Cybermill

Take the time

2010-12-23T15:23:00.005+01:00

As the old year is slowly coming to an end, some of us find this a good time to stop for a moment and think a bit about our previous year's journey. Where it took us. What it gave to us. What it took away.
And then we tend to make wishes and resolutions for the coming year, focussing on things that really matter to us. Things we perhaps haven't dedicated as much time as we would have liked to. Things that make our lives beautiful and ours. Things that fulfill us.
Check out the selection of 12 student poster reminders of Things that really matter in life. 12 reminders for the 12 months of the coming new year. ;-)
The posters have been created by autumn 2010 VSS group within the Listen to the Walls Talking project.

I wish you lots of time for enjoying things that matter to YOU in this coming year. Have wonderful holidays and a happy new year!

Twinning reflections

2010-12-22T13:27:00.001+01:00

What was designed as a short and simple 2 month project back in France turned out quite a challenge to carry out as planned. In October there were strikes all over France, soon after autumn vacations followed in Slovenia – it seemed that when we were at school the French partners weren't and the other way round. Then came the winter break in December and slightly before it our English class had ended. It turned out we really didn't have much time for playing.
Despite the hiccups our group mostly managed to realize the tasks set. These are some of our thoughts at the end:
It's good to connect with similarly aged students from a different country – it makes using English much more real. Students from our group generally liked the project idea, found it interesting and meaningful although not everybody managed to establish contact with a partner student.
It would have been nice, some said, if there had been more opportunities for interaction and more time devoted to a closer collaboration. Also - it would have been great if all Slovene and French students participated seriously and were quick in posting replies. eTwinning site could use some improving; simple little things like recognizing urls and hyperlinking them automatically would be nice.
As a teacher I think our participation in this project nicely showed in practice the importance of the impression you make online with your intro, creativity and responsiveness. Others judge you by what you show them. Being open, reliable and active can take you further - or at least shows a better picture ;-). Different people always view things differently – which good! We should be respectful of others and others of us.

Get creative - reuse and respect

2010-12-09T10:59:00.002+01:00

Step 3 in our eTwinning experiment involves poster creation - showing things that matter or should matter in life using:

* Big Huge Lab's Motivator
* Listen to the walls talking graffiti image pool

Why using Listen to the walls talking images?

Because we have already been active in Listen to the Walls Talking project. We contributed over 70 new graffiti photos to the pool which now has over 900 photos from 20 different countries that are licensed with a CC license which allows reuse.:-)

Re-using these photos in our motivational posters nicely builds upon the work of others, promotes the spirit of sharing and makes the style of motivational posters coherent while it at the same time allows us to choose from a wide range of topics or upload and share graffiti of our own.

When using photos of other walls talking contributors, we credited them by a discretely written author's name + wallstalking.org or www.flickr.com/groups/wallstalking on the motivator. Text was simply added on images using Picasa.

This is what we came up with:

Nice, aren't they? We shared them with our French partners on our Twinspace - when they upload theirs, we'll vote for the best one.

Looks matter

2010-11-15T10:29:00.002+01:00

When checking out our French partner's avatars and descriptions on our shared Twinspace, these struck some of us as a bit intimidating – but then we had a look at ours (previous post) and saw we don't look much different either. :-)

So – what does this tell us? First impression counts. People who don't know you judge you by what you tell them. So - it's definitely worth thinking before posting our intros and photos online. Things we find funny may be misunderstood by somebody else.

We wrote to the French and shared a thing or two obout our neck of the woods on their walls; about our home town Nova Gorica and The Solkan bridge; about the majestic The Postojna Cave - and a popular party place called Ambasada Gavioli; about Pipistrel light aircrafts and Planica ski jump center - the Slovene cradle of ski-jumping and ski-flying.

Dipping toes in eTwinning

2010-10-18T15:10:00.003+01:00

This autumn we will try to connect with the French students and learn a thing or two about France.
The first things that seem to come to our mind in connection with this lovely country not so far away from us are Paris and Eiffel tower, cheese, wine, perfumes, fashion, skiing slopes, French classes at school (a funny language with complicated pronunciation ;-)), the Petzl climbing equipment, the Citroen car manufecturer, the Disneyland park, and famous people like President Sarkozy, the actor Jean Reno, the rally driver Sebastien Loeb and the prankster Remi Gaillard.
What does our informatics group look like? Meet our South Park avatars created in phase 1 of our eTwinning Things that matter project using SP Studio.

Nice, aren't we?
And this is our mechatronics group.

Opinions, faces and tags at Walls Talking

2010-08-15T10:09:00.002+01:00

There are all sorts of faces staring from walls

and all sorts of opinions

and many many many tags

You are most welcome to check out also parts 1, 2, and 3 of this post and share your thoughts. :-)

School and love and city life at Walls Talking

2010-08-10T07:48:00.003+01:00

Walls Talking images connected with school and school life

some that have to do with love (one way or another ;-))

and some that deal with city life

You are most welcome to check out also parts 1 and 2 of this post and share your thoughts. :-)

One Day in the Life at VSS

2010-06-17T19:14:00.016+01:00

Finally posting our One Day in the Life contributions also in our base camp here. One Day is a really nice iEARN project documenting the lives of students from all over the globe. This year, 2 dates have been set in advance, on which students were asked to document glimpses from their daily lives. 10 November and 23 March. I gathered together our responses in this prezi. :-)

One Day in The Life at VSS TSCNG on Prezi

Human weaknesses, world news and freedom

2010-05-14T07:55:00.007+01:00

Here come Walls Talking reflections - part 2 (See Part 1 here). Remember to view full page with the 'show info' option on (top right).

Human weaknesses and vices

Responses to world news,events

Celebrating openess, sincerity, freedom

Nice, aren't they?

Angels, crisis and environmental responsibility

2010-05-13T19:07:00.007+01:00

As the school year is slowly winding up our end, I'd like to reflect a bit about this year's Walls Talking journey .

Thanks to many wonderful students and kind Webhead, iEARN, SDUTSJ and I4E friends our Flicr group pool now contains almost 600 photos of all sorts of expressions from our walls.

They come from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Croatia, France, Germany, Italy, Marocco, Mexico, Romania, Russia, Spain, Slovenia, Sri Lanka, Ukraine, USA and Venezuela.

Here are the first 3 sets I've created - there are many more to come. Flickr tag option is a nice and simple way for organizing and displaying sets of photos in a Flickr group by any group user. IMPORTANT: watch the slideshows in 'full page' view and with the 'show info' option top right turned on.

The first set contains some angelic glimpses

The second set contains some grimmer and more down to earth, crisis and stress related stories

and set 3 reminds us of our responsibility for the environment

There's more to come - I love this flickr option for tagging and displaying tagged items. It seems any Flickr group member can freely tag any group pool items - even copyrighted ones.

Let me finish this post with a big THANK YOU ALL for making the Walls Talking idea alive and real. And if you are thinking of joining now or in the future - well, anyone wellcome anytime. :-)

We have a saying in Slovene: 'Zrno na zrno pogača, kamen na kamen palača' (grain by grain yields bread, stone by stone produces a palace). Sifting through these colorful grains and stones that have been trickling in our Flickr group since a little over a year ago, I see we've been building a very special palace here. A palace of life. Nice things and things not so nice. The world is what it is.

Fashion and clothes at our school

2009-10-27T18:36:00.003+01:00

These two collages have been created to chime in Schools Around the Globe fashion and clothes topic.
At our school students wear what they like – there are no uniforms. Our school is a technical school centre - it includes many technical secondary schools (computer science, mechanical engineering, electronics, metalwork...) and some college courses. There aren't many girls around, we mostly have boys' classes.

This group are mechatronics students:

This is their view of fashion and clothes; their reply to my questions: How important are fashion and clothes to you? and How would you describe a typical student at our school?
We generally don’t care much about fashion. We wear casual clothes, whatever we feel comfortable in. A typical TŠC student wears jeans or sports clothes, perhaps a hoody and a jacket - simple and practical clothes. Different students like different styles, like everywhere else – ranging from metal to emo or skaters' or metalhead looks. Clothes sometimes tell a lot about people who wear them – about the kind of music they listen to, how much money they spend on them, how much they care about their looks.

