pMachine is on
At long last, it’s here! Much anticipated gv_blog enters cyberspace. Just at the beginning of the festive season, we are happy to give this powerful tool as a gift to our students, teachers and fans to use and enjoy it.
Many thanks to Nassim for his taming pMachine, and Kosa for being in control.
The Clipboard’s Bigger Ideas
Two articles added to The Clipboard’s Bigger Ideas section.
One thing leads to another
The idea to take teaching and learning English beyond the limitations of the classroom first occured to us just about two years ago. We remember sharing it with Neil Patterson, a truly passionate and devoted teacher, over an al fresco summer lunch and his reserved (‘Oh, that’s interesting.’) reaction. Two years on, and we’ve managed to implement a large chunk of the original plan – our online repository of classroom materials has become an indispensable everyday facility.
Meanwhile, a few fresh, technology-inspired ideas germinated. Why not blog, for instance? Why ever not use this brilliant new form of communication to supplement teaching and learning at Global Village? Well, again, getting started has taken a while, in four stages so far:
- Albert and Kosa delve into the web in search of the right software and find it.
- Kosa plants pMachine on the gv server.
- We sleep on the idea of a gv_blog.
- Nassim half-secretly tackles the system and tweaks it to make it look and work the way we want it. It’s simply inspiring to see him in his element.
- gv_blog is being tested
gv-blog is coming soon.
Poetry section
Poetry section added to lalki.
IELTS
IELTS page updated.
Global Village publication
See a forthcoming Global Village publication.
Read
New page on reading outside classroom added.
Teacher’s clipboard
Teacher’s clipboard, a new page dedicated to teachers added. It covers various aspects of teaching investigated during staff meetings at GV.
GV website
The slightly redesigned GV website owes it’s new shape to Nassim. This is what we got when he took his eyes off the desktop, packed his Canon and tripod, and wandered across the park and nearby streets – the shots showing a striking difference to the pseudo-European visual noise of the main streets.
Credits also go to Piotr and Buba. We used one of Piotr’s 1970s photos in this year’s poster (see the real-size original at the corner of Spółdzielcza and Białówny). Buba’s is the atmospheric Palace wrapped in green mesh.
There is a little story behind the black-and-white photo. This sporty grandma from Drohiczyn in front of the camera is telling Piotr how she got her smashing sweatshirt (a rarity then) from her grandson in America. With her outstretched arm she shows how little the boy, as she remembered him, was. And she is now proudly wearing his Ohio University sweatshirt. Years later somebody recognised her in the photo and told she eventually left Poland to join her grandson in the US. It’s never too late to enter global village.
