Feeling burned-out? No creativity and inspiration?

Tired of the same old thing? Feeling burned-out? No creativity and inspiration? Even at a personal level, things are not the way they were meant to be?

Then, I highly recommend reading “Fish! Tales” by Stephen C. Lundin, John Cristensen, Harry Paul and Phillip Strand.

I was hooked by the review as there was something related to leadership and teamwork:

“The Fish! Philosophy  captures in a simple but powerful way what leaders today need to hear.”

~Larry Wilson, founder, Wilson Learning

The Fish! Philosophy consists of 4 principles:

#1 PLAY – Play is not just an activity; it’s a state of mind that brings new energy and sparks creativity.

#2 MAKE THEIR DAY – The world becomes a better place the moment you act on an intention to serve another.

#3 BE THERE – You can multi-task with “stuff”, but you need to “be there” for people.

#4 CHOOSE YOUR ATTITUDE – The attitude you have right now is the one you are choosing. Is it the one you want?

The reading made me think about my life. It turned out to be a revealing and powerful one. Great stories that lighten up days and make us reflect upon daily attitude – Everything is a matter of choice… 

Every single day I ask myself these questions as soon as the day starts:

• What’s important for me?
•  Who do I want to be today?
•  Am I doing the right thing?
• Am I happy? If not, am I making an effort to change the undesired situation?

I know it is overwhelming to ask yourself all these questions. 

You might not have the answers to them immediatelly. Changes take time! 

Be persistent.

“If you’re tired of starting over, 

stop giving up:

Have

Only

Positive

Expectations.”

Vicky Lora's blog challenge proposal

 

You can listen to the same story in here:

http://eltreikdal.podomatic.com/entry/2011-10-14T15_18_49-07_00 

Hey Vicky Loras! I really felt the urge to participate in the blog challenge proposed by you. Thank you so much! Well, what’s my story? I am Luiz Reikdal on Facebook and @ELTtech on Twitter. I have been teaching in Brazil over 17 years. Never been abroad yet… but I will soon!

Since November last year I started using and testing technology myself. That was breathtaking… by just visualizing the potentiaIity of Web 2.0 in the classroom. Now I am quite familiar with tech and I am so happy to be part of this world! I can definitely say it has caused a huge change in my professional career as an educator, especially as an English Teacher.

This Passionate Learning Network, as a friend of mine says, has changed my personal life as well… Got to know passion-driven educators and folks that DO care about making a change. That was a real sparkle! Breathing, living education, feeling the burning desire to change the world. I know it all starts within yourself… Small changes that will make THE difference…LOL.

I owe a lot to Teacher Training Videos, the 3^rd Reform Symposium e-Conference (#RSCON3), Condor Blanco and American TESOL Free Friday Webinars, just to name a few… But the real big challenge was when I decided to participate in a course called Leadership Condor Blanco here in Brazil… Wow, I was totally blown away with so much information and practice on how to develop my Personal Power, Professional Career and best of all through a Life Project. I could reflect as an integral human being considering all aspects of my life: Prosperity, Happiness, Culture and Freedom. That was a sort of shock, a benefitial one, of course. I stopped complaining about things in general, observing my behavoir and attitude towards everything, I decided to be responsible for my actions. I started having INITIATIVE.

I began inspiring people around me… Now I am having such a wonderful time at work: even though I face challenges in the workplace I feel proud of being a Teens Coordinator, I like solving problems and I like coaching my team. Nothing is perfect: some teachers do not like tech, others, are not that serious about teaching, some teach because of the money… But believe me, those things DO NOT have the power to demotivate or frustrate me any longer… I do not blame the school or system anymore. I am aware that it all depends mostly on myself - I can make this change!