This group are informatics students:

And this is their reply to my questions above:
Some of us seem to care about fashion more than others, but the general view seems to be that it's more important that you feel good in whatever you put on and that there's not much point in spending a fortune on clothes. A typical student at our school wears jeans, a t-shirt or a pullover, a jacket, sports shoes or trainers – casual clothes, not necessarily latest fashion.
Students lego avatars have been created using The Mini-Mizer I was alerted to this site via Nik Peachy's blog.

What makes Slovenia unique?

2009-10-20T18:25:00.007+01:00

Inspired by Ronaldo's wonderful What makes Brazil a UNIQUE country my class travelled in our minds a bit to the sandy beaches of the sunny Brazil. When we returned home, we created two responses. One with the informatics group and one with the mechatronics group.

As set out by Ronaldo, my students came up with a word or phrase explaining what makes Slovenia unique and 2 or 3 cc licensed photos in Flickr supporting it - they posted their answers in this Google form.

Here's a video created with the help of the informatics group:

And here's a video created with the help of the mechatronics group:

Nice, aren't they? Here's a wiki, where such Multicultural Uniquenesses are brought together by Carla Arena, who is responsible for the spreading of this bug. ;-)

Diversity, uniqueness, stereotypes

2009-10-20T16:29:00.007+01:00

A few years ago, a German blogger came up with a world map that shows what traits different nationalities are especially known for. It's called "The Prejudice Map" and it is kind of a catalog of stereotypes and clichés.

Slovenia is not included, so I asked my students how they would describe us. They came up with a lot of interesting suggestions - nice ones (closely connected families, sport matters, nature too, don't like to stick out of the crowd...) and those darker ones (envy, inferiority complex, alcoholism, suicides...).
We then checked what Google says "Slovenians are known for". This is what came up:
- incredibly beautiful women,
- partying abilities,
- extreme athletes
- low confidence
- historical presence in Istria
- entertainment lovers
- excellent parties
- excellent speakers of several foreign languages
- horrible choice of gown in Miss World beauty contests

English and English learning

2009-10-04T21:52:00.010+01:00

I asked my new class what comes to their mind when they hear the word 'English'. This is what they said:

And this is what comes to their mind when they hear the word 'English learning'. (I like BetterThanMaths ;-))

We did this survey in paper form and in groups (it's anonymous, you are welcome to fill it in too). Some of the answers that brought a smile to my face are:

Q: What do you remember from your English classes best?
A: A view from the window.
(Great idea for next Clasrooms Across the Globe topic, isn't it? Literally sharing views from our classrooms ;-)).

Q: Is perfect English necessary for successful communication?
A: Good is good enough. Perfect is unnecessary.

Learning English is important - English is the language of international communication, the language of the Internet, the language of many films and songs we love. It's the first foreign language at our schools and it's good for us to be able to successfully communicate in it. That's more important than worrying too much about mistakes we make along the way. According to our little survey, we teachears here seem to be guilty of focussing rather a lot on grammar and mistakes learners make... But if our students find it difficult to see the forrest for the trees we are missing the point, aren't we?

My new students' advice to me and fellow English teachers?
- If possible, invite native speaker guests in class. (Kay, Bob, have you read this? :-))Make class activities meaningful. Allow students to use language to express themselves. Involve students in class discussions. Do fun group activities. Encourage student interaction. Make classes communicative.

Here's the advice Wordle:

Looking forward to another year's learning. :-)

How do others see Slovenia?

2009-05-12T07:39:00.005+01:00

Have I mentioned here a class in Argentina participating in the Walls Talking project decided to learn more about Slovenia?
They set up a website where they pool their finds and invited me to talk to them about our country - I'm really looking forward to this - we are meeting tonight on Skype. :-))

It was at their site that I came across this interesting article in Slovenia Times by Diana Evans (a Brit living in Maribor). The text is her observations of life in Slovenia - she has been living here now for almost 5 years. She says she likes our lifestyle:

The lifestyle. This is hard to explain, but let me tell you there is an advertisement running in UK newspapers saying that British people throw away a quarter of the food they buy. I just cannot imagine Slovenes doing that. People are more careful with their money, with what they buy and about what they throw away. People use the things they have and pass them on to others if they don’t need them any more. In our area, a twice a year collection of large unwanted items is enough for most people. People seem to care about the environment. There is little litter lying around and the country as a whole is clean and tidy. People look after their homes and gardens and take a pride in their own appearance. There are a lot less overweight people than in the UK due I believe to eating less processed food and also exercising more; less TV watching; more sport and other healthy activities. (I have lost weight since I moved here!).

There are many other interesting observations - for example she considers us kind and open and willing to help a foreigner. ... We thought a bit different about us here and here ;-).

Another non-Slovene explorer of our country living in Slovenia 6 months a year and beautifully writing about this in her blog is our dear Kay Raplenovich. Our current class unfortunately did not have the opportunity to meet her, but we were lucky to have had her with us on a number of occasions with previous groups. She's an American and lives part of the year in Šempeter, Slovenia and part of the year in Ohio, US.

Another very interesting site along these lines I bookmarked ages ago was also created by an American - nicknamed Pogoer. He used to live here and has posted very interesting observations and tips for foreigners interested in exploring the life in our neck of the woods.

Any other non-Slovenes out there willing to share your impressions of Slovenia? We'd love to hear from you. :-)

Graffiti - what is right and what is wrong?

2009-05-11T14:11:00.003+01:00

Some graffiti look good and some don't, some are viewed upon with approval and some not... What is acceptable and what is not? What is funny and what is not? What is art and what an offense? Michael's photo here says it clearly... but are things really as simple as that?
I gathered below some interesting comments by my class.

Added value, appropriate place.
Nice graffiti look nice or say something nice or something somehow of value most of us seemed to agree. Scribbles which are only there to deface the buildings or hurt somebody's feelings are vandalism.
Respect other people's property.
Edi and many others pointed out the importance of being respective of other people's property. 'It's something that has to do with age. Young people don't work and don't earn money and don't understand so well the concept of leaving things which are not theirs alone.' (I haven't thought of this before but it's true, isn't it? Most of the graffiti we see on the walls of our town looks seems to have been produced by teens.) 'Graffiti art is cool We should have designated places in towns and cities where people are allowed to do it, it shouldn't be done just anywhere.'
Artistic value is not a black and white concept. 'People tend to generalize things: the beautiful is art and the ugly is vandalism or obscene. But in real life things are not that simple. A beautiful graffiti on a freshly painted wall is art for most viewers, but not for the owner. A "nonsense" sculpture in our town with numerous heads sticking out of one body - is art - even though most people don't understand it and consider it an eyesore - but it's been commissioned from a professional artist so it's officially art' (Edi)
Urban dialogue. 'there are many graffiti makers who simply rebel against the system or joke around - their graffiti are urban responses reflecting reality of life in the area' (Tomaž)
I kind of agree here, because I find it interesting to observe the walls in our town and study what they say about us.

For example. Our town is a mix of all sorts of nationalities from ex Yugoslavia - in addition to Slovenes there are also many people with roots from other former Republics. Awhile ago I was on my way to Qlandia, our local mall, and I noticed a disturbing and pathetic Slovene nationalistic graffiti saying 'srbe na vrbe' (suggesting the Serbs should be hung on willow trees - it rhymes in Slovene). A humorous Serbian rhyme was added next to it in response: 'nema vrba koliko ima srba' (meaning there aren't as many willows here as there are Serbian people - not too far fetched considering how small the territory of our country is ;-)). I hate the nationalistic stuff on our walls, but this one brought a smile on my face. It is an example of this sort of urban dialogues on the walls...

A much nicer example of this sort recently added to the wallstalking site is this:

The authorities in our town (Nova Gorica) have put these signs boasting that our town is a university town along all major roads leading to Nova Gorica. The problem is they seemed to have forgotten about their old promise to also provide appropriate location for building the university campus - so an action called 'University Town' ' was organized in which activists furnished all these signs with the question ' Where is this university?

