Hey Carlos - good to see you -now you'll have to send us an email as I've spied you following the blog. It's great to get those emails from you all - I love getting up in the morning, at the crack of dawn and checking my emails. It's always a nice surprise to start the day with a read of news back home.
Brian and I went for a walk to a local park not far from our apartment. It wasn't a big park but there was lots of green grass, tall trees, flowers, seats and a children's play area. We sat for a while to take in the scene and felt like we were back in NZ. Then the sound of the call to pray came loud and clear from the mosque next to the park - suddenly we were jolted back to reality. Not that it's an unpleasant sound but very much a muslim thing - 5 times a day starting at 5.00 (in the summer about 4.30) they sort of make this song/chant to encourage/remind all good people to come to the mosque to pray.
Only 3 more days before the end of semester one. The odd part is the kids are not at school, they are strangely missing. It seems that once the end of semester exams are finished they don't come to school. The teachers have to be around, planning for semester two with the help of Cognition advisors.
We're off to Oman for 10 days.
Tuesday, 20 January 2009
Tuesday, 13 January 2009
School life
I thought I would add an update about my work in the Qatar schools. We are coming to the end of Semester one and we will have a two week break. Semester two starts 8th Feb and goes through for 20 weeks wi
thout any breaks - no public holidays, no long weekends. It's going to be strange especially as the temperature will start to heat up.
My job has been about encouraging the ICT teachers to try out new software, adding projects as their focus rather than just skills and activity sheets. They are very positive and appreciative of new ideas and have commented that they have noticed student behaviour has changed. One said he felt like he was making the learning more relevant to the boys! (I love it!). Som
e are now keen to offer their support to the class teachers, working with the english, science and maths classes.
I ran a webquest workshop with teachers at one school in their ICT Lab- I need a translator for these sessions! Lots for them to learn and take in but it has meant that teachers are feeling a little more familiar with the Lab and are booking their classes in there, in curriculum class time. Some English teachers are making use of photos and movie footage to motivate writing - they were impressed with the boys ideas and said they had written more using this idea.
I have set up a wiki for
use for all the Cognition teachers (Advisory Teachers - ATs) in Qatar -as a way to share online resources. The neat part is some of the ATs can see the usefulness of them and are setting up wikis for their schools and their particular curriculum area. A couple of local teachers have made themselves one as well. Yay - we're making a start with the Web 2.0!! - we are making progress.
The kids are great - they love it when you show an interest in what they are doing. They love it when you try to speak a little bit of Arabic. I get them to help me with new phrases.
Marhaba - hello or welcome or salam ali coom
Mumtaz - excellent (they laugh when you say their work is mumtaz!)
Kaif harlitch - how are you, to which the reply is - ahum dela la
Mar sa la ma - good bye
I'm getting over my shyness at speaking in Arabic - it's getting a little easier.
I had to take a photo of the classroom ruless.
thout any breaks - no public holidays, no long weekends. It's going to be strange especially as the temperature will start to heat up.My job has been about encouraging the ICT teachers to try out new software, adding projects as their focus rather than just skills and activity sheets. They are very positive and appreciative of new ideas and have commented that they have noticed student behaviour has changed. One said he felt like he was making the learning more relevant to the boys! (I love it!). Som
e are now keen to offer their support to the class teachers, working with the english, science and maths classes.I ran a webquest workshop with teachers at one school in their ICT Lab- I need a translator for these sessions! Lots for them to learn and take in but it has meant that teachers are feeling a little more familiar with the Lab and are booking their classes in there, in curriculum class time. Some English teachers are making use of photos and movie footage to motivate writing - they were impressed with the boys ideas and said they had written more using this idea.
I have set up a wiki for
use for all the Cognition teachers (Advisory Teachers - ATs) in Qatar -as a way to share online resources. The neat part is some of the ATs can see the usefulness of them and are setting up wikis for their schools and their particular curriculum area. A couple of local teachers have made themselves one as well. Yay - we're making a start with the Web 2.0!! - we are making progress.The kids are great - they love it when you show an interest in what they are doing. They love it when you try to speak a little bit of Arabic. I get them to help me with new phrases.
Marhaba - hello or welcome or salam ali coom
Mumtaz - excellent (they laugh when you say their work is mumtaz!)
Kaif harlitch - how are you, to which the reply is - ahum dela la
Mar sa la ma - good bye
I'm getting over my shyness at speaking in Arabic - it's getting a little easier.
I had to take a photo of the classroom ruless.Saturday, 3 January 2009
2009
New years eve was a quiet affair. New Years Day was a work day. But we're off out to celebrate the start of the new year with a group of fellow apartment dwellers and colleagues from other apartment blocks tonight (day 2, 2009) We've booked for 30+ - not the easiest of tasks to book a place for
that number. We'll raise a glass of lemon and mint to family and frinds back home.
I got my first parking ticket last week - I didn't think they did parking tickets over here - you don't see any parking meters or ticket wardens wondering around. I came back to my car to find a bl----y yellow sticker on my window, written in arabic. I went into the Cognition office after work and asked if anyone knew what these yellow stickers were!! They all laughed....$NZ150 for parking in the wrong place - not like back home - $20.
One of the teacher consultants here got a $NZ3,000 ticket for going through a red light - that's serious money.
It is a very weird day here today - very windy and cloudy - no blue sky. I have even got my Kathmandu jacket on inside cause it's a little chilly. It feels like there is going to be a big sand storm.
Yesterday I had to drive to work in very thick fog - that was a slow trip. It lifted at about 9.00.
A thought .... you don't see spiders or spider webs here. In fact I haven't seen many insects apart from large ants sometimes- no more cockroaches either (touch wood). There was a scorpion at one of the schools last week - a teacher showed me the photos - large and black - yuck.
I'm enjoying cooking - I made a pav for xmas dinner, we had a couple over for a curry the other night which was delish and I've just made some cheese scones for me and Brian - I'm off to eat them
that number. We'll raise a glass of lemon and mint to family and frinds back home.
I got my first parking ticket last week - I didn't think they did parking tickets over here - you don't see any parking meters or ticket wardens wondering around. I came back to my car to find a bl----y yellow sticker on my window, written in arabic. I went into the Cognition office after work and asked if anyone knew what these yellow stickers were!! They all laughed....$NZ150 for parking in the wrong place - not like back home - $20.
One of the teacher consultants here got a $NZ3,000 ticket for going through a red light - that's serious money.
It is a very weird day here today - very windy and cloudy - no blue sky. I have even got my Kathmandu jacket on inside cause it's a little chilly. It feels like there is going to be a big sand storm.
Yesterday I had to drive to work in very thick fog - that was a slow trip. It lifted at about 9.00.
A thought .... you don't see spiders or spider webs here. In fact I haven't seen many insects apart from large ants sometimes- no more cockroaches either (touch wood). There was a scorpion at one of the schools last week - a teacher showed me the photos - large and black - yuck.
I'm enjoying cooking - I made a pav for xmas dinner, we had a couple over for a curry the other night which was delish and I've just made some cheese scones for me and Brian - I'm off to eat them
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