Chinese Visa

I had my visa picture (like a passport picture) taken yesterday and sent it to the school in Shanghai.  They are filing for me to come and will send me two documents I need (an Invitation Letter, and a Foreign Expert Confirmation Document).  Then I have to go in person to the Chinese Embassy in Chicago, a 4 hour drive away.  If I pay an extra fee I can get the visa processed in one day, so that I don't have to go back a second time.

Today is Christmas here, but the recruiters in China are working.  Several remembered it is Christmas and wished me Merry Christmas.  But there it is not a holiday.  While I have accepted a job that one recruiter arranged for me, the other recruiters have been friendly and I have corresponded a little with them.  One is in Shanghai and she has  invited me to go out to eat "hot pot," which she describes as a meal with several types of meat that is very spicy hot, when I get there.  It is famous, but I have not heard of it until now.  It 's nice to feel that I have some contacts with people in China before I go there.  I am not sure if they can give me much advice on things I might run into there.  The Education Directors and the teachers I will be working with are probably more of a resource for that.

There are some stories of bad recruiting agencies, that get paid by taking part of your salary, but I have apparently been contacted by a good one.  I did some research and didn't find any problem with them.

I will be working in a training center that has 7 native speaking English teachers and 9 Chinese English "tutors." The Education Director said they are like a family, and that they will help me find my way around.  I'm sure there still might be bumps in the road, but I was born and lived as a child in Peru, South America, and I know that the rest of the world isn't like the United States.  I lived in Europe for a year and was surprised that Europe is not as much like the United States as we might think.  There are differences in facilities and standards of living and expectations, besides all the language and cultural barriers.

I have been learning a few words in Chinese from a web site.  I know now to say "Hello," and "How are you?" "Thank you," and "Good bye."  And I have looked up information on the suburb of Shanghai I will be living and working in.  I was surprised to find an English language cultural and events site that obviously is written by English speakers and caters to an ex-pat community.  It looks expensive, and I don't want to get caught up in that too much.

I have 5 more weeks of my capstone projects for my Master's degree.  The school I am going to teaches with a combination of web delivered instruction and teacher lead instruction.  It is in line with my Masters in Teaching and Learning with Technology, though I will be mostly doing ILT (Instructor Lead Training).

Six more weeks before I go, and I need to work out what to do with my dog and my car, sort and pack my things, file my taxes for last year, and take care of other financial arrangements.  It seems like a long time until I go, and it seems like a short time to get all my stuff done.

Today has been a wonderful Christmas celebration with family.

God Bless,
Ann

Contract for Teaching in SongJiang, China

I'm in the process of signing a teaching contract with Web International English training Center in SongJiang, China.  It is a suburb of Shanghai, and the Education Director there says it is "in the country." The Training Center is in a shopping mall, so it isn't the kind of country we talk about here in the US.  Here in Stanton, MI, I am in the country and the nearest shopping mall is an hour and 15 minutes away.

I am excited about it.  I just printed the contract out this afternoon and signed and scanned it. But I can't send it back to China until Monday, because it is Saturday there now.  I want to get the ball rolling and start applying for my work visa and getting all my paperwork in order.  I finish my Masters of Teaching and Learning with Technology on February 10th, and my contract says I will start on February 20, 2014.

I will be teaching students 8 yrs to adult in an English training school.  The school age students will come after school, and the adults will come in after work.  So my hours are evenings and weekends.  The class sizes are small, and I look forward to teaching students that are motivated to learn English.  The school teaches with a combination of Web delivered training and live classes.

I am beginning to look up Chinese language information and geography so I will know something of where I am and how to communicate when I arrive.

I learned so much in my TEFL certification course and in substitute teaching this year.  I look forward to all the new experiences I will be having.  I want to re connect with people that I have moved away from here in the States and keep in contact with them while I am in China.  I want to ask for prayer that I will do a good job and be a light wherever I am.

God Bless,

Online Portfolio

Hi,

I am creating a wiki portfolio of Instructional Design work at pbworks.com.  I have built two lessons there so far, and I will be adding graphics and more content as time goes on.

The link to my latest lesson TEFL Certification: A Collaborative Annotated Bibliography.  The address is http://annelliott5.pbworks.com/w/page/70482852/Ann%20Elliott%3A%20Home.

Please email me to become a contributor to the wiki.  Feel free to leave comments and suggestion on the wiki or here.

Thank you,

What I've learned by starting a Blog

I had a blog on blogger.com before, but I have been changed my gmail address, and to do that I had to delete my Google profile and start again.  My old blog is still there, actually, it’s just not connected to any profile, and it uses my old last name.

I've always found the blogger interface sort of confusing.  I found it amusing in a sort of irritating way that Google has a blog page that says “Lost your blog? Click here.”  If that many people “loose” their blog that Google needs to post directions to find it, it would seem like Google would know their interface needs to be redesigned.

Anyway, I added my blog to my new email/Google profile and clicked around until I found the page to compose a post.  Writing the blog is easy, adding graphics, and publishing.  I used the “simple” graphic template because I think simple is usually best with graphics.  I found it a little confusing getting to the published page of my blog after I had clicked off it, just as Google suspected I might.  However, one of the ways to get there is to click on the Posts>Published link in the blog back end page.  Finding the back end page is another challenge, and I think I got there by clicking on the orange "B" Blogger logo.  This is not intuitive and I had to go the the help files originally to learn it.

After I wrote my first post, I completed some of the information for my Google profile.  I’m uncertain how much is public at this point.  I haven’t developed my google+ contacts so far.  I've been using Facebook for friends and family, and LinkedIn for professional contacts.  I like to have some privacy and I want to keep the two profiles separate.  I am wondering if there is a way to put meta-tags in the page so that people can find it, or if Google just does that automatically.

I think blogs need something that holds the posts together, it either has to be an area of expertise, a writing genre, or a persona that is interesting to readers.  So I knew I had to choose a theme or persona for my blog, and I chose to start writing about being an instructional designer.  My first post is about how I got into instructional design.  And this is my second post, a homework assignment for Ashford University class EDU521, Collaboration and Learning in a Virtual Environment.

I would love to put the Ashford University logo here, just to give this post a little color, but I think that would be violating copywrite.

 Regards,

Begin at the Beginning

I'm a writer and artist that has gone digital.  My family has generations of teachers in it, and I have always leaned in that direction myself.  So much of my graphic work was for online learning companies, designing eLearning interfaces and content.

For the last year I have been working on a Master's in Teaching and Learning with Technology.  It's a continuation of instructional design and graphic design I have done for years for various companies.  It is refreshing to be approaching the work from a verbal point of view instead of a graphics point of view.  This year I have designed the verbal and graphic content for several online courses, as well as developed the eLearning course application.  It is the kind of work I am used to doing with a team of experts for every stage, but now I am the expert.

I miss having the luxury of time to develop the graphical look and feel of courses.  I've been using Articulate Storyline, and it provides the interaction and "skin" for the courses.  Here's a screenshot of a course I designed, using my own photography and graphics.

I've used screen capture video and recorded voice over audio for several courses, and created presentations for clients.  I've designed ILT (instructor lead training), and CBT (computer based training).  I've learned about and done needs assessments and worked with SME's (subject matter experts).

It's been an exciting year, and I'm looking forward to finding a full time job as an Instructional Designer soon.