Any other thoughts on this?

More glimpses of Slovenia

2009-05-06T20:11:00.003+01:00

Just thought I'd post this Flickr slideshow here too because it fits in nicely with the previous post - it's glimpses of my home town Nova Gorica and other parts of Slovenia (from our family trips, mostly by my husband, whose fingers are usually glued to the camera wherever we go ;-)).

Slovenia's talking walls

2009-05-05T12:48:00.007+01:00

Ok, we wrote about Argentina here, it's time to also post our ramblings concerning Slovenia and Slovenian walls. This is what we came up in class awhile ago:
Slovenia is a small but beautiful country criss crossed by many scenic roads. The landscape is very diverse - it only takes you a couple of hours to travel from the Adriatic coast all the way to the high peaks of the Alps (mountain range stretching across the borders in also to the neighbouring Italy, Austria and Switzerland) - we call our side of the Alps the sunny side of the Alps.

Another natural beauty is our Kras area with one of the biggest underground Karst cave system. Vojko said he heard somebody say if you ironed Slo it would be bigger than Europe. Nicely put, isn't it? :-)

Landscape diversity reflects also in many different Slovene dialects, some are quite challenging to understand also for Slovenes not coming from the same region. We think we are reserved people, need to get to know somebody a bit before we get friendly with them.

I think that some aspects of this are nicely shown on the graffiti on this train - with rainbow stretching above the beautiful green hilly landscape and fences delimiting people's property below. People here say 'čisti računi dobri prijatelji' - meaning people have to have their affairs in order (money, property...) if they want to be good friends - what is mine is mine and what is yours is yours.

Our country is on the territory where a lot of blood was shed during the WW1 and WW2. Older generations still tell stories of those times. Times and politics have changed now though, and some of the people who used to be national heroes are not everybody's heroes anymore. I posted this photo and the story to our Wallstalking site - not quite a graffiti on the wall, but the actions associated with it bear many resemblances to what we typically associate with graffiti art.

As far as sports is concerned, many like football here too though we think it cannot be considered national sport, like in Argentina. The conditions for practicing it are rather poor, skiing, snowboarding and other winter sports seem to be more popular. Skiing has a long tradition here. It's interesting though that while football related graffiti are quite frequent on our walls, I can't remember seeing a single skiing one.
Our typical foods are meaty ones like pršut and kranjska klobasa, dishes like jota, žlikrofi and mlinci, and sweets like potica, štruklji and gibanica - the assortment of foods differs a bit according to regions, but these are usually listed as typical Slovene foods. Some of the Slovene regions are wine-producing areas. Wine and wine drinking has long been part of our culture, something our walls testify about too.

2009-04-18T06:02:00.017+01:00

HISTORY OF SCOUTING

The history of scouting goes back to the turn of the 20th century, when the first seeds of scouting were sown. On a farm in Connecticut, a naturalist and author named Ernest Thompson Seton had a problem with a group of boys who kept stealing fruits from his garden. He decided to organize those boys in a group. At first, he just told them Indians stories. A few weeks later, he took them out of the village in the nature where they spent a few days living in a teepee – an Indian tent. He called them the Woodcraft Indians. All that happened in 1902.

At about the same time, in 1907, a British Army officer, Robert Baden-Powell gathered about 20 boys and took them to Brownsea Island in a sheltered bay off England's southern coast. They set up a makeshift camp that would be their home for the next 12 days.
His idea of scouting was born while he was stationed in India. He discovered that his men lacked basic first aid knowledge and also that of the elementary means of survival in the outdoors. Baden-Powell realized he needed to teach his men many frontier skills. After returning from the Boer War, Baden-Powell was amazed to find that his little handbook called Aids to Scouting had caught the interest of English boys. They were using it to play the game of scouting.

The boys had a great time at the scout camp. They divided into patrols and played games, went on hikes, and learned stalking and pioneering. They learned to cook outdoors without utensils. Scouting began on that island and would sweep the globe in a few years.

In many ways, the two organizations were similar, but they were not connected. The boys who belonged to Woodcraft Indians had never heard of Baden-Powell or of Boy Scouts, and yet both groups were destined to become Boy Scouts one day soon. The biggest difference between those two organizations was a discipline. The Woodcraft organization was more about freedom to foster and emphasize the symbiosis with nature, Scouts, on the other side, were firmly organized and had well defined methods.

Next year, Baden-Powell published his book Scouting for Boys and Scouting continued to grow. That same year, more than 10,000 Boy Scouts attended a rally held at the Crystal Palace; a mere two years later, membership in Boy Scouts had tripled.

In these days there are more than 28 million Scouts, youth and adults, boys and girls, in 160 countries.

What about Slovenia.

In Slovenia the first scout groups emerged in Celje, Ljubljana and Maribor. In 1925 an active group of scouts published the idea of establishing Woodcraft organization. The Woodcraft organization was established in Ljubljana, but in Maribor it was the most active center at that time. There are no significant differences in the working methods of the Slovene Woodcraft and scout organizations. Both organizations have been expanding throughout Slovenia. There has been considerable expansion of members and local organizations. Political views of members of Woodcraft or Scouting organizations are not important. For the scouts the only condition for consideration is the Scout law and oath.

The name tabornik (i.e. Scout) was first mentioned in 1924 in the National Journal. It referred to members of both movements. The adoption of this term subsequently led also to the new name of this organization in 1925 the “Združenje slovenskih tabornikov”.

After World War II, on the 22 April 1951, the former scouts and woodcrafts merged in a joint organization called “Združenje tabornikov Slovenije”. Later it was renamed in Scout association of Slovenia (Zveza tabornikov Slovenije- ZTS).

Because of numerous engaging and attractive activities for young people, membership has grown rapidly from the initial 783 to over 10,000 members today. The movement has expanded, and organizations have emerged also in other republics of the former Yugoslavia.
The Yugoslav scout organization was an umbrella organization linking together the branches from the different republics, including the Slovene ZTS. Savez izvidžača Jugoslavije (Scout association of Yugoslavia) was formed in 1951 on the initiative of ZTS. It never became a member of the World Organization of Scout movement because of the political situation in the previous system.
In time between 1951 and 1958 Scouts organization were founded in all republic of former Yugoslavia. After colaps of country, scout groups and association doesn’t stop to work, and now all Scout association from republic of former Yugoslavia are fully member of WOSM.

Compared to other Scouts associations in former Yugoslavia, ZTS has kept its identity, which is reflected in the Slovenian scouts' coat-of-arms, their distinctive code of behavior, units and description tags, and other peculiarities, which have varied in other scout organizations from the other republics of former Yugoslavia.

Custom manners and habits of both organizations from before of WW II are firmly rooted in ZTS. In 1989 the organization began the process of going back to the original ideas and began introducing higher common standards of organization and operation of local scout units. All these efforts payed off in 1994 when our national Scout organization ZTS became a full member of the World Scout movement - WOSM. This also meant that ZTS become a national scout organization.

Another related organization in Slovenia active since 1990 is called Slovenian Catholic Association of Girl and Boy Scouts (Združenje slovenskih katoliških skavtinj in skavtov - ZSKSS). The purpose and the Scout methods are the same as in the case of ZTS, but the forms of action and activities are slightly different. In 1996 the ZSKSS association joined the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS), which brings together girls Scout organizations around the world. To pursue common interests and promote diversity, the organization decided to adopt this special arrangement.

Hackers

2009-04-17T18:31:00.005+01:00

Well, I did a presentation about hackers for my English class and seems that my class mates liked it so Saša invited me to post few lines about the topic. So, fasten the seatbelts and rock'n'roll :)

The first queston that comes in mind when speaking about hackers is: who is a hacker? Usually we think about hackers like some anti-social individuals breaking into computer systems searching for classified data. This is the image of hackers that mass-media created, because people dig stories about super-inteligent teenagers that rule the cyberspace. Nevertheless, the truth is much simpler.
Hackers are just individuals who like to explore computer systems and networks. Period. Just ordinary guys - not some gods or voodoo magicians. Even the most famous hacker (well, actually he was black hat hacker, but we'll come to that part) - Kevin Mitnick - admited that most of his targets were "low-hanging fruit". In his own words he often did it like this: telnet to server, username: guest, password: guest ... and he was in. Many of his famous break-ins were just reflection of poor security policy. And even today is not much different.

