Finally, an update… 28 September 2007
Posted by neny in My events.trackback
I know, I know, I haven’t updated this blog for the longest time and of course many have happened in my daily life. Maybe it’s better to put it in a list, for the sake of clarity?
Classes:
This semester is the busiest ever! I’m teaching 8 courses and it drives me nuts. One of my colleague is having her maternity leave, some are in their further study, some hold new positions that disable them from teaching too many courses. Those all combined make many of the faculty members have to teach more than the usual 6 courses (12 credits). But somehow, I don’t feel like it’s quite tired so far. This is already Week 5 and nothing much that I feel burdensome.
I also notice that I didn’t lecture that much this semester in class and spend more time for doing some preparation for classes and other tasks. The reason is probably because I use Moodle for three courses and it totally changes the way the course is taught. I used to be standing almost 75 minutes to explain some issues, but not anymore for those three courses. The typical class meeting will consist of a quiz to check their understanding on their required reading for the day, class discussion on difficult issues (based on the results of the quiz), and group work to do tasks for applying the reading materials. At the beginning, I can see that my students didn’t really enjoy the system and I myself need some time to familiarize myself with Moodle. Coming from an educational system where most (if not all) of the class meetings consist of listening to the teacher explaining and that it is unacceptable to have different ideas other than what the teacher has explained, being autonomous learners of course will give them an uneasy feeling.
Let’s see how it goes until the end of the semester.
Presentations:
I was invited ‘accidentally’ to speak at Van Deventer Maas Stichting (VMS) Leadership workshop for their scholarship grantees which was under the management of my university here. I said ‘accidentally’ because Izak Lattu, a.k.a. Chaken, the chair of the organizing committee, happened to discuss about the organization of the workshop with one of his staff while walking with me in campus. And suddenly he’s got this idea of me being a speaker. So I agreed. And that’s how I got in touch with the Director of VMS and got the funding for presenting to Vietnam, which is the next story…
Vietnam, GloCALL conference, I’m definitely going! With unexpected 60% funding from VMS and the rest from Bakti -Support Office for Eastern Indonesia (Thanks to Petra Karetji, the director, again another unexpected funding, as a result of chit-chat), they cover all of my expenses. This is another proof of how valuable networks can be. I’ve known Chaken since my days in student organization in college, and Petra is under my supervision for his thesis. I never expected that they would come to my aid now after all those years….
Another exciting conference in November that I will present is in my own campus. The department invites two speakers: Stephane Culhane of Columbia Uni, New York, USA and Paul Gruba of Melbourne Uni, Melbourne, Australia. Their talks will be on media and technology for language learning. I will be the third speaker, since I am the one in the department whose interests are related to technology. I just hope I know what to present. I think I’m going to present similar materials as the ones in Vietnam.
Publication:
Remember my frustration with my chapter submission for a book? It’s accepted for publication!!!! “Handbook of Research on E-Learning Methodologies for Language Acquisition“ will be officially released on July 1, 2008 and the grand launching will be during WorldCALL conference in Fukuoka, Japan, in August 2008. I’m planning to attend it, either as a presenter or just a participant, and it will be exciting to see the book with my name in it! 
Committee:
I am also happy to be serving as an assessor in national teachers certification program under the Ministry of National Education. My duty will be to assess teachers’ portfolios from Central Java Province for them to get certification of teaching. I haven’t gotten any roster to assess, but I’m sure I will be very busy as we have to assess thousands of teachers every year.
So…those are my updates…see you next time!
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hallelujah!
thank god..
sukurin.
kirain cuman gw yg sibuk luar biasa…
akhir nya ada temen.. wakkakakka
Hallo….
Yang acara bulan November itu tepatnya kapan ya? Kayaknya aku pernah baca di pengumuman..hmmm mana ya…lupa..!! Dimana tempat pendaftarannya? Mohon infonya….n met kenal ya…. Tks