Recent postings 2010-05

Here in Germany, summer keeps threatening to arrive, peeping through gray clouds with random slivers of sunshine somehow explaining why that idiom about silver linings was invented, yet unfortunately it doesn't stay.  I'm a bit tired of the non-ending rain, to be honest, and wearing sweaters  with my neck and shoulders wrapped up warm to keep me from getting a chill, but still, I've got a cough that just won't go away... 

This weekend was a really big one: an old friend has decided to move back to Stuttgart  (she'd left for the US about 3 years ago) and weirdly, coincidentally, she's moving into the same street that I live in - which is lovely news as I'll now have someone to pop 'round for coffee with instead of only blogging and tweeting  in my spare time.  

However there was some bad news too - a mutual friend of ours died without warning.   He was in his 40's and fit as a horse.

Anyway, before I bore you too much, I took some time out to do my half-yearly spring-cleaning of the blog, tidied up the template while looking for ways to make it easier and more efficient for you to find what you're looking for on your visits here and I really do hope you like the changes.  

Also, I decided to separate my own posts from the monthly wrap-up of the ELT Blogosphere - especially as it's a bumper edition this time round!   Coming on Tuesday.



On Kalinago English
´
Teaching English

Lessons

Social Networking

Coming soon...
  • ELT Blogosphere: list of the best I've been reading
  • A poem on globalization by a good friend of mine (lesson ice-breaker)
  • Powerpointing my office
  • Donkey bridges
  • The opposite of love
  • Reflections of Mark Pegrum's book: From Blogs to Bombs*
  • IATEFL LT-SIG day report 
and...

during the course of June, I'll be doing a lot of guest-posting!  I'm looking forward to paying back some of the wonderful guests I've had on here and have others I'd like to pay forward and for some, just wanna pay for the sake of it :-).

How has your month been?

Best,
Karenne



Cartoon Videos in Business and Financial English

With all the hullabaloo going on in Europe, Greece first and now Italy plus wherever's next by the time this post is actually published... because according to my students it was always going to be a W recession and now that the Euro is sinking fast, Friedmann-type prophecies threaten, whispers of deflation scatter, so  thought I'd better get on with posting up this interesting video I've done with my own ESP:Financial adult learners.










My own lesson plan with a Pre-intermediate group was based on taking the vocabulary presented in Ian MacKenzie's book, Financial English, and turning it into something a wee bit more exciting & communicative, ensuring that the vocabulary included some stickiness and of course, making it somewhat easier-to-swallow.

So...
a) we watched the video
b) did the exercise 6.10
c) watched the video again and discussed it for merit and content
d) got them to explain inflation and deflation
e) reviewed the questions on 6.10
d) talked through European periods of inflation and deflation
e) they created their own Powerpoint slides of the vocabulary in 6.10 (in exercise and text)

Would you have done this lesson any differently?

What other ways could this video (or the ones below) be used?


Best,Karenne




More Cartoon Videos for Business English (a playlist)










Useful links related to this posting: 
Business English Cartoons (Youtube link to the ones shown above)
The Dilbert channel on Youtube
Business English Pod
More video websites for Business English 
More Financial English tips

33 Top Tweets in #TEFL: 2010-May-23

Links I recently favourited, visited, enjoyed and/or recommend in some way...



Teaching English as a Foreign Language:  

Issues/News in our industry


RT @willycard: Uni of Bath has DELTA integrated in MA #TESOL, that's smart, how advisable and overwhelming is that though? Top ideaMon May 17 21:17:59 via TweetDeck


Pearson Companies Win English-Language Teaching Awards in China http://bit.ly/cXo9OVFri May 14 14:50:15 via twitterfeed



Education Week: Common-Standards Draft Excludes ELL Proficiency http://goo.gl/Ygf6 #education #ell #eslFri May 21 15:44:28 via web



Pedagogy /Methodology/Linguistics 



RT @herbertpuchta: Kieran Egan on developing cognitive tools http://bit.ly/bU97GESat May 22 17:24:46 via TweetDeck



Excellent resource for #DELTA +those interested in language acquisition #hiddengems #beltfree @Marisa_C http://tiny.cc/k45cmSun May 23 08:21:12 via TweetDeck




