E-Portfolios for Starters

Celebrating Steve Jobs

Credits: Lenalensen by Pixabay 

Steve Jobs died twelve years ago, but it is impossible to forget his incredible genius. Without you, Steve, it's more difficult to stay hungry, stay Foolish. On October 5, 2011, Apple announced that co-founder Steve Jobs had died. He was 56 years old at the time. We all know who Steve Jobs is. The genius who revolutionized modern technology and the mastermind who emphasized style as much as function in our everyday digital devices.

However, there are a few facts about Steve Jobs that perhaps you don't know that would shock you. Let's learn a bit more about the real Steve Jobs with these 20 facts (slightly abridged), published by INC.

1. Steve Jobs was adopted shortly after being born.

2. Jobs was, biologically, half Arab. His biological father was Syrian and his mother was American.

3. Jobs and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak met in high school – Wozniak was 18 and Jobs was just 13.

4. Jobs was a pescetarian, meaning he ate no meat except for fish.

5. He was an official college dropout, but continued his education by informally auditing classes.

6. One class Jobs audited was a calligraphy course, which he says was instrumental in the future Apple products' attention to typography and font.

7. There was actually a third founder of Apple – Ronald Wayne, who even designed Apple's first logo. Wayne sold his 10 percent stake just two weeks after partnering with Jobs and Wozniak for only $800.

8. Jobs was pushed out of his own company in 1985. Despite the fallout, he later recognized the coup as a blessing in disguise, as it gave him a chance to experiment creatively and purchase an animation studio, which would later be known as Pixar. Eventually he rejoined Apple as CEO in 1997 (and revitalized the failing company).

9. While at Apple, Jobs always kept his annual salary at $1. Don't worry, with 5.5 million shares of Apple stock and as the majority shareholder of Disney stock (from selling Pixar), he wasn't quite what you'd call a starving artist.

10. Jobs had an entire team devoted to packaging who studied the experience of opening a box to learn how to achieve the excitement and emotional response that is now common with Apple products.

11. Jobs is listed as either primary inventor or co-inventor for 346 United States patents related to a range of technologies, with most of the patents being for design.

12. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak notes that Jobs never learned how to code.

13. Jobs harbored an intense dislike for PCs, and is quoted as saying to one friend, "I'd rather sell dog shit than PCs."

14. He never put license plates on his silver Mercedes (despite driving it constantly). How did he do it? California has a rule that a car owner has six months to put plates on a new car. Jobs just changed cars (to the identical model) every six months, allowing him to drive without plates.

15. Jobs actually served as a mentor for Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, even sharing some of his advisers with the Google duo.

16. Jobs was furious when Google created its Android devices, entering as an Apple competitor in the phone market.

17. Jobs was found to have pancreatic cancer in 2003, but rather than taking the doctor-recommended path of immediate operation, Jobs subscribed to an alternative-medicine regimen, including a vegan diet, acupuncture, and herbal remedies, even consulting a psychic. After nine months, Jobs gave in and underwent surgery. Many consider the delay a major factor in his eventual decline.

18. Apple, Microsoft, and Disney properties (including Disneyland and Disney World) flew their flags at half-staff when Jobs died.

19. Tim Cook revealed in a 2014 interview that Jobs's main office and nameplate are still as they were in 2011, when Jobs passed away.20. Sunday, October 16, 2011, was declared Steve Jobs Day by the governor of California, Jerry Brown.

 

Credits: Firmbee by Pixabay 

Teaching & Learning celebrates the 13th anniversary!

Teaching & Learning was born 13 years ago on a rainy afternoon. It doesn't seem so long ago, and yet the world has changed dramatically!
We intended to give suggestions of English Language Teaching resources and Web 2.0 tools applied to English language teaching, gather some practical examples of students' work and discuss their relevance/success in class context, create an interaction tool with Students/ other Teachers and keep close to Steve Jobs' motto: “Stay hungry. Stay foolish.” as we believe work can be done with pleasure and it can be much better if we don’t forget about enjoying it and adding a pinch of foolishness!

However, it has never crossed our minds that we would face a Covid-19 pandemic situation and that we would be confined for months, being e-learning the only way to keep our students learning and engaged. Now, more than ever before, educational apps and LMS are basic tools for all teachers.

THANK YOU for reading Teaching & Learning, for supporting us and above all for being here!
We would also like to thank to our partners and to all those who spend their time commenting and giving us important feedback!