The hackers scene is deeply related with UNIX operating system, C programing language and ARPAnet. In fact, people involved in those projects are today known as pioneeer hackers. In those early years phreakers were more common than hackers mainly because at that time there were not many computer networks while phone systems were pretty evolved. Phreaker is a person who likes to explore telephone systems, basically a phone hacker.

Like every sub-culture hackers also have their unwritten laws and ethic codex. Some well know hacker's ethic rules are this:

all information should be free
access to computers should be unlimited and total
destroying things is easy, the hardest part is to build them

But the cornerstone of hackers culture is considered to be a short essay called "The manifest". This essay was written by a hacker named "The Mentor" shortly after his arrest in 1986. It's worth reading. "The Manifest" gives the insight view of hackers philosophy. The manifest states that hackers choose to hack because hacking is the way to learn, kind of intellectual challenge, but also because, they feel bored and frustrated about limitations of modern society.

That was once upon a time. Today we have like many flavors of hackers. Most of them fits into script kiddie category. Script kiddies are mainly teenagers that have a minimal knowledge of computers and networks but they are using publicly available hacker's tools and programs to attack the systems.
White hats (or ethical hackers) are good guys. If they found a vulnerability they will report it to developer.
Black hats (or crackers) are bad guys. If they found a vulnerability they will exploit it, sell it or publicly disclose it.
Grey hats are a hybrid between black and white hats. Sometimes they will act legal while sometime not.
Corporate hackers are hackers who are working for large corporations, searching for security holes in corporate environment and making big bucks :) Did you know that Microsoft also hires hackers? BTW, this guys are often called "Security professionals" because the term hacker is not appropriate for serious business.
If you are wondering if they are really wearing those hats? No, they don't. This is just fictional and taken from old spagetti-western movies where the bad guys are wearing black hats while the good guys are wearing white hats. And what is the color of your hat? :)

The most famous hacker is Kevin Mitnick, of course. He was black hat. He penetrated many corporate networks - supposedly searching for source code. He was 5 years on the run, then arrested by FBI (he was actually traced by a white hat hacker), spent 5 years in prison and when he got out he was not allowed to use computers or cell phones for three more years. Today he works as corporate hacker. He are some other hackers worth to mention (all white hats this time): Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman and Bill Gates.

That is. If you read it until here then you're probably interested in hackers. You may be even asking yourself: "Am I also a hacker?". Luckily for you, there is a universal solution to answer that question. If you can understand this:

ph33r u5 n0w 'c0z w3 pwn u L1k3 7h47 w17h ju57 p1ng, 7r4c3r7 4nd n375747

than you're almost certainly a script kiddie. :)

Argentina's talking walls

2009-04-13T21:37:00.003+01:00

During our previous class we brainstormed what we know about Argentina for some 5 or 10 minutes and came up with the following:

Argentina's capital is Buenos Aires. The country is located in the South America, Spanish language is spoken there. People do tango and are fond of fireworks. Football is Argentinian national sport, one of the world's most famous football legends - Maradona comes from there.

Argentinian people eat huge steaks, lots of cattle is bred for meat. Argentinian beef is exported all over the world and served in many restaurants even in our part of the world. Argentina is also one of the world's biggest honey producers (also in Slovenia beekeeping is a firmly rooted tradition).

It is not uncommon for a Slovene to have relatives in Argentina or to know somebody who has - many Slovenes emigrated to Argentina before and soon after WW2. Even one of our ex prime ministers, Andrej Bajuk, is an Argentinian Slovene (has retired recently).

Evita Peron was a very popular Argentinian First Lady - the queen of people's hearts. Argentina hosted this year's rally and used to host F1 races too in Buenos Aires. There is a beautiful national park called Patagonia.

We then had a look at graffiti uploaded to the Wallstalking.org website and Flickr group:

the graffiti there are humorous, vivacious and colorful, - Caminito tango dancers, Plaza de Mayo street bustle, young Valu enjoying blissful afterlife, 'Hello Kitty' turned into 'Hello Kirchner', a complaint about not too good-looking women from somebody's neighbourhood,... Some graffiti there are also more serious, e.g. reminding people of a dark period from their past, protesting against capitalism,..

People seem to be proud of their culture, roots and heroes. (Hm, can we say the same for us, Slovenes?)

caminito, originally uploaded by jenverschoor.

wallstalking.org

2009-03-20T20:13:00.010+01:00

Some friends and I are starting a graffiti project called Listen to the Walls Talking.
On my way to school some two or three weeks ago I noticed a pile of old desks next to the trash can. I stopped and had a look - they were covered in scribbles, verses, sketches... some already disassembled and ready for their final destination. Those scribbles and carvings all over them made me think of the countless hours students had spent sitting there, being productive (one way or another ;-)). I thought how these marks are in a way reflection of somebody's feelings caught in time. Bored, in love, happy, mad, creative, you name it. So when I later that day entered the classroom and registered the blank white student desks, those struck me as sterile, lifeless, cold... There were no stories there, no emotions - the desks were nice and clean. So I started looking around, at walls, chairs, schoolbags... and I thought - wouldn't it be nice to collect and share scribbles meaningful to us, see why we find them meaningful, what do they tell us? What does this tell us about us?
I talked about this to some of my friends and ended up in a fun collaborative project - people from different parts of the world started sharing photos of the graffiti they like or find meaningful. It's fun already and it has only just begun. Check it out and join us! Hope to see you there.

Buy a drink? ;-)

2009-02-27T12:55:00.005+01:00

A new name

2009-02-25T10:30:00.004+01:00

Needed to rename this place… I didn’t quite feel at home here. So goodbye EFL blog and hello Cybermill. Why Cybermill? Sounds like something practical, hands on... Also I kind of like to name my cyberspots so that they mean something to me. This is now this blog's 3rd name (never took the time to think properly of a name, which is a real shame). When I opened it I titled it Roštilj but later, when the 'Roštilj' student generation finished class, I renamed it to EFL Blog... never liked that name, sounded kind of empty… Cybermill at least makes it consistent with some of my cyber spots. Not sure this will encourage me to blog more regularly, but at least I will feel more at home when I do. So... Cybermill from now on - in case anyone is still around this place and wondering what's happened.

Meetup

2008-06-13T07:54:00.003+01:00

I've just learned about Meetup through S. Downes Old Daily and thought it might be of interest to you too. It's an online site where you go to meet people who share similar interests so you can meet them f2f... I checked Nova Gorica, nothing there yet.
Here's a lovely Common Craft video on Meetup:

Earth Day 08

2008-04-21T11:06:00.003+01:00

Earth Day is celebrated tomorrow. Tjaša wrote about it and my dear friend Cris is one of the many volunteers around the globe involved in a fascinating project dedicated to this: a 24 hour earthcast. It starts 22 April at midnight GMT (i.e. 2 am our time), bringing together voices from around the globe to speak live about the health of our planet (students, teachers, researchers, scientist, engineers,… anybody). You can give it a listen here and are most welcome to join in.
Here's my humble contribution to Earth Day (used Bee's idea, quotes and Flickr CC photos). What do you think?

| View | Upload your own

Anyway, while uploading to slideshare I also came across this really awesome slides by Sunita Williams… Beautiful, aren't they?

| View | Upload your own

Now… concerning the health of our planet… there are many little things we can do… recycle, reuse, support the organic, the local… think positive, be respectful of others… After all we are just part of the system here, aren't we? Life on Earth does not depend on us really, does it?
I recently listened to a cool TED talk by M. Pollan. A really lovely talk, radiating hope and good vibes… It's funny, he notes, that Darwin's On the origin of species was published more than 150 years ago yet we still mostly stick to the cartesian view of man, consciousness, and culture on the one hand, and nature on the other… We are really just one of the many species around, we act and are acted upon… Just like a bee, seduced by a flower's color and fragrance, pollinates and spreads its genes around, so are perhaps we seduced by a certain sort of potato so we choose to plant that one and not some other, or by grass so we mow it like crazy and thus help it outcompete the bushes and trees, its natural competition, or by corn so we keep planting it and spreading its habitat…
Ever thought of that? Interesting, isn't it?
We seem to be pretty much oblivious of the world around us… but if we choose a different species point of view, we suddenly see our role in a very different light. 'The cure for the disease of human self importance' believes Pollan. I like the idea a lot.
I remember Bolte, the TEDster from my previous post, talking about the role of our brain concerning our view and perception of the world; while the right hemisphere connects us to it, blending our body with the environment, the left one separates us from it, making us individuals, persons of our own… Our skin is not the boundary of our being…. there is more to it. A whole lot more!
Let's not fail to see the forest for the trees. Let's respect Mother Nature’s treasures and be thankful to be part of them. Happy Earth Day everybody!