Pinker's 3 ideas about language - sterling! http://bit.ly/vPeE0Sat May 15 02:39:53 via web



http://bit.ly/3oeR2 International Dialects of English Archive - hundreds of good quality audio samples #ELF #ELT #ESOL #EFL #ESLMon May 17 02:36:55 via TweetDeck



Great guest post by @MellanieP "Respect and Love" (Stuff all EFL teachers should know) http://ow.ly/1KxZM #efl #teachertraining #esl #edchatThu May 13 12:06:11 via HootSuite






Teaching English Tips + Lessons

Young Learners + Teens


Latest blog post: Young learners http://wp.me/pC2OH-26 #tefl #tesol #efl #esl #elt #beltfree <-- Great comment there! :-)Thu May 20 21:08:38 via TweetDeck



My students analyzed Eminem's lyrics to Beautiful 4 poetic value. They said it was the BEST lesson of unit. @TurklishTEFL @kalinagoenglishThu May 13 14:52:32 via web



General English


Quizlet: World Cup Flashcards I made http://quizlet.com/_1duk5Tue May 18 00:29:25 via web


RT @SeanBanville 32 Lesson plans on Soccer WorldCup 9pp activities/listening/online quizzes: http://bit.ly/8YqVrL #esl -topical + fabulous!Fri May 14 12:09:56 via web



Business English


RT @englishblog: BBC News - What is the etiquette of mobile phones in meetings? http://goo.gl/B7gC And what about during English lessons?!Sat May 15 00:31:03 via TweetDeck


Tech Tools + Teaching



via @vickysaumell Visual literacy: Flickr-fed web 2.0 tools http://bit.ly/bXPRsK #beltfreeThu May 13 17:23:12 via twitterfeed








RT @vale24: RT @bbettger: 10 best practices 4 using wikis in education. http://bit.ly/3j4aBWTue May 18 02:07:35 via TweetDeck



Microsoft Mouse Mischief: A free way to make your PowerPoint presentations interactive: http://tinyurl.com/y8j3aa3Mon May 17 22:02:19 via API



My first prezi Working in Asia http://bit.ly/9yma5m What a brilliant toolThu May 13 12:26:57 via TweetDeck


Social Media


RT @vale24 YouTube adds new 'unlisted' privacy option: only seen by people u share url with http://bit.ly/9wt7GZ via @monk51295 @abfromzThu May 13 13:13:36 via TweetDeck




@kalinagoenglish later, I am busy right now. Meanwhile enjoy post about resources Network Theory, http://bit.ly/ZXZl9Thu May 13 18:19:03 via Seesmic



100 Ways to Use Social Media in the Classroom: http://bit.ly/bJBqW6 via @rmbyrne #edchat #edtech #efl #tesolSat May 22 16:02:48 via web




RT @allofek12: Becoming a Branded Educator http://bit.ly/d4ZopvFri May 21 15:48:23 via TweetDeck



Blogging


Embed articles - a great tool via @c4lpt http://bit.ly/97BUF3Fri May 14 21:43:02 via TweetDeck



Extremely good read: The new rules for judging 'quality' in published content http://bit.ly/9Lj8rS via @glinnerWed May 12 09:36:14 via web



Vale la penha? I didn't enjoy writing this at all. Why did I? Peer pressure and a sense of obligation. Hardly a defence http://bit.ly/13wsjRTue May 11 05:14:12 via TweetDeck




Mainstream Educational Links of Interest



It’s like they got PhDs… "Welcome to the real world, would-be teachers." http://goo.gl/7b0N #edchat #ntchatFri May 21 15:47:57 via web



Why do we teach students to compete against others for access to knowledge? #education #edchat http://wp.me/ptcfd-30Sat May 15 04:17:24 via web



RT @ShellTerrell: Vision: WhySomeChildrenExhibit"Confusing Misperceptions Abt the World: Fantasic Article.. http://bit.ly/amqPFA #newedblogSat May 22 18:36:07 via TweetDeck





