Comic strips

Alright, here we go again after another two-week break. We spent the last couple of weeks travelling back in time to the 1980s, so that's why there was no update last week (no internet in the 80s, you know). We will later upload some of the fabulous posters we did. There are also new interviews and other interesting things on the way, so stay tuned.

Our theme today was money and spending. We worked on two different texts (the pupils could choose one of the two). Both texts were about how expensive it is to be a teenager. Did you know that in Great Britain, for example, one teen "costs" about 12 000 euros per year (in other words, that's how much their parents spend on their children's hobbies, food, clothes) on average! Have you ever thought about how much your parents spend on you?

Oh, here are two comic strips that our pupils did (actually we only did the text, the fantastic drawings are done by the 8th grade comic course pupils). Two of these are quite fitting for the Christmas season, don't you think!

By Nora Lakeside and Elisabeth Jenkins

By Wayne Teller

By Wayne Teller

Song of the week was chosen by Niclas Gaustad. Actually, he picked the song because it was on top of some music list on Youtube. No, it's not Gangnam Style.

Interview of our principal Ville Vuorisalmi

How old are you? – I just turned 40.

How long have you been in Pikkola? – This is my fifth year, so about four and a half years. I started here in 2008.

What principals jobs are? – Basically I’m sort of a boss of the people who work here and then of course I have some things with the pupils. I’m the head master of the pupils and a boss for the teachers. I have to find and choose the new teachers and organize the substitutes to the teachers. When somebody has any problems I should try to solve them and try to help them. And the same goes with the pupils, if there is something complicated, I should try to manage or solve the problems.

What other languages do you speak? – I studied German in school, and I have been worked in Germany for one summer, so I sort of know how to speak German, I don’t know anymore how to write it, so I just speak it. Same goes with French, I have studied it in France for a half year, when I was about 25 years old. I have to study Swedish as well, so I can survive with that too.

What is the best thing in Pikkola? – The people are nice. That’s the best thing here.

What is the best place in Pikkola? – I think it’s the canteen. It’s the best time of the day, eating lunch.

Where do you live? – I live in Peltolammi, Tampere

What kind of family do you have? – I have two daughters, they are now 8 and 6 years old, and my wife as well.

Do you have any hobbies? – I like to be outside. I used to be a scout and camp a lot. I do it with my old friends, about every year. Hikes and things like that. I like reading, but most of the time I’m a dad for two children.

By Nora Lakeside and Elisabeth Jenkins

Interviews and the 80s

Alright, let's make the short story... even shorter. Today we took a look at teen life in the 80s. The parents of our students have been in their teens around that time, so it was interesting for many of the BigCola21 to see what kind of things were in (or ace as they used to put it) back then. We'll spend more time on the 80s during the coming weeks.

In the coming weeks we'll also do interviews with a number of the Pikkola staff. Of course they'll appear on this blog once they're ready! To get us going with interviews, our warm-up task for today was: Which celebrity (past or present) would you like to meet and what would you ask him? Here are some of the results.

 

I'd like to meet Jared Leto. I'd ask him to tell me everything about making music.

It'd be interesting to meet Adolf Hitler and ask him what sort of dogs he likes.

We'd love to meet Rihanna. The first question we'd ask her is “How are you?” (Yep, that's a polite way to start a conversation.)

I'd like to meet Sauli Niinistö and ask him how you become famous.

Of the many people I'd like to meet, I'd ask Pink what kind of house she lives in. 

So there. Our interviewees at Pikkola aren't multi-millionaire pop stars (not that I know of, at least) but I'm sure the interviews will be interesting anyway. By the way, here's the song of the week by Tiffany. The song is basically about how you become a millionaire. A great choice! We'll be back next Friday!

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.