Random Quote
Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar.
---- Edward R. Murrow
Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.
---- Lily Tomlin
Study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in.
---- Leonardo DaVinci (1452-1519)
I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it.
---- Terry Pratchett
Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.
---- H. G. Wells
Technology will not replace teachers...teachers who use technology will
probably replace teachers who do not.
---- Ray Clifford
A magician pulls rabbits out of hats. An experimental psychologist pulls habits out of rats.
---- anonymous
Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.
---- Robert Frost
Sleep is a symptom of caffeine deprivation.
---- Author Unknown
The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.
---- George Orwell
Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence.
---- Abigail Adams (1744 - 1818)
The important thing is not to stop questioning.
---- Albert Einstein
Isn't it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fiction listen to weather forecasts and economists?"
---- Kelvin Throop III
America believes in education: the average professor earns more money in a year than a professional athlete earns in a whole week.
---- Evan Esar
It is a paradoxical but profoundly true and important principle of life that the most likely way to reach a goal is to be aiming not at that goal itself but at some more ambitious goal beyond it.
---- Arnold Toynbee
Hanging is too good for a man who makes puns; he should be drawn and quoted.
---- Fred Allen
The least of learning is done in the classrooms
---- Thomas Merton
Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them! How I need them!
I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.
---- Arnold Lobel
Don't knock the weather. If it didn't change once in a while, nine out of ten people couldn't start a conversation.
---- Kin Hubbard
it's probably not a good idea to underestimate my ability to make an ass out of myself—just when I seem to have it under control, I'll turn around and surprise you.
---- Tenser said the Tensor
I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.
---- Albert Einstein
There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun.
---- Pablo Picasso
Always be wary of any helpful item that weighs less than its operating manual.
---- Terry Pratchett
Those who know nothing of foreign languages, knows nothing of their own.”
---- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749 -1832)
To get something done, a committee should consist of no more than three men, two of whom are absent.
---- Robert Copeland
Linking Policy revisited
Lately I’ve been rreceiving a number of requests for mutual linkage – mostly to commercial sites. I don’t do that and my policy is explained in this entry – blogrolling policy.
I will be making one exception shortly, but that is for a friends recruiting business, which coincidentally I made the web site for. shameless plug if you need a web site, a blog theme or anything web related, go to my web design firm, CreateSean Web Design for more information and contact me.
WebSite Grader
Ran EFL Geek through WebSite Grader for a pretty good score.
Javascript doesn’t seem to be working so here’s an image of my score.
A website grade of 98.3/100 for eflgeek.com means that of the hundreds of thousands of websites that have previously been evaluated, our algorithm has calculated that this site scores higher than 98.3% of them in terms of its marketing effectiveness. The algorithm uses a proprietary blend of over 50 different variables, including search engine data, website structure, approximate traffic, site performance, and others.
Made the top 100 blogs
EFL Geek has made the top 100 language blog list. There are a few blogs in the top ten that I’ve never heard of, but will check out shortly. If you’re looking to find some new language & teaching oriented blogs to follow, this is looks to be a good starting point.
You can read about the how and why the list was made as well as vote for your favorite on the list. If 100 isn’t enough to satisfy you, then you can check out the top 250 blogs.
For the record EFL Geek is number 16 - go and vote if you like this blog.
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Friday Jul 25, 2008 at 05:52 AM
useful_web_sites | web_site |
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Random Quote
The random quote at the top of the page has been upgraded to automatically cycle through 25 random quotes from the database on each page load. I attempted to do the javascript myself, failed, but received some help from the EE forums so now its working. If your browser has javascript turned off the layout of the page will be broken, but everything will still be readable.
SnapShots Keep ‘em or tank em?
I received a comment about the redesign suggesting that I get rid of the SnapShots preview of external links. I’m not sure how I feel about them right now myself, so I’ll leave this decision up to my readers. Come to the site and vote in the poll.
update
Not many votes, but anyhow I’ve removed the snapshots.