Frowns, Smiles + Laughs


@Marisa_C @dudeneyge @cbsiskin yes, most people (esp. in UK/US etc) think iteaching just an easy 'holiday'. Curse of the backpackerWed May 12 19:07:25 via TweetDeck



I did DELTA straight after uni- desperate to avoid suit jobs @kalinagoenglish @Harmerj a whole lot of us started TEFL lives as backpackersWed May 12 22:57:30 via web



@kalinagoenglish "How'd u make yourself go old?" There R 2 ways, Karenne. Wait 4 20 years or use http://in20years.com U have been warned!Tue May 11 16:03:30 via web




You may also like:



Best,
Karenne
image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/xymena/2608332910/sizes/s/

Bottom Up vs Top Down English Language Teaching

They're really not getting it.

They think coursebooks can be student-centered.



Well, let me see if I can make it the slightest bit clearer: 

  • if you walk into class with an objective that is anything other than extracting language from students and then building on that (scaffolding) whether you've got a book in your hands or not - 
  • if you walk into class with an aim that is anything other than working with your students' needs, wishes and wants and working the kinks out of their grammatical weaknesses - 
  • if you're building a sort of random lexis, based on the unit of a book, and you've no actual idea whether or not they will be able to put that language to use -
  • if you're spending more than 50% of your class time in activities that don't require your students to speak to each other about themselves and their lives then you're teaching top-down.
If that sits good with you, so be it.

But if you want to teach English from the bottom up: Join the dogme group, read Meddings and Thornbury's book Teaching Unplugged and/or read my previous posts on dogme and those of my esteemed colleagues around the globe, do a google search on dogme ELT.

Because of all the things it is or isn't, it's not a "style."


Best, Karenne
imagecredit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sunface13/415520633/sizes/m/

Interesting link

(There's a poll going on the Lexiophiles site to determine a list of the best language blogs, see my post about that here so if you haven't yet voted and you don't this is really totally tacky of me to ask, do please click and visit the site to let them know :-) thanks muchly).





Vote the Top 100 Language Teaching Blogs 2010

The Inverted Eagle: A Student's Book Review

I'm super proud to offer you my very first guest post on this blog from one of my students:
Martina R.

Back Story:  
On January 21st, Adam Gray and Marcos Benevides released the World's First Free-to-Share Commercial ELT Textbook.  Martina (an adult who works in banking) and I have been working for some time on her use of connectors in written work - particularly reports and emails - however I decided to invite her to visit the link provided by Marcos on Twitter, as knowing that she loves crime fiction books I thought that perhaps reporting on a story in English might help her to utilize these words in a more natural context.  She downloaded the book and wrote not only a summary of the story but also made notes on what she learned and provided Marcos with feedback regarding the sale of creative commons licensed material via the internet. 


SUMMARY

The story is told by Adam Gray and Marcos Benevides and has 6 chapters. The length of each chapter is comfortable. In the following I will give you a short summary of the content of the individual chapters:


Introduction - Characters:

Mr. Evan and Nancy Reed both are in the fifties, Judith Reed is the mother of Mr. Evan Reed. The Reeds had two children: Kevin and Allison. Lucia Deza was the housekeeper of the Reeds, Miguel was the son of Lucia and was also living in the Reed´s house.  A detective, Eliana Koo, in charge of the investigation. Officer Kazuo Yokota helped Eliana. Eliana’s nickname is Ellie.


Chapter 1

There was a crime in the Reed´s house: a robbery and a drugging. Someone stole all things which were located in the wall safe above the bed of Evan and Nancy. Both were victims. Things of value were kept in the safe: jewelry, some stamps and cash: about $ 80k. Judith and the housekeeper found the Reeds at their bedroom in the morning. 

You should know that the wall safe was opened without the use of force!

Evan and Nancy had to stay some days in the hospital, due to the drugging. But both victims were okay.

Seven people were living in the house of the Reeds: the five Reeds and the housekeeper with her son.  Kevin, the son of the Reeds, was twenty-four years old, and unemployed. His younger sister Allison was twenty-one and a student at Brown University. By the way, she was engaged to marry Derrick Quenton, the son of the owner of the Quenton Hotels. The Quentons were one of the richest family in the country. Miguel was nineteen years old and a pre-med student at Georgetown University. He was born in Peru.

