find it in a bit more mature artists. The song has an incredible pulse, is full of life and spirit. You can feel that everyone in the band, starting from Peter Gabriel himself, believes in what they do, and enjoy it enormously. Also, listen to the great voice of the backing vocal singer - Paula Cole. Here you go - and take your time, it's worth it!



Well, I can't help it - here is another one :) I went to Peter Gabriel's concert when he came to Poznań in 2003 as part of his GROWING UP tour. It was an absolutely unforgettable experience. Here is a clip from that show (not in Poznań though, but in Milan). You can see that his live performance is far more than just music, fantastic as it is. It is also visual theater and art. Take a look:

New blogs - first task

We are beginning another blogging season at KJO :) As usual not everyone is happy about it, but I hope most of you will find some enjoyment in the project. There are several reasons why we are doing this:

• to give you some space where you can use written English for real communication rather than pure practice for its own sake
• to make you reflect on some events in the world around us
• to get you to know one another better (also across groups) before you finish your studies
  
• to give some of you an opportunity to share your passions or thoughts with us
  
• to let you find out how to work with your future students on blogs as part of a class project
  

For a start, please write your first post about the place you come from and how you feel about it. If it is Poznań or some other big city, think locally, in terms of your neighborhood. Don't give us the type of information we could find in a guidebook, but let us see the place through your own eyes. It would be great if you could place a picture of it in your post.

KJO news

Update on KJO events, for those who still visit this class-blog from time to time, even though they are no longer students here:
We've had our walls painted! Classrooms and corridors, and yes, even the staircase! It's not beautiful in here - it can't be in this building - but at least it's nice and clean. And it does feel much better. At least we, the teachers, don't need to be ashamed of our workplace any longer. That's a change, isn't it? Especially with so many Erasmus students around, we feel relieved that the college looks like a more civilized place. :)
Some more changes still: new classrooms on the 4th floor (imagine those crowds in the elevator!), and the library is to be moved there too, but no one knows when.
Today I heard more good news: another ex-KJO-student has become a philology graduate, and I'm sure he's not the only one this year. It's good to know you guys are doing so well - congratulations! And on an even more personal note - there are a few babies coming among the college faculty. Fingers crossed for each of them, and the mothers too, of course. :)
As for IT, new blogs won't appear before December. I want to get them started earlier this year, so that they would grow into really big projects before the end of May. Last year was not very well planned in this respect.
This is all for now, I guess. Take care :)

A NEW BLOGGER BORN :)

I have great news for our current or former students! Another KJO teacher has decided to run a blog (a real one!), sharing with us her reflections on her current reading and anything literature really. I'm sure you have already guessed who that might be :) If you don't know yet, take a look and you will figure it out for sure. I am very excited about the idea and have read the two initial posts with real pleasure. I'm sure you will find the blog as inspiring and thought provoking as I have. Not that we all need to agree with every word, of course ;)
Generally: thumbs up!

The Assassin of PeeNJot the Great

Here is the other video, which I couldn't resist editing, after all. Your PeeNJot translations can wait a bit, can't they... ;)
Again, for better quality go directly to the YouTube player and choose the option "watch in high quality".
Have fun!

The fascinating story of the famous teddy bear curtains

We had great fun making the film with group 3, and I hope everybody will enjoy watching it, too. Thanks, guys!

PS. There is another one coming, from group 1, but it needs some editing to be done. Unfortunately, it's really busy time now, so it must wait a bit. I'm sure you will enjoy it. :)

Childhood

I want to take you back to your childhood now, near the end of your college education: it has become a tradition of our blogging project for everyone to post their early pictures (kindergarten time is probably most interesting). Apart from the pictures, please give us a few sentences of commentary, either about the situation they were taken in or generally about how you remember that period in your life. I hope you're going to have some fun with this task. :)
As far as the technical side is concerned, you will probably need to scan your photos. Unfortunately our college scanner is useless now, as it is too old to run with those new machines. And the new one hasn't arrived yet. But if there is no other way, you can bring them to me in a signed envelope, and I will scan your pictures for you at home. Or you can use your friends or family members who have access to a scanner. Whichever way, I want to see childhood pictures of you all!
If you want to see me as a little girl, check out one of the earlier posts on this blog. :)

Recommendations

In our latest IT class we looked at various subscription services, such as Bloglines or iTunes. In connection with that, I have a new task for you:
Please think of ONE www site which you like and visit very often. There are THREE things I would expect of it:

• that it is in English
• that it is dynamic, which means it changes and offers new things on a more or less regular basis (it could be a blog, a podcast, a newspaper or TV channel site, an online video series with episodes published regularly - anything of that sort)
• that it does not promote violence towards anybody

I'm sure most of you can easily name at least one such website. If not, then try to find one. Your task is to place a link to it, describe it, and say why you like it or what makes it commendable to others.

As far as I'm concerned, I sometimes visit, and strongly recommend to those who (rightly) feel English is an endless learning curve, a site called "The Free Dictionary". It offers really challenging vocabulary tasks (hangman, matching, spelling bee or Scrabble) as well as different types of information, including "Quotation of the Day", "This Day in History" and so on. I visit the site quite often as it never fails to surprise me with something, at the same time allowing me to relax a bit between more "serious" tasks. It's just fun to do these puzzles and find out about new words and new facts. Give it a try! :)

Technological Revolution! :D

WHEW! HURRAY! WOW!
Finally, after years of frustration, we have brand-new, spick-and-span, sleek COMPUTERS in our lab!!! We deserve them, don't we? The frustration of applications freezing at the most inconvenient time, the pain of waiting for ages till the PC boots and starts doing what WE want it to... Well, it's all over now :)
There may be a few weeks of getting used to the new working environment, but it's usually quite easy to learn and accept things that bring changes for the better. I'm glad that the current group of students will have the opportunity to feel the difference. Next year students will not be able to appreciate it - after all, it's going to be just what everyone simply expects: a lab with normal, modern computers.
All this has inspired my first blogging task for you:
Please try to remember your first computer experiences. Was it your elder sister's computer? Or your friend's? Or was it at school? What did you do with it? Play simulation or strategy games? Chat? Copy music CDs? Use Paint to make pictures? Do homework? Who taught you to use it? How did you like it? Lots of questions pop up, so choose just a few.
Write a few sentences to share those memories with everybody. And then comment on what some of your friends have written. I'm really looking forward to reading these stories. :)

Madame Tutli Putli (Animating Madame Tutli-Putli)

There has been a lot of hype in our local news about this animation recently, as one of the authors was born in Poznań. Take a look, it's really incredible to see people so passionate about what they do. Then you can watch the whole film HERE :)

Natalie Merchant - Ophelia

I feel like sharing with you my newest discovery. A great voice.