This whole experience is a pleasure for us, so we intend to keep on going, posting more about Language Didactics, English Language Teaching, educational digital resources, British and North American culture, students’ tasks, ICT, motivational and a couple of foolish things, too, of course! 

Credits: Jill Wellington by Pixabay 

Thirteen incredible years and counting and we continue to STAY HUNGRY. STAY FOOLISH. 
It's high time to celebrate... HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TEACHING & LEARNING!

Welcoming September

 Teaching & Learning wishes you all a very productive, creative and joyful school year!

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New Year's Eve Fireworks 2024

Do enjoy the most special fireworks of them all.

HAPPY NEW YEAR... with health, love and peace!

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas 2023!

To all our readers, followers and visitors, the warmest wishes

of a very MERRY CHRISTMAS, full of health, light and hope!

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The History of Christmas Carols

Credits: Vlad Vasnetsov por Pixabay

Christmas carols today carry cozy connotations of ancient traditions as old as King Wenceslas, but Christmas caroling as we know it dates back to the 19th Century and not much further. In fact, caroling itself didn't always involve Christmas, and the ancient tradition of traveling from house to house to wish neighbors good cheer didn't always involve singing. There's a distinction to be made between carols — songs stemming from medieval musical traditions — and today's Christmas caroling, says Daniel Abraham, musicology expert and choral director at American University in Washington, D.C. "The concept of carol in its origins has actually nothing to do with Christmas," Abraham says. Medieval carols were liturgical songs reserved for processionals in the 12th and 13th centuries. And though modern carols sometimes take their form from these original carols — starting with a refrain, followed by verses of uniform structure — they're separate entities.

The act of traveling to different homes comes from a different tradition altogether, albeit a similarly ancient one. In England, the word wassail — derived from the Old Norse ves heill meaning "be well, and in good health" — came to mean the wishing of good fortune on your neighbors. No one is quite sure when the custom began, but it did give us the song, "Here We Come-A-Wassailing" — sung as carolers wished good cheer to their neighbors in hopes of getting a gift in return. ("A Wassailing" also evolved into the popular "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" — its last verse, "Bring us some figgy pudding" stems from the wassailers' original intent.)

The two traditions of singing and visiting first merged in Victorian England, as church carols began to merge with Christian folk music. At that time, it was far from a Christmas tradition; festivals like May Day were deemed worthy of caroling, too, but the repertoire as well as early records of this are pretty unclear. In the 19th Century, as Christmas became more commercialized and popular, publishers began churning out anthologies of carols, many which were ancient hymns, also circulating them in broadsheets.

Credits: Karen Arnold por Pixabay 

Many of our today's most popular carols date to this period. Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern published in London by British lawyer William B. Sandys in 1833, was the first to print "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen," "The First Noel" and "Hark! the Herald Angels Sing." "Joy to the World" first appeared in the Anglican Church hymnalHymns Ancient and Modern in 1861. Composed by Isaac Watts, known as the "father of Englsh hymnody", the song actually wasn't written exclusively for singing at Christmastime. Charles Wesley's "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" was originally "Hark! How All The Welkin Rings!" (Welkin means sky or heaven, and came to mean making a loud sound.)

The Oxford Book of Carols, first published in 1928, was a landmark book that combined medieval carols, folk songs and Christmas songs from around the world, publishing 201 of them in a 700-page volume. An updated version, the New Oxford Book of Carols, was published in 1992. Ubiquitous holiday TV ads to the contrary, American caroling is far less common than it used to be, says Bob Thompson, professor of popular culture at Syracuse University. It's not unusual to see carolers standing still in a shopping mall or churchyard, but as for the random groups of friends traipsing to your doorstep for singing, don't count on it. "You talk to most baby boomers they might have a caroling story or two," says Thompson. "Talk to anybody born after 1960 or so and it's become much less common." Simply put, times and culture have changed. "The singing of Christmas carols at a stranger's door assumes a similarity of culture among carolers and audience," says Chris Brunelle, an assistant professor of classics at St. Olaf college. With America a far more diverse and less homogenous society than it was in caroling's heyday, that's a larger assumption than many are comfortable with. Still, most of us probably agree about the egg nog.

