Showing your students a film can today be a bit controversial. Should students watch film in school? Why or why not? I believe that if you use film or film clips in the right way it can be very beneficial and an easy tool to teach the students about themes, setting, plot, characters and so on. You can of course teach this through reading but sometimes it cna be nice both for students and for teachers to do something else in a new way, maybe something you haven't tried before. When using film in the classroom you have to make sure that the students don't only see the film but that they read it. There is a difference in seeing and reading and your job is to teach them how to read film.

To be able to read film the students need to watch actively and not only watching the film as entertainment. You can do this by forcing them to take notes or answering questions at the same time as they are watching. You can also choose to only use extracts instead of whole films since time is often a problem when it comes to film. However, you have to think about copyright and make sure you follow the rules when using extracts.

I believe it might be easier to teach the students about setting, plot, characters and so forth by using film since it is portrayed in a different way in films than it is in books. I don't mean that you use film instead of books but as a complement to books. It is sometimes easier to understand what you can see through examples than by reading about something.

Okey, we have had a major set back in my chances to go abroad. Apparently you have to have 15 credits from this autumn term. I have the credits or at least I have 12,5 credits that I know of, but since the credits haven't been transfered to the database I have 0 credits at the moment and as I already mentioned I need 15. The last 2,5 credits I get from another course, which I have the exams in this Friday so if the teacher is nice she might put the credits in the system before deadline 1st of December, but she doesn't have to since she has at least 3 weeks to correct papers.

So, if I'm unlucky I won't get the credits I need before the 1st of December, which means that I can't apply for going abroad and I only get to apply if there are places left after this first round of applications. Why is it that everytime you are doing something, something goes wrong? Everytime! You get so frustrated when there is nothing you can do but to hope that your teachers care enough that they actually transfer the credits to the system. 

I had an interesting discussion today at the university about bullying and how far it has gone the past few years. Was it really this big when I went to school? It probably were it's just something you choose to ignore when you grow up I asume. Our discussion made me wonder, do students actually know what bullying is? Do they understand what a bully is? I'm actually not so sure about that since the word "bully" hasn't any affect on students in todays school. They simply don't care about what they do to each other and that words can hurt so much more than if they hit someone.

I'm thinking that students today think bullying isn't that bad since adults do it all the time on the internet. Adults comment, say mean things and bully other people on social media, so if the behaviour is okey when you are an adult why shouldn't it be okey when you are in school? For teachers it's really difficult to draw a line since adults step over it all the time and students who see maybe their parents, grandparents, aunts or uncles bully people online then the behaviour is in one way accepted, the grown ups shows through their actions that this kind of behaviour is okey, so why should the students listen to the teachers saying it is not?

Social media has exploded during the last couple of years and it hardly even existed when I grew up, but today a lot of the bullying going on in schools are done in the cyberspace. Bullying going on on the internet, whose responsibility is it to stop it actually? In an article published in Skolvärden (link to article here) it says that The School Inspection thinks it is the teachers responsibility if the students involved attends the same school. My imediate thought about this is, how can it be the teachers responsibility if it happens outside of school during the weekend or a holiday break? Teachers cannot monitor the internet 24/7, it's not manageble, not with everything else the teachers have to do today. 

Bullying is a huge problem today, and there is still not a solution to it, but I do not believe that the responsibility should be put on teachers alone. Teachers see the students for 8 hours a day 5 days a week what about the 16 hours that are left? Shouldn't it be the parents responsibility to monitor what their children do on the internet when they are at home? It feels more logical that the adult that spend the most time with the child should be responsible and that is not the teacher it is the parent. It is the parents job to raise the child and that responsibility cannot be put on the teacher.

I write about Fifty Shades Darker the other day and now I have finished the last book in the trilogy. I'm actually surprised by the turn the novel took after the first novel. It's less about the sex and more about what is happening around the characters and the story is actually exciting. I haven't yet decided if I like the novels or not partly because of the similarity to Twilight and it is really difficult to separate the two when you read because there are so many events in the novel that are almost exact the same. Even how the characters are described is almost identical to Bella and Edward. How Edward is the most beutiful and perfect person in the world and Christian is described in the same way and Ana is described to be normal, mediocre and there is nothing special about her apperance.

