Truly Amazing Childhood... in Emojis ✨

Creative writing assignment (Year 6-9): write your own story with a large collection of emoji pictures. Here is mine!

I used ☠️ my younger cousin's 👶 entire year's savings 💰to purchase a turtle 🐢. This was one 1️⃣ of my first successful 👍 live projects 📌. Then proceeded ⚙️ by the snail 🐌 community 🏘️ I built 🔨.

Next I cut out ✂️ a window 🪟 and a door 🚪from a used up ♻️ mini pack 📦 to accommodate my new friends, the ants 🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜... I learnt 💡about the trail they left when one 1️⃣ of them discovers food 🥘. I found one 1️⃣ of these invisible 🕶️ scented 👃 trails and then dropped 💧a grain of sugar 🧊, which I "breadcrumbed" 🍪 to the specially designed 🏗️ ant house 🐜🛖.

Soon afterwards my mother 👱 beat 🏏 the living day light 🌘 out of me 🤕when she found out a pigeon 🕊️ which lived in my bedroom 🛌. But I  went on 🚶another interesting adventure 🤠 to a lake ☱ 4️⃣ 5️⃣ -minute walk 👣 from the house 🏡 to catch 🪝 fish 🎣.

A red 🟥 kitten🐈 was the last 🪦 animal I kept in my room (okay 👌, apart from the 3️⃣ cute featherless birdies 🐣🐣🐣 that got me in trouble 💩 by screaming too loud 🔊 when my dad 👨 walked in, having learnt 💡the sound 🛎️ of my door 🚪means food 🥘).

I know as I began to grow up, my taste for petty creatures 👾💀🗿👻🦄 began to dim 🔅. My company began to change. I was saving to buy💲a fairly used ♻️ Sega Drive 🕹️. But my parents 🙅‍♀️🙅‍♂️ refused ⛔ to buy me any gaming consoles 🎮 because they felt they'd distract 😕 my education 🏫.

Finally, at the age of 15 I gave my turtle 🐢 out as valentines 💕 gift 🎁 to a girl 👧🏼 (a sylph 🧚 really) I absolutely loved 💘 (had a gigantic crush 💜). This became a landmark📍in my life as I began to make senseless  sacrifices (🌈, 📕, 💎,🍬,🍓,🌹,🍧, 📼,🎁,🍷 - you name it!) to her later on but the turtle 🐢 came back 🪃 to me after she became... my wife 💑❗

Ella, my wife!

What is your favourite board game to play?

Homeworlds game set for two players.

A review writing assignment (Y10-11)

Those of you who have heard me speak about 'Homeworlds' board game know that it is my beloved — an epic abstract strategy game with a proper cool mechanism. Many say that it is really good in every way, if not great and one of the best strategic and aesthetically satisfying masterpieces which adds more fun to the universe. Yet, at the same time (sigh) it is of one the most often ignored games by many. As you can see in the picture above, there is no board in Homeworlds, no rolling dice, no drawing cards, instead it is an ever-changing endless field with one and only one geometrical shape played on a tabletop.

The flow of the game itself centres around the colours and sizes of the pyramids paired with four possible actions. With its minimalistic art stripped down to its most basic geometry, the dynamic map of Homeworlds really takes the system somewhat to its limit, introducing a fairly complex and layered challenge of counter-intuitive strategic and tactical depth. Because pieces are never removed from the tabletop, the game remains hectic right until the end. It is a gamer’s game that really does rival all-time classics like Chess restricted to a limited area of 64-square grid. Whereas Chess was a game played by renaissance kings, Homeworlds is a game for starship captains, or for galactic overlords if you like, or even for... the Martian Princess. Furthermore, I have come to discover that the pyramids used in the game are akin to a computer running multiple applications at once through multi-tasking, but not to Chess pieces... Winning the game is quite similar in many ways to writing software, and in particular, the task of optimising a sub-routine with dizzying number of options has a lot in common with simplifying a set of early and mid (end)-game goals. By the way, the game of Homeworlds has a Kolmogorov complexity of 3.83! only (i.e. the ratio between the size in bytes of the shortest possible game which just fills the board and the full game). Loosely speaking, it means that just placing pyramids on the board is not as easy as it might seem.