In Time World

I'm feeling... good

Black Friday 2023

image credits: Infographic Journal

For millions of people Black Friday is the time to do some serious Christmas shopping, even before the last of the Thanksgiving leftovers are gone. Black Black is the Friday after Thanksgiving, and it's one of the major shopping days of the year in the United States, falling this year on November 24th. While it's not recognized as an official US holiday, many employees have the day off - except those working in retail.

The term “Black Friday” was coined in the 1960s to mark the kickoff to the Christmas shopping season. “Black” refers to stores moving from the “red” to the “black,” back when accounting records were kept by hand, and red ink indicated a loss, and black a profit. Ever since the start of the modern Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1924, the Friday after Thanksgiving has been known as the unofficial start to a bustling holiday shopping season.

In the 1960's, police in Philadelphia griped about the congested streets, clogged with motorists and pedestrians, calling it “Black Friday.” In a non-retail sense, it was originally used to describe something else entirely — the September 24th, 1864, stock-market panic set off by plunging gold prices. Newspapers in Philadelphia reappropriated the phrase in the late 1960s, using it to describe the rush of crowds at stores. The justification came later, tied to accounting balance sheets where black ink would represent a profit. Many see Black Friday as the day retailers go into the black or show a profit for the first time in a given year. 
The term stuck and spread, and by the 1990s Black Friday became an unofficial retail holiday nationwide. Since 2002, Black Friday has been the season's biggest shopping day each year except 2004, according to market-research firm ShopperTrak. Nevertheless, retailers continue to tie one-day in-store sales to Black Friday. In the Internet era, bloggers race to obtain leaked circulars and post them online weeks in advance of Thanksgiving. Many forums  and websites  chart the deals, helping shoppers make a plan of attack for the big day. And attack they will — the National Retail Federation anticipates 134 million people will hit the stores on Thanksgiving weekend.

Why did it become so popular?

photo credits: Time

As retailers began to realize they could draw big crowds by discounting prices, Black Friday became the day to shop, even better than those last minute Christmas sales. Some retailers put their items up for sale on the morning of Thanksgiving, or email online specials to consumers days or weeks before the actual event. The most shopped for items are electronics and popular toys, as these may be the most drastically discounted. However, prices are slashed on everything from home furnishings to apparel.

Black Friday is a long day, with many retailers opening up at 5 am or even earlier to hordes of people waiting anxiously outside the windows. There are numerous doorbuster deals and loss leaders – prices so low the store may not make a profit - to entice shoppers. 

Most large retailers post their Black Friday ad scans, coupons and offers online beforehand to give consumers time to find out about sales and plan their purchases. Other companies take a different approach, waiting until the last possible moment to release their Black Friday ads, hoping to create a buzz and keep customers eagerly checking back for an announcement.

More and more, consumers are choosing to shop online, not wanting to wait outside in the early morning chill with a crush of other shoppers or battle over the last most-wanted item. Often, many people show up for a small number of limited-time "door-buster" deals, such as large flat-screen televisions or laptops for a few hundred dollars. Since these coveted items sell out quickly, quite a few shoppers leave the store empty handed. 

image credits: CNNMoney

 

Sources: Black Friday, Time

Happy Thanksgiving 2023

Thanksgiving is celebrated today, November 23rd, as always in the fourth Thursday of the month, all across the USA and Canada and precedes Black Friday, one of the busiest shopping days , mostly in the USA.

found pic @ Crosswalk

In 1621, the Plymouth colonists and Wampanoag Indians shared an Autumn harvest feast that is acknowledged today as one of the first Thanksgiving celebrations in the colonies. For more than two centuries, days of thanksgiving were celebrated by individual colonies and states. It wasn't until 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, that President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day to be held each November.