Ellie visited the Reeds and started her investigation.

Firstly, Ellie had a look at the bedroom of the Reeds´ where the crime happened. She made a detailed scan of the whole room and wrote her notes directly into her laptop. An important detail she noticed was a spilled teacup and a large wet spot near the teacup. Then, Ellie talked with Ms. Judith Reed and the housekeeper Lucia to get a first picture of what happened on the day when the crime had taken place. Two important questions were “Who knows the combination of the wall safe?” and “Who had a key to the bedroom of Evan and Nancy Reed?”



Chapter 2: Three Interviews

A lot of questions and many answers as well as an interesting feedback from the crime lab.

The crime lab found out that the tea which the Reeds had got (?) before the robbery was drugged with powerful sleeping pills. Nancy Reed was allergic to these pills.   Ellie had a conversation with Kevin first, the unemployed son of the Reeds. She asked him about his activities last night and where he was.

The second conversation was between Ellie and Allison, the youngest daughter of the Reeds. Ellie asked her the same questions as she had asked Kevin Рwhat did you do last night and where? Moreover, Ellie asked Allison about her fianc̩ Derrick.

Finally, Ellie wanted to have a talk with Miguel. He started the conversation with “I have something to tell you that will make me look guilty, ….” After his honest statement, Ellie asked him the same questions as the two women.

Two of the three people could have a reason to steal the things out of the wall safe: (a) Kevin – because he was unemployed and needed additional money and (b) Miguel - because Evan and Nancy Reed wanted him to leave the house – and Miguel could be angry about this. In addition, the student was studying medicine, so he knew about the effect of sleeping pills.



Chapter 3 – The Hospital

The first lie: Judith told Ellie that she lied concerning the combination of the wall safe, she gave the numbers to Kevin. Because of her age, Judith forgot, that she also gave the combination to Miguel. After this, Ellie wanted to hear the whole story. Judith started to tell the story which had begun a month ago with the purchase of a beautiful stamp.

At the end of the conversation between Ellie and Judith Reed Yokota, a colleague of Ellie and Kevin entered the room. Ellie saw Kevin and she accused him of lying to her.

The next steps: Elle checked the stories of the involved people and wanted to search the house from the top to bottom.

After that, Ellie drove to the hospital where Evan and Nancy Reed were staying. Nancy was sleeping  and Even was telephoning someone with his cell phone. Ellie stopped in front of the door and tried to understand the call between Evan and the other person. The words (which) she heard were “Brian … investors …. excited about the project – to get money together”. Some / a few seconds after the  call, Ellie went into the room and introduced herself to the Reeds. Then she told the Reeds a part of her investigation. It was surprising, that Evan accused his son of committing the robbery, because the Reeds wanted that Kevin tried to find a job and they had informed him that they were stopping his monthly allowance. Later, Ellie asked the Reeds to describe the occurrences which happened last night separately?

At the end of the Chapter, Yokota called Ellie and told her that there might be a new motive ….



Chapter 4 – The Suspect

The likely suspect was Kevin at the moment – he lied several times: concerning the safe combination, his financial situation and his activities on the day of the crime.

Suddenly, the cell phone of Ellie rang again and Yokota was on the other end of the line. He had an interesting piece of news which would change the current situation and the investigation: The police found the stolen things in the room of ……

Ellie spoke to the person in which room they found the stolen things.



Chapter 5 – Family Secrets

Ellie had a daughter. When Ellie investigated a hot case and needed a lot of time, Sofia –  her daughter – stayed sometimes at her neighbor.

Ellie talked again with Allison. The daughter of the Reed´s didn´t believe that Miguel was a criminal. Ellie discussed again with Allison about the relationship between both and checked the schedule last night. Allison had an advantage, her diary, in which Ellie found the proof that Allison told the truth.

Later Ellie decided to check the bedroom of the Reeds once again and she found new findings.


