What a hassle! (That’s a new term I’ve learned so putting it everywhere so I can learn it). Not that learning French is a hassle – not at all. Being flooded with Saturday’s heavy rain and seeing the room filled with water with some of our collectible DVD box sets destroyed – now THAT’s un […]
Le Renard
On Thursday I have my first gathering with my French class. Nathalie takes a French class every week at a nearby cafe. Our homework was to watch this short program about the animals of the Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris and share our own experience of these gorgeous creatures. Here is what I will say […]
What Did You Miss in February?
Thanks to the deletion of social media on my phone, the removal of notifications and a bit of insomnia thrown in, my mojo for writing, creativity and learning has come back! Yay! It’s been a MAD writing month with some creativity thrown in where I am now on a fictional travel adventure around France in […]
Qu’est-ce que j’ai fait cette semaine?
Big thank you to my friend Céline Schillinger who helped me out with the French corrections this week in purple. Big thank you to Kevin Le Vaillant once again who has helped me out this week in the blue writing. Learning to write French requires practice and lots of feedback. By doing this, I’m learning […]
Day 2: Guèdelon Castle
I’m continuing my discovery of the Burgundy region in France, taking my time to explore the Top 50 places in France on a whim. (See more WHY I’m doing this and where I started the journey here at Virtual Tour of Les Hospices de Beaune) This morning, I checked out of the delightful accomodation and […]
Day 1: Virtual Tour of Les Hospices de Beaune
Last night my husband asks me, “how about a trip to Paris in November?” My reaction? I know that it’s highly unlikely we’ll be travelling anywhere internationally for the next two possibly up to five years, sadly. What he meant to ask me is that we buy a couple of tickets to go see the […]
Baking
One of the things I’ve been doing a lot more with my time is cooking and baking things that I’ve never done before in an effort to try something new. I find I get into a rut sometimes and revert to cooking and preparing dinner that is something tried and tested because it means it […]
Learning Languages Ruined My Life
Phoenix shares his story of how he found a book in a bookstore called, “The Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent” (a book by Lionel Trilling) and how it made him think about how learning languages makes you intelligent BUT it comes at a cost. They are both painful. Painful in the sense that it gives […]
Do You Share Testimonials?
Recently I was told something that made me sit up and scratch my head. I was told that there was a risk to my personal reputation if I presented public classes and if participants to these classes, took some issue over how I presented them, that they could write negative reviews online which would then […]
Qu’ai je fait durant le weekend?
Je vais utiliser ce blog à ecrire pour ècrire ce que j’ai fait sur durant le weekend. Je vais dire ces paragraphes à durant ou lors de mon cours d’Alliance Française ce lundi. Chaque semaine, j’ajouterai une autre encoure nouvelle histoire. Je ne sais pas si ces phrases ont sont raison correctes, mais il faut […]
How to Use RSS Feeds
When I told some people about how I want to reduce my social media use and instead return to using my blog, they asked, “how will we find your blog if you’re not always on social media?” Well, I hate to say it but if you’re relying on social networks for you to find different […]
I Am Not a Cat
Last year, I experimented with Snapchat Camera on Microsoft Teams and it was a lot of fun. My boss Paul Woods has downloaded it on his desktop camera and naturally, I wanted in. You download the app onto your desktop and then you can add a variety of Snapchat filters and lenses to your camera […]
Time Waster Twitter
I hate to say this but I feel that my use of Twitter has its days numbered. Back in the day before Twitter became a vitriolic, free for all, I espoused that it was a place to build a personal learning network, to show and share your work, build a reputation around your expertise, build […]
Speakly – A New Language Learning App
I’ve been watching this YouTuber’s videos about language learning for over a year now. I stumbled upon his videos as there’s tons of polyglots out there on YouTube land all trying to outdo each other when it comes to learning multiple languages. I love his videos because he takes a genuine and authentic approach to […]
15 Years Married and Goulash
It’s hard to believe that on Thursday 4 February 2021, Andrew (@TigerTex1) celebrated our 15 year wedding anniversary. I’m incredibly thankful that I have found someone in my life who not only I love and adore but who is my best friend and confidante. We are very different to each other but we share same […]
When Do You Give Up Reading a Book?
For the last few years, I’ve been changing my reading habits to try and force myself to: Read widely Read fiction Read classics The reason I wanted to do this was that I was finding that I tended to be influenced by others in my network who were reading the same books which were usually […]
On Virtual Facilitation
Back in 2013, I was working for the National Australia Bank and part of the Digital Learning Team responsible for the rollout of skills programs in virtual facilitation, virtual meetings and Learning How to Learn Online for the entire bank. Our team designed and developed the suite of these courses (I remember those Facilitator Guides […]
Apprendre le Francais
My recent trip to Strasbourg re-inspired my love of the French language. I learned French in high school and studied it for six years. At the time, I recall people telling me that I was wasting one subject at school when I should have focussed on an additional maths or science subject. However, I loved […]
Dedicate Time For Self-Driven Personal Learning At Work
One of the days that I look forward to at the company I work at Adopt and Embrace is that we have dedicated “Learning Days” every quarter set aside where the entire day is spent on self-driven learning. During Learning Days, we are free to spend the entire day learning what we want as long […]
Create Your Personalised Learning Plan with Adaptive Cards to Microsoft Teams
Last year I used the article by Luise Freese (@luisefreese) on Adaptive Cards for Beginners: How to Monitor a Hashtag on Twitter . The idea is that you can create a card that automatically goes into your selected channel in Microsoft Teams that triggers an action on your part: namely to explore the topic of […]