Brain Awareness Week

2008-03-12T20:31:00.005+01:00

This week is a Brain Awareness Week. I heard it on the radio earlier this week, it made me curious so I googled it up and found some sites promoting this event. To contribute a bit to this, I'd like to share with you lovely tutorials on human anatomy at getbodysmart.com (check the brain section ;-)) and on the National Geographic site .
Also I'd like to share with you a fascinating TED talk by a neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor, who

... had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened -- as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding -- she studied and remembered every moment. This is a powerful story about how our brains define us and connect us to the world and to one another

Enjoy!

Downloading music... did you know?

2008-03-04T10:01:00.005+01:00

Here's a nice quote from a blog entry entitled Apple iTunes Store Environmental Impact. ... I had no idea. How many CDs and DVDs do you have? How many have you thrown away?

Sooner or later, all Music CD’s and the Jewel Cases they are packaged in will end up in a landfill somewhere. CD’s are mostly manufactured from Aluminum and Polycarbonate along with Lacquer, Dyes, and other materials such as water, glass, and nickel. Most of these materials must also be processed before manufacturers can use them to make CD’s. As an example, to make plastic, crude oil from the ground is combined with natural gas and chemicals in a processing plant. In addition to manufacturing, there are transportation costs (shipping CD’s in trucks to the store) as well as packaging costs (the jewel cases, shrink wrap, etc.) to consider as well.

By buying your music from the Apple Store, you are helping to prevent a stack of CD’s 2.6 miles high from having to be manufactured PER DAY.

Janez D.

2008-02-23T11:12:00.003+01:00

I generally don't like politics so I don't follow it and don't talk about it. The way I see it is talking rather than working, saying things not necessarily meaning them, getting money not necessarily deserving it… I know nobody is perfect and I know I am not doing justice here to people, who take this profession seriously, with dignity and pride, who care about the job they do, who know they are there elected by people to work for people... As I said, politics is not my topic, I'm making an exception here to pay tribute to Janez D., a politician I liked.
Drnovšek was our ex PM and our ex President, a man who chose to live a simple life in a cottage in Zaplana baking his own bread rather than in a luxurious presidential palace, the man who personaly brought trailers to the homeless gypsy family rejected by their angry co- villagers, the white man from the inauguration of the Indian President in Bolivia, the man launching his personal peace initiatives for Kosovo and Darfur, the man believing we can make the world a better place for us all, a charismatic man with good heart and common sense listening and speaking to people, the only President whose Christmas message I listened to. He died tonight. I wish him peace.

Touring Unesco's World Heritage sites

2008-02-15T11:45:00.003+01:00

On an island hop, originally uploaded by alvanman.

I'm doing a tour of Unesco's World Heritage sites. I have just returned from the Puerto-Princesa Subterranean River National Park in the Philippines.

This park features a spectacular limestone karst landscape with an underground river. One of the river's distinguishing features is that it emerges directly into the sea, and its lower portion is subject to tidal influences. The area also represents a significant habitat for biodiversity conservation. The site contains a full 'mountain-to-sea' ecosystem and has some of the most important forests in Asia.

Heh, just kidding. I wish I could... But... I've just come across this lovely site - http://www.world-heritage-tour.org/(requires registration), where you can enjoy 360-degree imaging of 216 Unesco's World Heritage sites (25% of all 851 registered by UNESCO), 15 are on the World Monuments Fund Watch List and 67 are additions by WHTour.org. Altogether there are 1641 panographies (360-degree imaging). More sites are going to be added in the near future. It's cool, you have a 360 degree view, you can zoom in and out, access short descriptions of the sites and monuments... I navigated the sites by clicking the map... the Search option didn't seem to work unfortunately. Check it out and let me know where you've gone. Enjoy!

In the fast lane

2007-12-12T23:40:00.001+01:00

Castellana hi-speed, originally uploaded by edans.

I gather there are many of us out there feeling confused and overwhelmed at times, wondering how to prioritize on the truly important things … So I'm posting here Stephen Downes' words of wisdom here, fresh from my inbox.

Everybody faces from time to time demands to make whatever they're doing more efficient. I am no supporter of wasted time and effort. But I always caution the people demanding greater efficiency. Imagine, I say to them, that you are at the top of a 20-story building. Standing by the window. You know the most efficient way to get back down to the bottom. Right? And sometimes, I conclude, some inefficiencies - some resistance and some friction - are exactly what are needed. The principle of efficiency, ruthlessly applied, inevitably leads to a fall.

Just what I needed to read. Thank you, Stephen. Thought it might be useful for some of you folks as well. ;-)

New Year season coming

2007-12-02T20:05:00.000+01:00

Light strings lining our streets remind of the approaching New Year season. The 3 good men will soon bring presents to Slovene children; St. Nicholas on December 6th, Santa Claus on December 25th, and Grandpa Frost aka dedek Mraz on December 31st/January 1st. I asked Kay if they have 'dedek Mraz' in the US – she said there is a character called Father New Year or Father Times but that he does not bring presents. Only Santa Claus. We are luckier, aren't we? ;-)
My personal favorite of the 3 has always been dedek Mraz. Imported from Russia (ded Moroz), he is a remnant from the times of Yugoslavia when Christmas and St. Nicholas Day weren't too loudly celebrated due to communist regime. They had been widely celebrated before that and they are today, here and there also during Yugoslavia, but much more quietly. Being a child from this socialist era, dedek Mraz continues to be my hero. Who is yours?
Photo source: http://www.answers.com/topic/ded-moroz

Manipulating images

2007-11-25T10:11:00.000+01:00

We had a look at this video last week in class.

It shows how a 3D model of a human face can be created on the basis of a 2D photograph and how this 3D model can then be further animated and manipulated… Fascinating but also kind of scary…
Here are two more amazing face morphs of famous women in film and in art. An interesting voyage through time.

Andrej also came up with an interesting site dealing with celebrities and face morphs - check it out, it's fun. :-)

Flickr basics

2007-11-18T09:02:00.001+01:00

Photographers, originally uploaded by tanakawho.

I just thought this might be useful for those of you who started exploring Flickr to share your photos with the world. It's a really nice 20 min presentation about the basics by Jeff Utech. Enjoy!

Happy St. Martin's Day!

2007-11-11T16:21:00.001+01:00

Wine tasting, originally uploaded by Mihies.

Must started turning into wine today. There are numerous feasts all over Slovenia, especially in the wine producing regions of our country. Andrej writes about this here. Our town is a meeting point of two major wine growing areas; the Goriška brda area and the Vipava valley area. Many people produce wine at home and Martinovo, as St. Martin's day is called in Slovene, is therefore an important feast. Typical traditional dishes are being served and new wine is being tasted. 'Martinova gos' is one of such typical dishes; a roasted goose accompanied by boiled flatbread ('mlinci') and red cabbage. The roots of this feast can be traced to the preChristian era, when our ancestors celebrated it as thanksgiving day for good harvest.

sLOVEnia

2007-11-09T22:04:00.001+01:00

Street performer, originally uploaded by Saša Sirk.