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Sunday Jun 29, 2008 at 10:43 AM
Polling_Station | web_site |
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100 Best Resources for Teachers
Teaching Tips has published a list of the 100 Best Resources for Teachers. The list is divided into nine sections:
- Lesson Plans and Handouts
- Teaching Tips
- Specifically for Techers
- Activities
- Specifically for teaching children
- Specifically for teaching adults
- Videos and Podcasts
- Newsletters and Blogs
- High Tech Teaching
This blog is featured in the Newsletters and Blogs section - go check out the list, I’m sure you’ll find something useful.
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Friday Jun 27, 2008 at 12:08 PM
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No More Web Design
I’ve set up a new blog where I’ll be writing all of my entries related to web design, free lancing, and setting up a small business. The point here is that I won’t be cluttering up this space with unrelated material. For the record I have a paying client and am just waiting for the deposit before starting work - I’ll post a link to the finished product once I finish it.
This blog will continue to recieve my attention and regular posts as my full-time job is still teaching and I will continue to write articles for the Korea Herald. I have two scheduled articles for July. Though like every other vacation period, posting will be light.
Just a reminder that guest authoring is still available to anyone and I am actively looking for semi-regular contributors though one off posts are also very welcome. If you have any questions please send me an email or leave a comment.
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Tuesday Jun 24, 2008 at 03:08 PM
Random_Ramblings | Web Design | Guest Author | web_site |
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Re-Design Complete - EFLGeek 3.0
I’ve completed the redesign of this web site and it is now live. It’s been three years since I had a new look and the last one was a template available that I just modified. This new look I created from the ground up. I hand coded everything, XHTML, CSS and Expression Engine dynamic tags. It’s really been a great learning experience for me and I’ve definitely improved my understanding of CSS.
EFLGeek 3.0 - skipping 2.0 cause geeks do that!EFLGeek 3.0 - skipping 2.0 cause geeks do that! yeah! Personally I’ve gotten a little tired of all the hype surrounding 2.0 web sites and software upgrades to 2.0.51.3.6 so I decided to have a little fun with my blog name.
Before I get into anymore details I’m going to post up a screen shot of the blog as it’s looked for the past three years so I don’t forget. The image is quite long because my monitor is 22” in vertical profile - almost no vertical scrolling for me.
And a screen shot of the current version as i’m sure it will change in the future as well. One thing I’ve done is remove the forums and wiki since no one was using them. If enough interest were expressed, I would bring them back.
I’ve added a few little effects to the site - one that I particularly like is that now any link to a file (.pdf .pub .xls .pdf .zip) will now automatically have an icon appended to the link making it clearer what is a download and what is a web page. You can see it in action on my entry about powerpoint jeopardy.
I’ve also set up comments to use avatars. If you are a member of this site, then you can upload an avatar (100x100) or you can use a gravatar (80x80 - maximum size allowed by gravatar plugin). If you don’t do either than your comment will end up with a generic silhouette avatar. I like avatars because it can really help regular readers to identify each other visually and adds a little style and class to the comment page.
Technical Stuff
I learned a lot by reading CSS Mastery which is co-authored by Simon Collision who just happened to have created my previous look. I also ready Principles of Beautiful Web Design and various web sites. The Expression Engine forums has a very helpful community that I could not live without.
Probably my greatest assistance came from Andy Harris, an active member on the Expression Engine forums - he seemed to be paying special attention to my twitters and posts on the forums and even went so far as to offer me extensive advice via email. Through Andy I came to discovered Firebug (firefox extension) and the IE Developer Toolbar which are indispensable for web development. Andy also ensured that I learned how to add a seperate style sheet to deal with the troubles that come from internet explorer.
I’ve always enjoyed playing around with photoshop, but that has mostly been with photo touch up. Making backgrounds for the web was a learning experience. I’m sure I have a lot to learn still - I think my site might be a little slow to load as I didn’t do a particularly great job with optimizing images. The problem I had was that compression resulted in a horrible look. I need to learn how to design so that my images can be compressed without getting destroyed in the process.
