What a day!

Went to the education.au seminar today at the Shangra La Hotel in Sydney and what a mind expanding morning it was! Sold out and well worth the time and money. One of the sponsors was Macromedia and their Education manager, John Treloar, gave a wonderful demonstration of some of their software. I love the look of a thing called 'breeze' that he demonstrated that converts PowerPoint presentations into webpages. Fabulous! Must have a look myself. Professor Hargreaves from the UK gave a long and extremely thought provoking presentation about the need for a transformation of education into the 21st century. His open and partnership style of having questions from the audience throughout the presentation made this feel more like a discussion forum in parts than a presentation but he didn't miss a beat the whole time. The tea was good although the coffee was VERY strong and morning tea and lunch were a wonderful spread. Very important in a seminar!!!!
I'll have to go to the next one.

Also went to a Japanese teppanyaki restaurant in the evening with a friend and her 2 daughters. It was called Shinju and was AMAZING. Lots of places to sit around big grills in the centre of each section. We had teppanyaki of course and it looked like almost everyone else too. There were around 6-8 chefs cooking at once most of the time and not really good for quiet conversation but fan, FUN. If you were game (and I�fm sorry I wasn�ft wearing old clothes so I could have had a go!) the chefs would throw bowls for you to catch one inside the other. They would throw a bowl to each person and then toss an uncooked egg into it. There were a few mishaps of course! Then there was the egg chopping where the chef tried to get some into a bowl. All in all the food was the best I�fve had in ages and I couldn�ft even fit in the last, vegetable course. If you want a fun night, I can�ft recommend this place enough. It was heaving at the seams all night with one group leaving and another coming all night so you will need to book.

If you have any recommendations let me know! I must try one in Perth.

MLTAWA and some sites

Well!

I have just been having a browse of the Modern Language Teachers Association of Western Australia website. I'm a member but haven't had time to have a proper look. In their members only section there are a couple of sites of Japanese links that are ENORMOUS. Really huge! I won't put them here though as they are for members only and I don't want to get in trouble! If you drop them a line they might tell you though, especially if you are an MLTA member in your own state.

Must remember to add the Language Association homepage links to my site too! (www.insomcom.com)

If anyone has a site they want to add just add a post to this one by clicking the COMMENTS link below and thenclick POST A COMMENT and include a blurb (short) and the URL address and I will have a look.

TTFN

My First One!

Wow, a new site and my first ever Blog. After reading so many I think they are a great idea! I'm hoping this one has lots of Japanese bits and pieces that are useful for teachers. Links, site reviews, book reviews, teaching ideas, photos and lots, lots more.

I'm off to a Seminar in Sydney on Friday for Education.au called: Transforming Teaching and Learning through ICT. The program is at: http://www.educationau.edu.au/ICT_seminar/program.html and it sounds fascinating. I'll write a review on here afterwards :)

After that I'm off to Brisbane for a couple of weeks to work on my Doctoral dissertation so busy, busy, busy.

Hope this first post works!
Tracey