THANKSGIVIG AT PLYMOUTH

found pic @ mbeinstitute

In September 1620, a small ship called the Mayflower left Plymouth, England, carrying 102 passengers - an assortment of religious separatists seeking a new home where they could freely practice their faith and other individuals lured by the promise of prosperity and land ownership in the New World. After a treacherous and uncomfortable crossing that lasted 66 days, they dropped anchor near the tip of Cape Cod, far north of their intended destination at the mouth of the Hudson River. A month later, the Mayflower crossed Massachusetts Bay, where the Pilgrims, as they are now commonly known, began the work of establishing a village at Plymouth. Throughout that first brutal winter, most of the colonists remained on board the ship, where they suffered from exposure, scurvy and outbreaks of contagious disease. Only half of the Mayflower’s original passengers and crew lived to see their first New England spring. In March, the remaining settlers moved ashore, where they received an astonishing visit from an Abenaki Indian who greeted them in English. Several days later, he returned with another Native American, Squanto, a member of the Pawtuxet tribe who had been kidnapped by an English sea captain and sold into slavery before escaping to London and returning to his homeland on an exploratory expedition. Squanto taught the Pilgrims, weakened by malnutrition and illness, how to cultivate corn, extract sap from maple trees, catch fish in the rivers and avoid poisonous plants. He also helped the settlers forge an alliance with the Wampanoag, a local tribe, which would endure for more than 50 years and tragically remains one of the sole examples of harmony between European colonists and Native Americans.

found pic @ ucls-chicago

In November 1621, after the Pilgrims’ first corn harvest proved successful, Governor William Bradford organized a celebratory feast and invited a group of the fledgling colony’s Native American allies, including the Wampanoag chief Massasoit. Now remembered as American’s “first Thanksgiving”—although the Pilgrims themselves may not have used the term at the time—the festival lasted for three days. While no record exists of the historic banquet’s exact menu, the Pilgrim chronicler Edward Winslow wrote in his journal that Governor Bradford sent four men on a “fowling” mission in preparation for the event, and that the Wampanoag guests arrived bearing five deer. Historians have suggested that many of the dishes were likely prepared using traditional Native American spices and cooking methods. Because the Pilgrims had no oven and the Mayflower’s sugar supply had dwindled by the fall of 1621, the meal did not feature pies, cakes or other desserts, which have become a hallmark of contemporary celebrations.

THANKSGIVING TRADITIONS

found pic @ fashionpill

In many American households, the Thanksgiving celebration has lost much of its original religious significance; instead, it now centers on cooking and sharing a bountiful meal with family and friends. Turkey, a Thanksgiving staple so ubiquitous it has become all but synonymous with the holiday, may or may not have been on offer when the Pilgrims hosted the inaugural feast in 1621. Today, however, nearly 90 percent of Americans eat the bird—whether roasted, baked or deep-fried—on Thanksgiving, according to the National Turkey Federation. Other traditional foods include stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. Volunteering is a common Thanksgiving Day activity, and communities often hold food drives and host free dinners for the less fortunate.
Parades have also become an integral part of the holiday in cities and towns across the United States. Presented by Macy’s department store since 1924, New York City’s Thanksgiving Day parade is the largest and most famous, attracting some 2 to 3 million spectators along its 2.5-mile route and drawing an enormous television audience. It typically features marching bands, performers, elaborate floats conveying various celebrities and giant balloons shaped like cartoon characters.
Beginning in the mid-20th century and perhaps even earlier, the president of the United States has “pardoned” one or two Thanksgiving turkeys each year, sparing the birds from slaughter and sending them to a farm for retirement. A number of U.S. governors also perform the annual turkey pardoning ritual.


THANKSGIVING IN THE UK

photo credits: US Embassy in London

Thanksgiving Day in the United Kingdom is celebrated as a harvest festival. This day is a religious honouring to convey a feeling of gratitude to God for the year's plentiful and fruitful harvest and thanking family and friends for their love and support. The day is celebrated by preparing a special meal of large roasted turkey, which is a native American species, along with cranberry sauce, stuffing, with veggies. A variety of different pies with apple, mincemeat, pumpkin and pecan form the dessert menu. Gifts are also exchanged on this day which include flowers, jewellery, baked cookies, candy and wine. 
Many towns and cities stage spectacular parades on this day. Many people are on the roads to enjoy the decorated floats, the costumes, the music and the heavy balloons.

Source:  The History Channel (abridged and adapted)

You may also check relevant multimedia resources on this topic @:

• Bet you didn't know: Thanksgiving;
• History of Thanksgiving; 
• Thanksgiving becomes a holiday;
• Thanksgiving foods;
• Teaching History;
• The Learning Network by NY Times.

You can get ELT resources (further info, lesson plans, printables, posters, slideshows, recipes, graphs, crafts, colouring pictures and greeting cards) on the topic @:

• British & American Festivals and Holidays;
• We are Teachers;
• Scholastic.com;
• Thanksgiving on the Net;
• Teacher Vision;
• The Teachers Corner.

Hybrid Learning Environments Infographic

Hybrid Learning Environments Infographic de Ana Figueiredo