My goal for the future? Being an inspiring educator and personal coach as well. I want to help people out with their Life Project  because I strongly believe that people can make a change and enthuse other people. A true leader has the ability to help people achieve their dreams. All they have to do is to start within themselves! Thanks for proposing this wonderful, powerful and motivating topic Vicky! I wish all the success in Switzwerland in your personal and professional life. I am really willing to exchange info with you on education… ;)

“The world is less certain and predictable now. When there's uncertainty, people raise spiritual issues.”

Ken Blanchard

Discussion » The best Web 2.0 tools explored up to now

Discussion » The best Web 2.0 tools explored up to now

Testing Voicethread

Great tool for feedback, writing, speaking, assessing...

Module 5 "A Time for us" - Class 1

Hey the focus of this lesson is Past Simple
Watch this video by Jeniffer.


Keeping Your English Up

What is a collocation?

Click here to see a list of collocations.

4Fun
Can you identify the verbs in the past in this song
Radio Ga Ga - Activity created by Bibi Baxter

I'd sit alone and watch your light;
My only friend through teenage nights
And everything I ...........(1-have) to know,
I ...........(2-hear) it on my radio.

You ...........(3-give) them all those old time stars,
Through wars of worlds -(which were) ...........(4-invade) by Mars;
You ...........(5-make) them laugh - you ...........(6-make) them cry
You ...........(7-make) us feel like we could fly.
Radio.

So ...........(8-not become) some background noise,
A backdrop for the girls and boys,
Who just ...........(9-not know) or just ...........(10-not care)
And just ...........(11-complain) when you ...........(12-be) not there.
You ...........(13-have) your time, you ...........(14-have) the power;
You ...........(15-have) yet to have your finest hour
Radio.

All we ...........(16-hear) ...........(17-be) Radio ga ga.
Radio goo goo.
Radio ga ga.
All we ...........(18-hear) ...........(19-be) Radio ga ga,
Radio blah blah.
Radio what ...........(20-be) new?
Radio, someone still ...........(21-love) you!

We ...........(22-watch) the shows; we ...........(23-watch) the stars
On videos for hour and hours.
We hardly ...........(24-need) to use our ears.
How music ...........(25-change) through the years.

Let's hope you never ...........(26-leave) old friend;
Like all good things on you we ...........(27-depend).
So stick around 'cos we might miss you,
When we ...........(28-grow) tired of all this visual.
You ...........(29-have) your time; you ...........(30-have) the power.
You ...........(31-have) yet to have your finest hour.
Radio.

All we ...........(32-hear) ...........(33-be) Radio ga ga,
Radio goo goo,
Radio ga ga.
All we ...........(34-hear) ...........(35-be) Radio ga ga,
Radio goo goo,
Radio ga ga.
All we ...........(36-hear) ...........(37-be) Radio ga ga,
Radio blah blah.
Radio what...........(38-be) new?
Radio, someone still ...........(39-love) you!

A "Thank you letter" to the Reform Symposium 2011 by Luiz Reikdal - Brazil

REFORM, according to the Oxford Dictionary: (…) change that is made to a social system, an organization, etc. in order to improve or correct it.

Yes! I felt “Elluminated” and the desire for a change! I noticed the sparkle of light in discussions, on chats, on Twitter, Google+, Facebook, and the like. I watched beautiful and motivational videos on YouTube. I noted how well-prepared were the slides, carefully selected: beautiful and poetic pictures in the classroom.

Unfortunately I also experienced bad connection, echos, cuts in the broadcasting. I made mistakes and got nervous over the mike (LOL).

I felt the urge to make my Personal Web Presence (PWP) even more effective.

The fire in me was ignited…

These 3 days at the Reform Symposium e-Conference #RSCON3 were awesome: I heard from my peers around the world. It is amazing to share and learn and best of all for FREE. I was touched (cried in front of the screen a couple of times), I clapped to the presenters… so many passionate educators, so many inspiring presentations, so many ideas and concepts! I made new friends… yes, I may call them friends, why not?
Even though I did not meet them physically: (This is the list of workshops and courses I’ve attended) Moderators, Shelly Terrell, CliveSir, David Dodgson, Bruno Andrade, Steve Hargadon, Brad Patterson, Faisal Ibrahim, Kelly Tenkely, Paula White, Chuck Sandy, Pam Burnard, Terie Engelbrecht, Tom Whitby...

