Oxfort Teaching Workshop Series Fukuoka Feb 3 2013

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I’ll be presenting in Fukuoka again this Sunday, at the Oxford Teaching Workshop Series 2013.

I’m really excited about the topic: designing reading programs for young learners.

I’ll be on at 10:30 in the Tenjin Crystal Building. Please see the flyer for more details.

Google Maps App for iPhone

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Another tangent, I’m afraid. If you don’t have an iPhone you can probably stop reading now. If you have an iPhone that is running iOS 5 or less, this may be of interest. But if you have an iPhone running iOS 6 and you haven’t downloaded the Google Maps App yet, keep reading.

I’ve been playing with the new Google Maps App on my iPhone 4S for a couple of weeks now. The short version is that it is amazing.

(it’s not just me that thinks so, either: here’s the Wall Street Journal version)

The long version:

  • all the accurate data from before
  • better interface
  • amazing driving instructions (it’s better than any dedicated satnav I have used)
  • sharpened up graphics

I’ve used it a few times while driving, and the app is amazingly user-friendly. Clear voice directions, simple screen, very user-friendly (I particularly like the way you can scroll around the map then get back to your route with a simple ‘resume’ button).

The local transport functionality is there too: this is probably the thing I use my phone for the most. When in an unfamiliar city, the app gives accurate local train and bus times and connections -so much so that I use it instead of the official websites to find times.

No negatives I have found at this time. If you don’t have it get it now -it’s free.

 

*this review is only talking about the Google Maps App in Japan. I haven’t had the chance to test it abroad yet 🙂

 

Annual Review 2012/Plan for 2013

january 2013

Welcome to the first post of 2013 on this blog. This year is the year of the snake, and I will be 36 at some point, so apparently it’s my time to shine. Looking forward to learning and experiencing a lot this year.

This week for the first time I have finally got around to doing an annual review of last year and a plan for this one. I found the experience very interesting and useful.

I’m not going to go into the details of what I ended up writing, but I thought I would share the process in case someone else might find it useful.

I started off with three broad categories (work, personal, and relationships), then wrote a brief description for each based on what happened in 2012. Each category was broken down into multiple sub-categories. The descriptions were short and contained my impressions. It probably took me a couple of hours to write everything out as this was the first time I have done this.

The next part was even more time-consuming, but also a lot of fun: planning out 2013. I took the same categories and sub-categories and wrote out what I wanted to get done this year. For this document, I was as specific as possible with regards to numbers, dates, etc.

Finally I made a simple spreadsheet with monthly goals to be ticked off. I’m going to tape this to my computer monitor to make sure I don’t forget about the plan.

Next December when I come to do my 2013 review, I’ll be able to measure my results against the specific goals I set.

If you have a free day or so, I really recommend this exercise. I found it extremely useful as it forced me to think about what exactly I want to accomplish in the short-, medium-, and long-term.

 
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