There are still a couple of minor changes to be done to the look. I need to add the dynamic comment preview, as well as buttons for HTML code in comments. I haven’t yet decided if I want to go with the show/hide option with extended text that I had in the previous look. For now, I’ll just have a link to the rest of the entry. I also want to add the ability to edit comments for a limited time after submission.
Please do come and take a look at the site and tell me what you think in the comments as well as vote in the poll.
Read the rest of this post
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Wednesday Jun 4, 2008 at 02:46 PM
Random_Ramblings | Polling_Station | Web Design | web_site |
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1000
This is the 1000th post on EFL Geek. I would say that over 90% of my posts have been directly related to ELT with a few non-sequitors over the years and recently a few posts on web design.
Of course I’ve had a few posts by guest authors as well and am always looking for more guest authors who would like to contribute either once or even regularly.
Looking forward to the next 1000 entries.
Membership Registration
I’ve disabled membership registration on this site due to large numbers of email spam that I am getting. Being a member isn’t required for commenting (though members don’t have to submit the captcha) and no one is using the forums nor the wiki so I don’t think it will be missed. Besides when my site redesign is complete the forums and wiki will be gone - unless I get a lot of comments requesting me to keep them.
I’ve also pruned membership - any member for longer than 180 days with zero comments, guest entries or forum posts has been deleted.
Regarding guest authoring - membership is required. If you would like to guest author on this blog, leave a comment or email me and I’ll get back to you about how to register for the site. I really would like to get 2-3 semi-regular guest authors here who would be willing to write at least once a month, but more is of course better.
Of course those already with a membership can already guest author.
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Tuesday May 13, 2008 at 12:51 PM
Guest Author | web_site |
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New RSS Feed & Specificity
I’ve created a new RSS feed that will only dispay entries related to web design. My regular feed will no longer display web design entries unless they are included in another category. You can subscribe to the Web Design RSS if you like.
A very useful link for understanding specificity in CSS is here.
First I was Dean, now I am King
Recently I was dubbed the Dean of EFL Bloggers, but last night I received a new, higher, and possibly less justified accolade of The King of TEFL Bloggers. You can send your annual tithe and tribute to my paypal account!
Really thanks for the praise guys.
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Wednesday May 7, 2008 at 09:01 AM
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#1 in Korea
According to ZenKimchi, my blog is the #1 ranking blog in Korea - clearly there is a mistake here, but I’ll revel in the glory, even if it’s false.
Read the rest of this post
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Monday May 5, 2008 at 02:10 PM
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Upcoming changes to EFLGeek
During my upcoming summer vacation (mid June to end of August) I’m going to completely redesign this site. I’m fairly certain that the forums and wiki will be gone as there is no traffic there. Since there isn’t any action I don’t see the need to spend time designing and coding for an unused portion of the site. If the forums or the wiki suddenly picks up in traffic I will of course keep it.
Sometime this summer Expression Engine will be releasing version 2.0 which is a major upgrade and will no doubt add new features (as of yet unknown) that I may or may not added. In any case, I’m planning on transitioning out of EFL in the next 3-4 years and moving into web design.
The upcoming redesign of my blog will be the first site that I code from the ground up. Previous sites I have used templates as a framework to build from there. At the same time I’ll be creating my portfolio site for web design in order to attract paying clients (I’ve already had one and have another potential in the pipeline). And a third site will be my teaching portfolio site to supplement my hard copy portfolio.
Do I really need to make a teaching portfolio site if I’m moving out of teaching? No, but it’s another site design that I can feature on my web design site and who knows, in the next 3-4 years I may need to change jobs. It never hurts to be prepared.
Coming soon a new look for EFL Geek - more streamlined and without the forums/wiki. I’ll probably also rethink a couple of other features of the blog including the links to various social networks on each entry, trackbacks (which have been turned off for ages), and membership in general.
