Living and working in Vietnam until June 09, 2010
Weekdays - VAS (High School IT), Nights & Weekends - VUS (ESL)

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Scenes from HTV filming

March 18th, 2010 No comments

It’s the day before my HTV filming, and I’m observing a little of another teacher’s class to get a feel for what will occur tomorrow.

Attached are some images of my props & the guys who make them on the spot.

I’ll post a short video of one of her activities next.

Daily Digest for March 18th

March 18th, 2010 1 comment
twitter (feed #7)
Does your miserable, whingeing, woe-is-me song really need to be this loud? My left ear is being crushed by sound waves, my brain by dross. [rockportrait]
twitter (feed #7)
Youtube doesn’t seem to load videos a lot of the time in Vietnam. Fluctuating bandwidth or something else? [rockportrait]
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Forced to buy more vacuum seal containers. Just can’t keep ants out of my food no matter how well I seal the boxes. What a waste. [rockportrait]
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Girl I helped yesterday said her song was amazing – "the best". Will it be better than the one I wrote for myself? http://yfrog.com/5digpoj [rockportrait]

Filming for HTV

March 18th, 2010 No comments

Posted via email from RockPortrait in Vietnam

Internet addiction – it’s real, it’s in my classroom & South Korea

March 17th, 2010 No comments

I’ve spent the last 10 months of ICT teaching peppering my class activities with requests that students:

a) Stop clicking the mouse
b) Stop using the keyboard
c) Stop staring at the screen

All of these requests are made while I have full control of their computers and the screen is showing a bright yellow box asking them to stare deeply into my eyes so that I can hypnotise them (kidding about the hypnosis bit, I haven’t learned that yet).

When I let them work on practical activities I almost always have to discipline someone in the class for straying onto Yahoo chat or an online game while they’re supposed to be working.

This week I decided that many of them are actually addicted to the computer. I tried asking them to remove their hand from the mouse, and for many it was a near impossible task. After some strong coercion (pliers and crowbar) I am able to pry it off, but as soon as I move away to address another case of mouse/palm fusion the initial student snaps back into their preferred position like they’re some kind of memory gel.

They love South Korea over here. I wonder if making articles like this one available for them to read will start to make them think a little about what they’re doing.

http://www.theage.com.au/digital-life/games/south-korea-takes-up-arms-against-web-addiction-20100317-qesn.html

OK, I have to get back to teaching again. I just realised that I thought I was talking to my students about the pros and cons of using Access in the real world, when in fact I was on the internet typing this update post.

Internet Addiction Camp – where do I sign up?

Posted via email from RockPortrait in Vietnam

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Daily Digest for March 17th

March 17th, 2010 No comments
twitter (feed #7)
Twelve months ago being asked, "Wanna eat snails?" would have turned my stomach. Now, it’s normal, fun, delicious & social. [rockportrait]
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Word of the day: Ignoramus – an extremely ignorant person. Circa 1570. Noun. [rockportrait]