I feel Slovenia is the latest slogan launched to represent us and our country abroad. Unfortunately I couldn't find the new logo which accompanies it. It is a green and blue combination symbolizing green spaces and clean water… I saw it on the news earlier this week, placed above a photo of a young couple kissing in the street. I’m just curious now how you see our country.
Numerous slogans have been used for promoting it so far; Slovenia invigorates', 'Slovenia : your perfect getaway', 'Slovenia a diversity to discover' … My all times favorites are still the ancient 'On the sunny side of the Alps' and 'Slovenia, my country' with its linden leaf logo.
Erik found a very nice ad on YouTube. I like it. It looks good. Like a story from a fancy in flight magazine, like a National Geographic excerpt…
The Slovelnia I feel though is something else. It's my grandma’s fairy tales and a backyard garden full of strawberries, it's the smell of freshly baked bread and a pot of hot herb tea, it's roads to be explored and meadows full of mushrooms. It's old friends and neighbors I know.
When talking to non-Slovenes, the first thing I tend to point out about our country is its smallness. And then its diversity, greenness. But that’s ok I guess; small is beautiful.
Thinking of our national character, on the other hand, I come up with the following: we generally don't think much of ourselves, like staying close to our families and don't tend to move around much. We feel safe at home, kind of as if the big problems here were less dramatic than those beyond our borders. Kind of like Tolkien's hobits.
Also it seems to me that we prefer sticking to things familiar to us, that we don't like big changes. I see us as moderate, not used to expressing our emotions too openly. For expressing these, we like using foreign languages, e.g. we hardly ever swear in Slovene, but do this without blinking an eye in Italian, German, Serbian, Croatian, or English…
What is the Slovenia you feel? And what is your view of our national character?

Slovenian students (and teachers) enjoying autumn holidays this week :-)

2007-11-01T19:59:00.001+01:00

candle one, originally uploaded by francesca.sara.

Doris wandered about the Halloween in different parts of the world here and I'm writing this in response to her post.
In Slovenia we don't make a big deal about Halloween; we carve out pumpkins and people attend Halloween parties and concerts (especially young) but we generally don't make much fuss about it.
October 31st is a work-free day in Slovenia and so is the following day, November 1st. The reason however is not Halloween but another religious holiday celebrated on this day, called Reformation Day.
The Reformation was a Protestant movement in the 16th century attempting to reform the Catholic Church. The first Slovene book and the first mention of the name 'Slovene' is associated with the Reformation and Slovenia has therefore appointed Reformation Day as a national holiday. There is usually an 'official' celebration but it is not really people's holiday.
The following day, November 1, on the other hand, is a firmly rooted national holiday called All Saints Day or simply the Day of the Dead. As the name itself tells, it's the day when we remember our dead. Families gather together, we remember our dear ones, visit their graves, bring flowers, light candles, stop for awhile by their graves, and also meet friends there. People take this holiday very seriously. It therefore suprised me very much when I happened to end up in the Mexican part of Los Angeles years ago on Dia De Los Muertos and witnessed a joyous and lively celebration of November 1st. I liked it.

Mums will be mums :-)

2007-10-29T17:14:00.000+01:00

This morning I came across this sweet song and wished I could hug and kiss my mum again. Play it for your mums and enjoy!

The internet meme and trackback

2007-10-23T20:23:00.000+01:00

Time for my homework as well - Doris passed the meme to me. :-)
When did I start using the Internet? I first learned about its existance in 1996. My husband, then a student at the Faculty of Computer Science and Informatics in Ljubljana, took me to a computer room at the faculty and showed me what the Internet is. I still remember how fascinated I was seeing how easily you can find whatever you are looking for. Few people had access to it back then.
I began to use it a few years later when I got access to it from home. In 1998 I think. We had an extremely slow dial-up connection at first, then moved on to ISDN in 2000, ADSL a bit later, and now fiber optics. :-)
In the beginning I mostly used it to search for useful materials for my study and work, for email and IMing (MSN messenger). Then I got my job at our school 3 years ago so I had to learn how to put together online materials for my course. Surfing the web I stumbled upon Webheads in Action, a wonderful online community of practice bringing together educators from different parts of the world. There I met many inspiring teachers and from then on things have been developing with the speed of light for me. We experiment, fool around, and have F.U.N.. We share our experience and visit each other's classes. And we learn new things every day. :-)

What follows is my response to Nelba's invitation to test the trackback option in our meme posts. How do we do this?
Trackback is ability to keep track of other pages on the web that link to your posts. I think it should work if we first turn on the backlinks setting, which can be found under the Settings Comments tab and then post a link in our post to Nelba's blog post at http://englishvirtualcommunity.blogspot.com/2007/10/my-first-meme.html .
Does it work? We'll see.
Matias and Vance tried this awhile ago and wrote about it here and here and Bili mentiones having problems with this here.

Mechatronics students opened blogs

2007-10-16T14:20:00.000+01:00

Some already made their first posts. :-) Way to go!

Jan O. http://janozbot.blogspot.com/
Borut S. http://borutsamec.blogspot.com/
Davorin M. http://davorinmikus.blogspot.com/
Boštjan K. http://kbostjan.blogspot.com/
Uroš K. http://urosblog.blogspot.com/
Barbara B. http://bbarbaras.blogspot.com/
Anže K. http://kemperleanze.blogspot.com/
Jani G. http://janigor70gmailcom.blogspot.com/
Jaka V. http://jakomino16.blogspot.com/
Gregor K. http://krapencgregor.blogspot.com/
Damir H. http://damirh.blogspot.com/
Nejc L. http://the-rolling-stones-lokar.blogspot.com/
Robert N. http://niko-roby.blogspot.com/
Emanuel K. http://emanuel-komel.blogspot.com/
Slavko K. http://slavkokodric.blogspot.com/
Tomaž J. http://jarctomaz.blogspot.com/
Erik B. http://erik-bajc.blogspot.com/
Janoš V. http://jvicic.blogspot.com/
Alan P. http://alanpremrl.blogspot.com/
Jan U. http://janursic.blogspot.com/
Erik O. http://erikobid.blogspot.com/
Danijel R. http://danijelrus.blogspot.com/
Damjan V. http://damjanvidmar.blogspot.com/
Klemen I. http://iklemensblog.blogspot.com/
Darjan L. http://darjan1.blogspot.com/
Darjan T. http://darjantrost.blogspot.com/
Boštjan B. http://bostjanblazic.blogspot.com/
Goran G. http://grujicgoran.blogspot.com/

Wish you lots of fun exploring your blogs and connecting to the world!

A Vision of Students Today

2007-10-16T08:37:00.000+01:00

We've been talking about education recently - Prof. M. Wesch and his students (from Kansas University) shared their vision of higher education. Is this your vision as well?
Prof Wesch is also the author of the widely viewed and discussed The Machine is Us/ing Us.

Countryside Management group created blogs

2007-10-13T21:13:00.000+01:00

Here we are :-).

Maja Š.: http://exoticplantsandanimals.blogspot.com
David Č.: http://cyberfulowz88.blogspot.com
Valter J. : http://thedoctorvalo.blogspot.com
Nejc G. : http://nejc-nils.blogspot.com
Matej V. : http://mnenjeplet.blogspot.com
Luka K. : http://lukakogoj.blogspot.com
Martin C. : http://martincernatic.blogspot.com
Sabrina Ž.: http://sabrinazizmond.blogspot.com
Rok L. : http://roklozar88.blogspot.com
Primož K.: http://sladkitrakprimojack.blogspot.com
Simona Š. http://simonaskibingorenje.blogspot.com/

Have fun!

Students from Venezuela introducing themselves at Chinswing

2007-10-12T08:57:00.000+01:00

Here they are at http://tinyurl.com/yvwtz2 ...and some of us as well ;-). Join us and reply to their thread. Have a warm, sunny weekend.

