Pirates and Presidents

The two-week wait is over, we're back! Today our topic was current events, and we dealt with two main topics: U.S. presidential election (which will be held in ten days) and internet piracy. We had discussions in groups about both the election and internet piracy, and I think the students found internet piracy more interesting. There were definitely some interesting thoughts and opinions! We also read magazine articles on both topics. At the start of the lesson, we watched two clips from the presidential debates. The first one was actually from the debate. I'm not sure about the second one.

We started the second lesson with the song of the week, this time chosen by Wayne Teller. It was certainly something different. Plus, it was extremely funny! We'll be back next week with a proper blog entry.

School cafeteria all shiny and new

BigCola News, part one: School cafeteria all shiny and new
By Wayne Teller and Eltz Viper

Pikkola school cafeteria is back in business.

We went to interview Kirsti Krekula, the supervisor of Pikkola school cafeteria, because we wanted to learn more about the school cafeteria and about the repairment job. We were excited to go there because we didn’t know what the new kitchen looked like.

Kirsti Krekula has been in Pikkola school for four years. When we asked her how Pikkola has changed from the time it was built, she told us that she hadn’t been in Pikkola school when she was younger but she has been told that back then students didn’t get to decide how much food they were able to get, because the food was given to the students straight on the plate. The system has changed. Nowadays students can decide the amount of food they want to get. She thinks it’s a good step forward.

The lunch buffet waiting for the students.

She told us that the repairment job had brought more space to the dining hall and all sorts of new and helpful devices to the kitchen. It also has brought more tables and freezers to the kitchen. The new machines also make dishwashing easier and faster. So the students don’t have to wait in the line that much anymore.

At the end of the interview she wanted to say something to the students too : ”During the repairment everything went well, there were even special arrangements and the students were suprisingly patient. Of course the students also have a lot of things to improve on. If everyone remembers the rules of the cafeteria, we all are more comfortable to be here. Every now and then we have to remind the students about those rules, but generally I have positive things to say to students. It’s going well.”

Cooking for 21? Not a problem!

Twitterature

Time for our weekly update, once again. There will be no update next week, because we're enjoying a well deserved autumn break here in Pikkola. That’s why we actually have two updates today!

Today our main theme was social media. First we did a poll on who's on Facebook and who's not. It turned out that 19 out of 20 students who were present today are on Facebook. Everyone said, however, that they wouldn’t probably pay for Facebook if it started to cost something. Some said that it would depend on the price. Most of the students thought Facebook is addictive, at least sometimes. What we found interesting was that other social media, such as Google+, Myspace and so on, aren’t nearly as attractive as Facebook. On the other hand, five years ago everyone was raving about Myspace and very few had even heard about Facebook. Today Facebook has over one billion active users. Technology changes fast.

In addition to Facebook, we talked about social media in general. One interesting social networking service is Twitter where people communicate with messages that are only 140 characters long. Our task was to create a piece of Twitterature (that’s Twitter + literature) or, actually, a Twaiku (that’s Twitter + Haiku). To put simply, haiku is a very short form of Japanese poetry which goes perfectly with Twitter, because you have to be brief in both and choose your words carefully. Here are some of the beautiful twaikus the students wrote.

Hey guys / here’s some ice / for a perfect price / that’s my advice! -Nora Lakeside

Close your eyes / feel the love / smell the rose / who knows what it is -Elisabeth Jenkins

Love light above/ guys fight right / right tree, nice tea/ close your eyes and your nose -Mary Rabine

I love sea, when wind blows coolly on my face. / A nice evening ends terribly. / The lights go out and the roses fall. / Only you know what happens… -Nina Cole

Your nose, my rose, he knows, these are my toes. -Kathy Spoon

Light at the night and tree in the sea -Paulina Rock

I fight, that isn’t right. At night, I fly the kite and it is like the light. -Marie Rivers

Ice tea and nice sea, all I need! -Kate Ronney

I love the sea / Come with me / Even if it’s night / you can see the light -Jane Lauper


The song of the week was Hall of Fame by The Script feat. will.i.am, and it was chosen by Nina Cole. The second update for today will follow shortly.

Words don't come easy

This week we concluded our work on the theme food. We split into seven groups and read two texts about school food. The texts were divided into three or four parts each, so we could read the texts bit by bit. The idea was to underline words we didn't know and then the next group could translate those words into Finnish. So what we did was basically a vocabulary workshop. Although the texts were quite demanding, there were only a couple of words no one knew.

After that we did one listening comprehension exercise and listened to the song of the week, of course. The song was Dead by April's Calling and it was chosen by Mary Rabine. Basically that was it this time, so no real blogging this week. But a pair of students did start working on something that we'll put online next week, so stay tuned.