Chapter 6 – The Arrest

Back at the police station, Ellie made a few phone calls and received some interesting information about Mr. Reed and his financial situation. Moreover, the lab had new findings concerning the stolen things. Finally, Ellie had all information to proof who was the suspect. She went to the hospital and told the Reeds the result of her investigation.

-  0  -

Key words and phrases I learned
The first time I read the story, it was interesting. During the second reading, I marked the words I didn´t know. I translated some of the marked words which I think could be important and interesting for me. For instance: “unconsciously – my donkey bridge = the two people were drugged..”.  The story is realistic, so I can draw pictures in my mind to keep new words. In addition, I have learned vocabulary like “nodded” (nicken), “muttered (murmeln)”, “growled” (knurren), “yawned” (gähnen), “frowned” (die Stirn runzeln), “yelled” (schreien), “urged” (ermahnen), “scoffered” (verspotten / Judith scoffered Ellie.), “annoyed” (verärgert / Ellie looked annoyed).  The word “cane”: A lot of older people being over 70 years need a support when they will go / will move – for example they could use a cane.  “Allowance” – Taschengeld. Children get a fixed allowance per month.   

Furthermore, I reviewed my grammar skills. 

Interesting points of grammar I noticed
The position of an adverb – for example: “Ellie asked gently.” – also possible “Ellie gently asked.” Or “Ellie said politely.”

Best features to this style of writing and exercises – enjoyed most
The style of writing is moderate, the essential vocabularies are understandable and most of the essential vocabulary is comprehensible. The author mostly uses short sentences. The different exercises are helpful as they repeat the content of the chapter and the vocabulary. I especially like the questions, which will result in an answer for an important question. To describe a picture (a room) in a way of adding the missing things is also a good idea.  The story, the exercises as well as the content of the story, all this things are successful but the vocabulary in the story could be on a little slightly higher level - could be slightly more challenging.

If you had to buy this book, what price would be suitable / what is it worth?
I would like to pay around 10 Euros for such a book. The book is worth between 20 and 30 Euros. The ideas / conceptions of exercises are brilliant. But the Internet offers a lot of books and exercises so that I think, people will not pay more than EUR 9.99 for such a learning book which you can download via Internet.

Martina R.
Stuttgart/2 Mai 2010


Oh, by the way, Adam &Marcos - Martina has already started Death on U Street and she wanted me to let you know  that she'd like you to write more books please.



What do you think of Martina's summary?  Would you like to give her feedback on her description or ask her any questions?  Do you think that your students would benefit from reading a summary like this?   

Where are learning materials heading - how long will it be before most textbooks and readers become available online?  What do you think of their bold strategy in allowing the price for download to be determined by the purchaser? 


Useful links

Best,
Karenne
image credits: Eagles by Alaskan Dude on Flickr.com

Squeezing the joy out of a thing

Darren Elliot, the blogger behind Lives of Teacher is one of my fave edu-bloggers but he was a complete meanie the other day - he told me, in his comments, that basically it wasn't cool  to keep being cool. 

So while I get the point (and don't think teachers should suck up to their students) I don't entirely agree and actually, fully intend on being über-cool well into my 60's (like our Sensei Jeremy Harmer) but what made Darren's comment worth blogging about, was that interestingly, it occurred just after getting home from class and recognizing that I'd way totally killed the joy out of something for one of my students...  

He's an adult though, so I really do hope not forever.

Sidebar
We blogging teachers do tend to have a habit of only posting up lesson tips and ideas which have worked in our lessons - I mean, that's why we share them, because they worked so they'll probably work for other teachers too.  
But what about the things that don't work?

The things we do that fall flat...
Aren't there lessons worth learning and therefore worth sharing in those things too?  Or do we blogging teachers want everyone in the big old world to think that we're perfect teachers with perfect classes and what we teach is spot-on all the time and the students just love what we do all the time?

Not terribly realistic or truthful, now is it?

Anyhoo, here's my story:

One of my absolute favorite sites is TED.com, the lectures are simply fascinating and very often there are short videos filled with incredibly rich experiences - sometimes I just go in there only to drown in the knowledge of others.  Of course, because the lectures presented  are often by important leaders in the business world, it also is a soucre of authentic content especially if you, like me, teach adult ESP students.