The turn the novel takes in this novel is surprising, you kind of know in one way that Ana will get pregnant eventually, you get those feelings already in the second novel but you still know it will happen and Christian will freak. It's kind of their thing something happens and Christan freaks out and then they have make up sex. It's the same thing over and over again they always figure it out and have sex. Yes, the novel is an erotic novel but it would be nice with some change also, the story is very predictable even though the events are different the way they handle these events are the same and of course it escaletes in one way.

Since I didn't study yesterday the plans for today is to study a bit. At least I will read what I need to read for the seminar and try to finish my oral presentation. The seminar tomorrow is about the teaching practicum I had a few weeks ago and that means I don't have to read anything for that one :D I just have to bring my 9 page lesson plan. I will aslo try to squeeze in some gaming time with some friends and probably we'll play some terraria. It's a game similar to Minecraft. Other than that I don't have that much plans actually. If I have gotten a response from my teacher I might write on my position paper and try to figure out some good arguments. I'm writing about ethography and my focus is on how it should be a non-acceptable method for data collection. Well, more about that later.

When it comes to going abroad I'm waiting for confirmation of some courses. I sent a list to the person in charge for that on Friday, as soon as I hear from her I think I can write the application and academic statement and then I just have to wait. I actually added a univeristy in Australia in my list and removed San Francisco and replaced it with another university in North Carolina. I'm thinking of taking a look at university of Washington also and maybe apply there to.

Today I have had a day off from my studies, but on the other hand I was writing on my position paper at 4AM this morning and emailed my teacher about my thesis statement. I hate thesis statements, it's so difficult to come up with something good and something that works. I think I got it, or I have two different versions of the same statement, but I think I know which one I will use.

The plans for the evening is, as you already know, Full Moon Party. I've been looking for some inspiration for the UV color and I think I will paint some kind of mask and probably glue some rhinestinones to it to. The party starts at 10PM but I'm going to meet up with some friends at 9PM. 

There are a lot of universities in the US of which I have chosen four to which I will apply. The universities I have chosen are:

• San Francisco State
• University of Minnesota
• University of North Carolina
• Arizona State University

I don't really have any particular reason behind choosing these four universities. San Francisco was an example from one of my professors so I looked into that one but I'm not quite sure if I want to go there. I think it would be more fun to go to either Minnesota or North Carolina. Minnesota because I know nothing about that part of the US and North Carolina because of its location, it gives me the opportunity to visist Washington, New York and/ or Florida. After looking at these two places I wanted to have some warmer place to choose from to since Minnesota and North Carolina isn't maybe the two warmest states in the US and it can be rather cold in January, therefore, I picked Arizona. 

All four of these universities have courses I can take and North Carolina has far most courses to choose from so I actually think NC is at the top of my list at the moment. Well I still have a few weeks to decide but I have to start email the coordinator and get the courses accepted so that I will be allowed to transfer the credits when I get back home.

I haven't really decided yet if I will leave it at that or if I will take a look at universities in Australia and Canada to, we'll see about that.

This week we talked a bit about using drama in the classroom. Drama is a big part of literature and it is different from what students might usually read. But drama is so much more that just reading plays, drama can be done is so many different ways. A webpage we found and I think is very useful is this one: http://esldrama.weebly.com/

Using drama you can teach your students how to behave in different situations, about body language, how to respond in different kind of situations and so much more. Drama is not only about Shakespeare or some other old person. I believe you have to make drama fun in order for students to appreciate it. I don't mean that you shouldn't use Shakespear I mean that you have to do something with it, make the students act it out, rewrite it, make it modern. Make your students think about what the play is actually about and let them act out a scene or two. Or use something completely different, let the students act out a debate or interview with some famous authors they have to inpersonate. Drama can be used in many different ways and we should take advantages of it and not only do what it is easy but do what can be fun!