I felt like meeting them in person and looking them in the eyes and say how much I was blessed with their words and thoughts. Thank you... all of you!!!!!

I am a better educator because I've been teased, provoked and I do CARE!

I propose to start a change within ourselves: WE CAN, WE DECIDE, WE WANT and WE CHOOSE…

RSCON3 rocks! (I heard that expression a lot. Love it!)

“First comes thought; then organization of that thought, into ideas and plans; then transformation of those plans into reality. The beginning, as you will observe, is in your imagination.” Napoleon Hill

Teacher Training Videos by Russell Stannard

Hi folks

I promised you a second newsletter this month as I missed out April. So here it is and it has some great new stuff. Nearly all this month's tools tare for ALL TEACHERS of any subject and I think you will find them really useful. The only exception is LINGRO which is for ALL Language teachers

1) ScoopIt

http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/scoopIt/index.html

ScoopIt allows you to grab content from the web and from tweets and create a newsletter/newsaper from it. It is great for project work and very clever the way it works. You choose the topic and the key words and ScoopIT goes off and finds you the stuff and the links and puts it all in a list. You then decide if you want to add it to your newsletter or not. Lots of teachers are using it on the web. Really worth looking at. I think you will be quite surprised by how it works.

2) PresentMe

http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/presentMe/index.html

I love this tool. Upload your PowerPoint Presentation and then record yourself doing the presentation and even include your webcam. Then anyone can access it on the internet and watch and listen to you presenting. Great for your students to get them practicing their presentations. Great for language teachers as we can get your students to make presentations and practice their language. Amazingly the tool is free too.


3) Lingro

http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/lingro/index.html

This set of videos has already had about 5000 plays this month!! If you haven't seen this and you are teaching languages then you have to see it to believe it. Choose a website you want to read, place it into Lingro and then the whole site becomes clickable and you can find the meanings of any word on the site with just a click of a button. So if you are reading El Pais or Le Monde or The Times, then you can make any of the text clickable and it will immediately bring up a dictionary and tell you the meaning of the word. It is fabulous and I have been using it all this month. Not only that but it keeps a record of all the words you clicked on and even creates games to practice and work with the words!!! You can choose from a variety of dictionaries too.

4) MailVu

http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/mailVu/index.html

One of the most popular tools on my website. This new set of videos goes through the tool in more detail and then explains some of the work I have been doing with this tool. MailVu allows you to send Webcam messages and can be used for lots of different things. It works with just 2 button clicks and one more to send the videos. It is fabulous. In these videos I go into more detail about how I have used the tool and I think it will give you some great ideas. We have been testing them at the University of Warwick this week.



Announcement

I have put a donate button on my site. Don't worry I am not going to start charging. I originally set the site up to be free for 10 years and we still have another 6 years to go ( the site started in June 2007) but I want to sponsor some teachers to come to IATEFL next year. I was impressed by some of the teachers I met from Cuba, Palestina, Romania ( among other places) and so I want TTV.com to sponsor a teacher who wouldn't normally be able to afford to come to the UK to experience IATEFL. I think it goes well with the philosophy of the site. I have only had 2 donations so far, so please if you can spare $5 or a bit more then please donate to the site.

I am going to commit myself to helping at least one teacher to come over for IATEFL in Glasgow next year, this is regardless of how much money I raise from donations. I have set up the donate button with Pay Pal. So please help if you can. You can see the button on the right hand side of the site.

That's it folks. I hope you found some of the videos useful. Please tell people about the site. Don't forget you can follow me on twitter at russell1955.

Big thanks

Russell