I’m looking forward to exercising my CSS & XHTML kung fu skills.
Comments, thoughts?
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Saturday Apr 19, 2008 at 10:32 AM
META | Expression_Engine | web_site |
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Erased the Scribble Board again
My ScribbleBoard had gotten incredibly crowded, so I erased it. Feel free to leave a new message there if you are so inclined. I did this last year as well. This year fortunately I thought ahead and saved the image.
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Sunday Mar 2, 2008 at 10:37 AM
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The End
The end of the semester has arrived. I finished my last class today and have a little bit of grading left to do over the weekend and then submit some paperwork on Monday or Tuesday. After that I’ll be free until February 25 when the spring semester starts. It’s starting a little early this year, but that also means that summer vacation will come even faster.
I have had a couple of blog posts running in my mind for the past couple of weeks, but have been too busy to write anything other than post info about the current visa fiasco.
Related to that, currently there are rumors on Dave’s cafe that the rules while posted are not going to go into affect until March 15. I actually find this to be rather credible as it will give public schools and universities leeway to get new teachers hired for the new academic year (March 2st at most schools) without having to worry about a lot of red tape that will potentially take longer to work out than there is time available. Additionally the new rules will put pressure on hagwons that many will be unable to withstand. This will potentially result in less hagwons achieving one of the goals of the government; that is equalizing English education for the rich and the poor. I’m not sure how effective this will be, but it could definitely be a percieved benefit on the part of the government.
In other news, I will have a big announcement coming at the end of the year or the first week of January - including a potential unveiling of my anonymity.
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Friday Dec 14, 2007 at 03:31 PM
Public_Service_Announcement | Random_Ramblings | ESL_in_the_News | web_site |
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Off to Canada
I’m on my way to Canada for the first time in five years. Posting will resume when I return at the end of august. If any one wishes to guest author an entry, feel free to do so. I will be checking my email daily and will recieve notification of any guest entries in the moderation queue. I will try to approve entries within 24 hours of recieving them.
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Friday Aug 10, 2007 at 02:39 PM
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Finished
I’ve finished teaching for summer semester. All lessons went better than expected and overall I’m very satisfied with this course. Tomorrow is a holiday and then Wednesday is the final exam so a little bit of grading and then I will be finished until the last week of August. There will probably be very few entries between now and then, but don’t give up on me, I’ll be back.
Just so everyone knows, I’m still looking for guest authors either as a one off entry or a semi-regular contributor. You can write on anything you want as long as it is somewhat related to linguistics, teaching, language, or language learning.
Finally I’ve just finished the upgrade to EE 1.6 and all went smoothly. I also added the new social bookmarking module. The bookmarks will only be available on the permalink/comments page. The control panel for the module is a little buggy right now so I can only have the default two social sites, but once it’s fixed will add a few more. Will complete the forum upgrade probably tomorrow, right now I’m off to relax with some coffee and DVDs.
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Monday Jul 16, 2007 at 01:07 PM
META | Expression_Engine | Guest Author | web_site | Teaching |
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commenting problem
Update II
I’ve just enabled editing of comments. comments will be editable for 30 minutes after posting.
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I’ve received a couple of reports that comments are being rejected by my site by logged in as well as not logged in readers. Will be troubleshooting this soon. However if you have a comment you would like to share the email form is still working. Sorry for the trouble.
update
I think the problem was my spam protection was set a little high. comments with multiple urls were being automatically rejected. This should be fixed now.
Guest Entry Test
This is a test of the guest entry form. If it works this entry should go to the submission queue for moderation. AFter moderation it will be approved and appear with a guest entry icon.
Let’s hope everything works out.
I am planning on getting two to three semi-regular guest authors here. It is not however necessary to write regularly, if you want to guest author, just click on the guest entry link above and post your entry. If you have any questions about it, feel free to ask in the forums or send me an email using the links above.
Read the rest of this post
王音癡 inscribed these words of wisdom on Sunday May 20, 2007 at 09:21 AM
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