The informatics group opened blogs

2007-10-09T09:56:00.000+01:00

Here we are :-). We opened our blogs in Blogger and kept the default settings. We mostly made our first introductory posts and tagged them 'writingmatrix'. Our posts should now be visible in Technorati (how) but unfortunately are not :-(. We'll have to figure out why.

Andrej B. http://myfirstblog-andrej.blogspot.com/
Gregor B. http://kurbil.blogspot.com/
Aljaž Č. http://sportinghgt.blogspot.com/
Valentina F. http://tinkaveselinka.blogspot.com/
Biljana J. http://www.lunatik-kin16282.blogspot.com/
Goran J. http://scoolsout.blogspot.com/
Borut K. http://batman-batmansblog.blogspot.com/
Patrik K. http://tripz0r.blogspot.com/
Kristjan K. http://school99.blogspot.com/
Dajana K. http://dajana-guapa.blogspot.com/
Tomaž M. http://mitoisreality.blogspot.com/
Rok M. http://rokmocnik.blogspot.com/
Špela O. http://trxyster.blogspot.com/
Aljaž O. http://haymeri.blogspot.com/
Uroš O. http://urosostrouska.blogspot.com/
Matej P. http://matejpaliska.blogspot.com/
Jaka P. http://seasonschage.blogspot.com/
Andraž P. http://andrazp.blogspot.com/
Andrej R. http://raho3rd3y3.blogspot.com/
Andrej Š. http://pyrotech-andrej.blogspot.com/
Vanja T. http://vanj-vanjasblog.blogspot.com/
Tomi U. http://tomi-mojblog.blogspot.com/
Borut V. http://borutv.blogspot.com/
Teja Č. http://wwwcerneteja-teja.blogspot.com/
Tjaša V. http://imaginatioon.blogspot.com/
Barbara K. http://barbara-strawberry.blogspot.com/
Matjaž K. http://presky-boy.blogspot.com/
Vito S. http://vitosemic.blogspot.com/
Saša G. http://sasagraovac.blogspot.com/

Another school year begins

2007-09-30T20:57:00.000+01:00

Welcome new students! And hello again old ones, if you're still around! I wish you all a good start and good luck.

A little about this blog for those new to our English course - and a little about the writingmatrix project it's been part of from the start.

Our last year adult informatics group experimentally created this blog in April simply to reach out into the cyberworld beyond our classroom and meet new friends online. We soon learned about the writingmatrix project, where international students and teachers collaboratively explore tools such as blogs, RSS technology and social bookmarking sites, and we decided to join it. We started blogging, tagging and connecting and it's been fun! Check out the Technorati feed and our last year students' blogs - the links are on the right side of this blog.
I hope to see you join as well. It's very simple! Once you have your blog, label your post 'writingmatrix' and you are in. The more, the merrier. See you online.:-)

Social Bookmarking in Plain English

2007-08-08T08:32:00.000+01:00

Another great video from Common Craft explaining Del.icio.us 'in plain English'

A chat with students from Venezuela

2007-07-30T23:02:00.000+01:00

Today I had a YM chat with Diego, David, and Irving - 3 writingmatrix students from Venezuela. We talked a bit about weather, travelling and what we do. It's hot here these days, isn't it? So is there - about 39 degrees C and up. They have 2 seasons there - a dry and a rainy one. Needless to say, both hot.

Back from holidays

2007-07-30T22:21:00.000+01:00

I spent a long time away from computer on two beautiful Croatian islands, Hvar and Pag. Hvar is covered in lush greenery while Pag is a stony desert.

It took me a while to get used to life without the Internet. I kept wondering about the online events I was missing, tons of email, things to do... But fooling around with my 3 boys time flew and I pretty much soon stopped thinking about anything; we were swimming, fishing, playing in the sand, watching beautiful sunsets and starry nights, and eating and sleeping a lot. It's been some time since I was last disconnected for such a long time and although it seemed challenging to endure at first, proved a very relaxing experience. Now that I'm back home, I have problems turning off my vacation mode :-).

This was our beach on Hvar.

I hope you are all fully enjoying these summer days. What are your holidays like? Post some pics, tell us where you have been or where you plan to go.

2007-06-30T16:38:00.000+01:00

Hi, I have made my first blog today. You can find it on this link: http://damijanlikar.blogspot.com/

PS. Saša, can you add me to students blogs list. Thanks.

Have a nice summer... Bye

Global warming

2007-06-27T23:03:00.001+01:00

Monkey, originally uploaded by Saša Sirk.

It's getting hot, isn't it? Air conditioners hum all around and we linger by our firmly shut windows observing the world outside like tropical fish from a fish tank. Progress, huh?
Taiwanese students created very interesting propaganda materials to promote fight against global warming . Check it out at http://multienglishes.blogspot.com/ .

How to follow writingmatrix posts even more easily

2007-06-12T21:09:00.000+01:00

We've mostly been using Bloglines now, right? We've subscribed to individual blogs of interest, explored various widgets, played around with templates and page elements, etc.
To pull all the writingmatrix posts together, we had a look at Technorati awhile ago (if we enter 'writingmatrix' in the search box, Technorati generates a page with a chronological list of blog posts tagged writingmatrix ).
Vance discovered it is also possible to subscribe to the RSS feed of this Technorati page. Following writingmatrix posts 'globally' is much simpler and more effective this way because everything tagged 'writingmatrix' is simply pooled to our Bloglines account and regularly updated.
How do we subscribe to the Technorati 'writingmatrix' page?
Go to Technorati homepage - enter 'writingmatrix' in the search box - click 'Search' - click 'View all' below the hit list - an orange RSS 'Subscribe' button should appear on top of the newly generated page - right-click the button - copy shortcut - and create a new Bloglines feed for the Technorati writingmatrix page.
I did it and now feel much more comfortable following what's going on in the writingmatrix world. Thank you Vance.
I decided to share the most recent writingmatrix posts from this feed in the side bar of our Roštilj. I did this in Blogger Dashboard - Manage Layout - Add a page element - Feed. I know many of you figured this out before I have - I'm catching up slowly and documenting my progress ;-).

Chinese Translation

2007-06-12T13:12:00.000+01:00

I'm still humming this tune... I came across it in Garr Reynolds' Presentation Zen. The depth of this simple song by M. Ward is amazing.

A man sailed a wild, wild sea and climbed a tall, tall mountain and met an old, old man beneath a weeping willow tree. The old man said: "If you got some questions go and lay them at my feet but my time here is brief so you'll have to pick just 3."
The young man asked:“What do you do with the pieces of a broken heart? How can a man like me remain in the light? If life is really as short as they say, then why is the night so long?”
And then the sun went down and the old man sang this song: "See I once was a young fool like you afraid to do the things that I knew I had to do so I played an escapade just like you, I played an escapade just like you. I sailed a wild, wild sea, climbed up a tall, tall mountain, I met an old, old man, he sat beneath a sapling tree. He said now if you got some questions, go and lay them at my feet but my time here is brief so you’ll have to pick just three. And I said: What do you do with the pieces of a broken heart? And how can a man like me remain in the light? And, if life is really as short as they say, then why is the night so long? And then the sun went down and he played for me this song"

RSS in Plain English

2007-05-16T12:18:00.000+01:00

I could not resist posting this video here - it talks about RSS readers and why we should use them - something we've been exploring recently...

Technorati puzzle

2007-05-07T11:00:00.000+01:00

I was at Blostreams Salon at Tapped In yesterday. Blogstreams Salon is a monthly event where people meet to discuss and explore blogs. We talked a bit about Technorati and the writingmatrix project. The idea behind writingmatrix is to get in touch with people with similar interests across the world by tagging posts writingmatrix and then searching for blogs of interest using Technorati (you simply enter 'writingmatrix' in the search box, click on the arrow next to the text box and choose 'in tags' to find all blog posts with writingmatrix tags). Technorati generates a list from the most recent posts on. You'll find many students from Venezuela there.
When checking the list yesterday, we found out that it doesn't include some of the writingmatrix blogs despite tagging - we wondered whether the reason for this could be that the missing blogs aren't configured at sending pings (under settings/publishing). 5 Roštilj student blogs are on the Technorati writingmatrix (in tags) hit list (Suzana, Igor, Robert, Dušan, Aleš) and 4 of them are left out (Matej, Bogdan, Aleksander, Robert Č - Robert hasn't really posted anything yet, Matej misspelled the tag (his pin configuration is set at yes, has already corrected his tags but is not yet on the list), Aleksander and Bogdan tagged their posts correctly but are not included – I hope we'll soon understand why.