Phillip, the student of the dogme-in-tech-movie fame, has an i-phone so one of my tips for him on developing learner autonomy was that he subscribe to TED.

And he followed through on the advice. SCORE...

He followed through on it so much so that in the last six months he has now watched more videos than I have, shares his favourites not just with me, via email, but also forwards them on to friends and colleagues he knows.

SCORE...

Feeling chuffed to bits that I'd managed to share one of my passions with one of my learners, I said to him, "hey, why don't you write up a blog post of your Ten Top TED videos." (Good so far).  

But then I said:

"Maybe you can include a list of all the new vocabulary you learned."

His face looked a bit incredulous but I continued undaunted.  "Yes," I said, "and maybe you could write about how you see TED as a great learning tool, how you were able to pick up these words from context, how you are then able to transfer that knowledge into the language you need in the workplace."

"Karenne," he replied in a slightly bemused voice, "I just like the videos.  I don't know which words I learn.  I understand some and I don't know what others are.  I don't think about that I watch them on my way to work, they're interesting."

He shrugged.

Oh.

Oh.

OH crap.  I thought to myself - now why'd I have to go and spoil his new hobby?   Now, everytime he looks at his i-phone to watch the latest on TED he's probably going to think about my über enthusiastic  English-teacher-suggestion and instead of  enjoying his videos and soaking up some great  vocabulary subconsciously, he'll now be thinking about what he's "supposed" to be extracting.

A lot of trainers will probably tell you just how important noticing is (including me) but noticing that you're supposed to be noticing - ummm - well, it's probably a distraction and probably hits all the wrong neuro-transmitting-signal-thingies in the brain.

Squoosh!

Best,
Karenne
image credit: diet coke by nesster on flickr.com

p.s. Have you ever gone and accidentally squeezed the joy out of something your students were enjoying doing by making it a way too learning oriented task instead of a simple life-experiential language experience?  Ever brought something into the classroom which completely bombed because it was your passion, not your learners'?  

Useful related links
The video Phillip sent me that launched this conversation. You'll love it :)
My delicious bookmarks: TED videos for Business English
More video sites for Business English classes
If your teach General English: also see Larry Ferlazzo's Best of TED videos.

Interesting articles on failures/successes in the TEFL classroom
Darren Elliot's The importance of failure
Jason Renshaw on Lindsay Clandfield's blog:  Six signs that you are on the right track


(There's a poll going on the Lexiophiles site to determine a list of the best language blogs, see my post about that here and if you haven't yet voted and you don't this it's  tacky of me to ask, do please click and visit the site to let them know you rate my blog :-) thanks muchly).

Vote the Top 100 Language Teaching Blogs 2010

Facebook and the Edu-Marketers

Am I the only person out there in social-media-land who really, really does not want to be friended by companies on Facebook?

I get random invitations, quite frequently, popping up with the accompanying "34 mutual friends" peer-pressure type inspired messages.

So, what - how does the strategy go, exactly... did they comb through their profiles,  saw me flash up in their friends' friends lists and thought to themselves: oh hey, she's a blogger! 



If I friend her then she can promote my business for me because she just loves writing about education so she's bound to notice our wonderful amazing products and become just absolutely passionate about our company, and, and... and with a relative glee, clicked on that add as a friend button - with no need for any type of accompanying message.

But who are they: 

is it a Jennifer, Janey or Jeremy behind their logo?   

I presume that I won't suddenly be having some kind of level access to their own photo albums, movie genre preferences or their deep and darkest private thoughts.  They'll have individual private profiles for that sort of stuff or are they hoping to share great TED videos with me?  

Going to be sending me the latest rap songs, which they know I'll be loving?

Doubt it.


The upside: 
I probably won't have to scroll through their Mafia War, Farmville or Jewel-thingie transactions.

The downside:  
They'll get to see me having a whinge or a moan about whatever is going on in my life that isn't all roses on whatever day that it isn't all roses.  They'll see the music I like and if a friend (you know, a real friend) or a family member (you know, a real person who is connected to me via flesh and blood) is going through something and I comment on their lives' passing by then they'll see my thoughts in whatever comment it is that I want to leave behind.  In whatever way I openly communicate within my intimate circle they'll see...

