Venturing into Second Life
If you’ve been following me on Twitter or Facebook then there is a strong possibility that you will know I just got a new MacBook Pro. I dual booted it straight away so I could continue to use Windows but have found myself loading up the Windows side less and less. I appear to be [...]
Half-term Hecticness
I’m currently in the midst of a half-term break. However, I have literally not stopped since walking out of the school door on Friday. I’ve been dashing about all over the place and yesterday I travelled to Hathersage (in the picture above) to visit Elaine Millard who I first met at the UKLA conference in [...]
Merry Multimodal Christmas
So it’s that time of year again… October?! Already I have seen Christmas advertisements appearing in shops and on television. My local supermarket has had Christmas chocolates in-store for the past few weeks too – the season seems to begin earlier every year. Don’t get me wrong - I’m a huge fan of the festive [...]
I’m a PC and I’m [insert age here]…
I’ve been using Microsoft Windows since 1997 and have had various problems including virus attacks and system failures along the way – mostly caused by carelessness on my part. All in all I’ve been happy with the overall Windows experience and stability, especially while I have been using Windows XP. I’ve always heard people talking [...]
Opening eyes…
Every so often you come across something new. It opens your eyes to a culture or world that you have little experience or understanding of. At the same time it can fit with issues you have been thinking about and open your mind to new possibilities. Sounds very dramatic… I will explain. My Sky+HD box [...]
Fragments of time…
Now that I’m using Google’s operating system on my mobile phone I’ve decided to move all of my mail/contacts/calendars over to Google so that I can keep track of them on the move. While I’ve been dusting off the cobwebs of my old Google account I found a blog I set up in 2006 with [...]
The one that started it all…
I’ve just noticed that Walt Disney’s Snow White is being re-released on DVD and Blu-Ray in November. I like to use this film in class when analysing multimodal texts. Some of the scenes are exceptionally powerful (and quite terrifying), in particular the transformation of the Evil Queen into the old peddler woman. It’s actually become [...]
Belated thanks…
When I initially wrote the post about critical literacy and the Brer Rabbit stories I forgot to thank one person for their support with the project. My brother, Michael Waller, helped the children to recreate and re-imagine the Brer Rabbit characters and I think you’ll agree he did an excellent job. Having the children see [...]
New horizons await…
It’s the last week of the summer holidays! I currently feel like the only teacher in the world who is looking forward to returning to work. I’m very excited about what the new academic year will bring. Not only am I looking forward to working with Orange Class on the new Ratatouille and Cliff by [...]
Social convergence…
According to the press and most of the people I’ve spoken to iPhones seem to be the only smartphone worth getting at the moment. After a bit of searching I can across the HTC Hero smartphone – I accepted that it was no iPhone but did cost me a fraction of the price. After a [...]