Funny turist on Malta...

2007-05-04T18:10:00.000+01:00

Hi everyone!

I found this funny mp3 file... You should listen it.

It is on this link http://damijanlikar.webhop.net/TuristonMalta/

Bye.

Some more from the class

2007-04-28T08:06:00.000+01:00

Aleš and Robert

Saša in action

Part-time informatics class 06/07

2007-04-26T17:11:00.000+01:00

Our class: Matej aka 'Catman',

the lucky father of sweet Aša Aleš and our two Roberts,

Mavricij and Igor (the diver) in the front and Aleksander and Peter in the back row.

Tomorrow's teaching is today

2007-04-23T10:39:00.001+01:00

Tomorrow's teaching is today, originally uploaded by sasasirk.

I have been 'silent' for awhile because I was busy attending E-twinning conference for language teachers, which took place this weekend at our school(from Thursday to Saturday). There were about 65 participants from different European countries (UK, Ireland, Italy, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Spain, Portugal, Bulgaria, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Poland, France, ...). We enjoyed wonderful workshops and had a lot of FUN. Ewan Macintosh, a cool Scottish presenter, wrote some nice words about our school here.

My new blog

2007-04-17T19:00:00.001+01:00

link:

http://catmanworld.blogspot.com/

The world of bears

2007-04-16T23:13:00.001+01:00

My last movie is two days old...

Too Busy to Stop and Hear the Music

2007-04-13T09:38:00.000+01:00

Today I read about an interesting experiment which took place in January - a world-class violinist played for hours in a subway station and almost no one stopped to listen. I learned about the story in Seth's blog.
We are always short of time, always in a hurry... Had you been there, would you have done the same thing? I'm afraid I would.
Seth says most of us probably would and it bothers us. »If your worldview is that music in the subway isn't worth your time, you're not going to notice when the music is better than usual (or when a famous violinist is playing). It doesn't match the story you tell yourself, so you ignore it. We're so overwhelmed by the din of our lives that we've created a worldview that requires us to ignore the outside world, most of the time, even when we suffer because of it.«
Let's not forget to take a deep breath every now and then and simply enjoy the moment. Have a warm, sunny weekend.

HOWTO: Install Windows Vista from a high speed USB 2.0 Flash Drive

2007-04-11T11:54:00.000+01:00

Install Win Vista from USB drive.

link:
http://kurtsh.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!da410c7f7e038d!1665.entry

Anti-Phishing Working Group

2007-04-05T11:25:00.000+01:00

The total number of unique phishing reports submitted to Anti-Phishing Working Group in January 2007 was 29,930 – the highest recorded number by the APWG. This is a count of unique phishing email reports received by the APWG from the public, its member organizations and its research partners.

More on this web site:
http://www.antiphishing.org

Where are we heading?

2007-04-05T08:11:00.000+01:00

My husband asked me if I ever imagined when I was a student that 95% of my work would involve the use of computer. I didn't. Where are these fast technology developments taking us? Here's a video speculating about it. What are the most surprising facts for you? Or did you know? ;-) Thanks for the link, Jennifer.

Phishing Demo

2007-04-04T21:17:00.001+01:00

We had converssation about phishing last monday. This is another example of phishing.

I'll be more careful

2007-04-04T17:52:00.000+01:00

You all told me in class that a scam was done through the Mercur. Do you think the scam in the video is the way they got the customer's information? I don't think I have ever really noticed if an ATM looks different than I expect, I am afraid that I would be one of those customers who would get caught unaware. Now I will be more cautious.
Kay

Scamming the ATM machine

2007-04-04T09:02:00.000+01:00

On Monday we talked about different crimes people commit using computers (phishing, spamming, creating viruses, etc.). Somebody mentioned ATM scamming and Kay came up with a nice video about it. THANK YOU, Kay. Check it out. Did you know your magnetic cards can be cloned so easily?

IRT3000

2007-04-03T10:15:00.000+01:00

Last month my father was ordered on magazine IRT3000. It is a kind of magazine for informatics and mechatronics. Here are some very interesting articles.

link:
http://www.irt3000.sI

SMT production line

2007-04-02T23:09:00.000+01:00

Hello everyone!

I decided to present our SMT production line at Iskra Avtoelektrika. I work in Electronic BME department. We make DC and AC controllers for various types of forklifts, electrical vehicles, boats and other car industry. We also make electronics controllers for brushless motor. (SMT – surface mount technology)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface-mount_technology

http://www.iskra-ae.com/eng/products.php

Our production line is in EPA area. This is Electrostatic discharge Protected Area. In our production line we work with ESDS – ElectroStatic Discharge Sensitive elements (processor, chip, mos-fet and others). So we have specially prepared production area for work. We have also white overall frock with tiny conductor wire in it. When we work with small and very sensitive elements, we have also electrostatic discharge wrist strap which is conected into EBP – Earth Bonding Point.

At the entrance we have test instrument. It is wrist strap and footwear tester, which performs a quick test to assure whether wrist straps and footwear are conductive within acceptable limits.

http://www.warmbier.com/englisch.htm

Before this tester is “material preparing” department. Here we open all non electrostatic discharge packages and separate them. Material with ESDS packages we later import to EPA area where is placed automatic storage.

We work with SMD and discrete electronic components. SMD components we place on the circuits with automatic machines, but discrete components we place manually. I decided to present only automatic part of our production line.

http://www.atmelektro.cz/_pict/tistak.jpg

Our production line start with material preparing and after that we have first machine which grease circuit surface with soldering paste. We have a template for each type of controller. Then we have two pick and place SMT machines.

http://www.samsung-smt.com/

We bought new machine last week which would be used for making VIMEC controllers. This is controller in electrical vehicle for invalids that they can go up stairs. Watch the video presentation of this P&P machine.

http://www.essemtec.com/e/1101_smt_pick_and_place_machine_hlx.php

After this two pick and place (P&P) machines we have reflow oven. Here soldering paste melts and solder elements with pads on PCB board. After this we have optical control machine calls “AOI”. This machine visually controls whole board and checks if elements are in right position or orientation. It also checks value of elements. If everything is ok, here is another operation. Discrete elements. We put it on the PCB board manually. After this operation we have automatic soldering with wave.

http://www.novastarinc.com/24models.html

This machine solder all discrete elements. After that operation, we have eye control of controllers. At this operation we soldering wires and other stuff.
Finally here is electrical control. We have simulators of forklifts and we control each controller. At the end we lacquering good controllers with another and the last one automatic machine.

After those operations we have also assembly line where we compose controllers. Finally we have 100% control place where we have forklift and we control if controller work properly. With AC controllers we make also burn test. We charge controllers with current of 300A and wait until controller has 80°C. We watch eventual changes and errors with thermal camera.

http://www.flirthermography.com/success/ir_image/1270/industry_id/1000/

http://www.flirthermography.com/cameras/camera/1074/

At the end we pack controllers into ESD package. That`s all folks!!!

Matej

Playing Computer Games

2007-04-02T13:55:00.000+01:00

Whenever I ask my full-time students how they use their computers their No. 1 answer is to play computer games. And many of those whose English is very impressive say they owe this to playing online computer games where they interact with real players and learn English in real context.
Here's a short video of a really passionate young player – I'm not sure how real it is but looks funny. What do you think of it?

Our Blog

2007-04-02T09:40:00.000+01:00

Dear students, this is our blog - a brand new empty cyber space calling for action. How shall we name it?