OOOOOOOOh.  Nooooooo.....

This gives me the hiiii biii jiiiiibies and I don't doubt that would give my friends and families the hiiii biiii jiiiibies too if I were to allow this sort of access to these edu-marketers.  Eee-yuck.

Now, if the desire for the connect is not because I'm an edublogger, is it simply that I am just some random teacher especially selected to receive their spam..?  I mean why not simply invite me to an official group page 'cause Facebook is about 

a) friends 

b) family 

c) professional colleagues who I've allowed into my life and thoughts and intimate circle in order that we may become friends: real friends.   

It is not random.



Why are these companies opting for the "friend" route - why the let's have access to everything you think route?   Why haven't they opted for a page or a group?  I join Groups.  I don't mind groups, check on them too, sometimes, when I have time.

Please don't tell me that these educational companies don't or won't spam us via Facebook.  Let's face it, usually, as a general rule, on the whole, they have done absolutely no research into web2.0 best practices,  (they have a Ph.D in Marketing from 1972 so they don't need to read up on what the self-prescribed gurus have declared best practices) and aren't interested in how social-networking works at all... they've just seen the numbers amassing and gotten wind of that ephemeral concept with its esoteric acronym... and with tongues a-salivating and dollar-signs a-blinking have felt a temptation way too yummy to resist and have come on in a-braying as they enter. 


You think I'm just ranting?

In the last two weeks, one of my PLN decided to tag me in a painting, not of me, but basically, essentially this piece of her art would now show up as my face when someone decides to google  image search me.  I tried to explain this to the artist as I felt that it was not actually an intended offense but she simply couldn't see the problem because, basically, she is in love with her art and has absolutely no problem with my name lending her some kudos.   

I'm not stupid, she wanted my friends list to see her art.

I have a problem with that.

I think it is dishonest and blatant marketing within my private space.

I untagged myself.

One of my PLN befriended one of my real friends.   My real friend since I was 14, wrote to check if this person was  an okay person to become friends with...  so I told her that yes, I thought so but honestly, it does make me feel a little weird, silly and nervous.    I'm crossing my fingers that it was actually okay, that the interest is genuine and that they can become real friends too. 

One very dear person in my PLN wrote a blog article - a very good blog article - but she tagged  me in it and wrote as a header that read This Article is about You.   Now it wasn't about me.  It was about her and about  her development of her PLN which is great, but basically, by doing this, tagging me in this way drove my curious real friends and my  wanting-to-know-what's-going-on-in-my-life-real-family to her blog page to find out just what had been said about the Karenne they love. 

These people are not potential members of her PLN.  

These people aren't my 

Personal or Passionately Loving 

or 

my Professional Learning Network.

These people are my Friends and Family. 

Not cool.  

Seriously.  

I untagged myself.
So what's next:  Mr company-who-wants-to-be-my-friend?  What will you be tagging me in? 

Sigh, I guess, I suppose instead of ranting and whingeing about all this, with you on my blog page, I could of course, just click on the ignore button whenever I receive these requests.  Actually I do do this, but after seeing the 34-mutual-friends on the last one, I just really had to put it out there and ask:


Why would anyone let a random company 
have access to one's private 
photos and thoughts?

To The Wall?


Doesn't anyone else feel like this is a total invasion of privacy?



Update 31 May 2010
hat tip to Petra Pointer for sharing this with me on Facebook



Useful related links

Finding this blog on Facebook:
via Facebook, Networked Blogs
to receive regular updates on what I've been posting on this blog, go Kalinago Group
If you want to be my friend on Facebook, it is okay, just do a search on my name and write me a personal message saying who you are, don't just click on the add as a friend button and for blessed sake, respect my world, my life...  :)

Best,
Karenne
imagecredit: I want privacy by bejealousofme, flickr





(There's a poll going on the Lexiophiles site to determine a list of the best language blogs, see my post about that here so if you haven't yet voted and you don't this is really totally tacky of me to ask, do please click and visit the site to let them know :-) thanks muchly).
 

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