edublogs

Getting round to blogging

I've had a bit of flack this week for blogging so much - how dare I. But this week I admit to being beaten. On Monday I had set out to cover a dozen or so interesting ideas that have come through my Bloglines feeds and since then I haven't managed. So instead here are some photos from this week:

The CILT UK Conference on Tuesday and Wednesday was incredibly successful, and I've made some great friends, too. Pictured is Wednesday morning's sun rising behind the Wallace Monument from the window of my bedroom. There'll be plenty of exchanges between me and new pals in Wales - I reserve the first trip to Cardiff!

Also, tonight marks the first moments of the Modern Foreign Languages Environment (MFLE) going public. Have a look at it and let me know what you think. It's an online support network for Scottish languages teachers - you need to be a Scottish teacher to take part in the discussion board but there's a blog there and tonnes of advice on technology and non-geeky stuff.

I am still running late in writing my article for the Scottish Languages Review on blogging, which was due yesterday. Hopefully Hannah won't get too annoyed. But launching this big project, the MFLE, has taken up all my time this last week. Maybe I'll manage more snatches from my hotel bedroom during SETT Learning Festival next week. I'll already be podcasting and blogging from various seminars onto the MFLE Blog and Podcasting service - I'll put a copy of all the links here so that you can here all the big names, and some smaller but just as interesting ones, too.

So, finally, why is this a post on Food and Drink - a superb meal at Leith's Fishers ended by this beautiful arc en ciel, that's why. I'll be back blogging when I've recovered from my celebratory glass of Beaumes de Venise and got more of that pesky article written up.

That awkward first post

Every blogger has that moment - the first post. Although I've been running many blogs and an award-winning school website for the past 18 months I haven't ever had to write a particularly awkward first post until now; in school things seem to be so frenetic that blogs get set up in the thick of the action and start running.

Well, starting a blog in the twelve minutes it takes my farfalle to cook al dente is probably not the best way to go about things, but, hey, it's the holidays still and this is about as much free time I've felt like spending on the blog today. And it's given a novel category for my first post.

In ten days I start a new job, forfeiting my seven weeks of summer holidays in a bid to blogify Scottish education within the year. Who knows if it'll work!

I'm going to show folk who are interested how to set up an educationally valuable weblog so that their students can start their own, too (or 'pupils' as we call them here - 'student' implies 'study', which is a verb not always associated to a certain stratum of 'pupil'). It is the mission of this blog to inspire teachers to inspire their pupils/students/pets to get blogging, having conversations and finding out the meaning of whatever it is whose meaning is not clear.

And why not start by working out that last paragraph...? If you don't know, you can leave a comment for me by clicking 'Comments' on any of the posts in this blog.

Go forth, and blog!