The rules of Homeworlds are elegant and sophisticated, and somewhat Gemütlich. But even after you’ve learned them, it can take a long time to really and truly understand dynamic interactions between various game elements leading to a dramatic conclusion for one player and a clear victory for the other. The goal is to eliminate all of the ships defending your enemy's homeworld. You will have to focus on resource limits, explosions of gas giant stars, building and trading, passive aggression and outright aggression, offence and defence, overpopulation and catastrophes, gambits and sacrifice, hyperspace bypass and being frozen out, cunning moves, connections, colours, star-towing, wormholes and of course — diplomacy and bluffing skill in the games of more than two players when they might want to team up. Also, I am enjoying the extra fun you get in naming the star systems. Whenever you discover a new system, you give it a name. Sometimes people use real star names, other times they just use names they find amusing. I, for one, use Elvish names thus adding a fun little dimension to things! Clicking on this download link will open a file with 600 incredibly beautiful Elvish names which I collected many moons ago...

The theme rocks — the game box contains four weirdly beautiful trio pyramid sets in three sizes in a plethora of colours (spoiler: if you good enough to go into maths, it equals to a set of 36!). The ability to stack loony semi-transparent tangible objects mimicking binary stars is unbeatable cool to the degree that it looks like nonsense or Harry Potter's "Quidditch" to the uninitiated. Deprived of any skeuomorphic design, the brightly coloured, square-bases plastic pieces can be the essential playing tokens for literally dozens of other games. Just create combos of 2 colours for opposing sides on the board. I recommend the following mnemonics: shell (red, yellow) & ocean (blue, green), stoplight (red, green) & traffic signs (yellow, blue), chevron (blue, red) & BP (yellow, green).  Don't get me wrong, it seems somewhat sacrilegious to use pieces for The GlorIous Homeworlds for anything else, or alternatively improvise Homeworlds equipment on the cheap replacing it with cards or dice, but sometimes alternatives for the Non-Converted might have a place. That is why there are 525 known games sorted by their publication or release year! These games have appeared as professional game products of some kind. Many of these games have become classics.

https://homeworlds-live2.glitch.me/ is the link to play with me. My username is OlegAney and I lose sometimes. There is also an active fanbase for players providing access to the rules for the game, tutorials, forums and archive, sandbox for beginners (don't be embarrassed about playing with yourself at your own pace; train yourself to play a game first as one player, then as the other). Try out numerous different permutations, dig in and experiment. I for one, used to start with a Large Green ship and a Blue/Red star system but now I prefer Yellow/Blue. But there is more than learning the rules and trying to win. There is the mystique: the way to play, the set of attitudes and ideas involved.

Okay, this is where I need to stop! I've obviously been spending way too much time on this, but I'm having a great time with it and if you're into Homeworlds,  click here at https://www.dropbox to see the game rules.

And what is your favourite board game of all time? Please post your answer in comments below and big thumb up too!

My boardgamegeek review...

P.S. See also 'A translation assignment' for Y10 and Y11...

The Different Educational Approaches and the Philosophy of Freedom

      Many people across the globe have fallen in love with Harry Potter over the years. But most people, however, have not thought how the books that started this global phenomenon have impacted education. So, when reading about the Hogwarts school I observed the four different teaching philosophies displayed by J.K. Rowling which the education authority wants to sort into the varied classroom settings here in Russia, and this is not magic — it is logic in the first place.

1. Essentialism is teaching accumulated knowledge for the great and bold using core courses like maths, science and FL or fear learning, i.e., learn to fear the unified state exams (USE) which turn out to be a nightmare for students and staff alike and most hated by the parents.
2. Promoting reasoning for caring and kind: using paper and scissors to teach opposites to the Western democracies, especially to America.
3. Progressivism philosophy focuses on curiosity and real-world experience for the wise and clever that help them turn a deaf ear/blind eye to the fact that the senior party muggles deposit millions of stolen dollars outside school classes.
4. And finally, parennialism is a philosophy that does not include flexibility in the curriculum, rather is it quite rigorous in the standards promoting empathy for Voldemort, living in the power-hungry and sneaky Slythering House, Gelendzhik, Russia. 

     Each approach have produced outstanding witches and wizards. But, when subjected to this environment, kids are not able to enjoy their time spent in these classrooms since the last thing on the teacher’s mind is the philosophy of freedom… We must admit the educational authority is going to fail abysmally! That said, unlike professor Dumbledore, I have excluded all those above-mentioned weird Hogwarts enchantments from my English lessons. To put it simply, I am a die-hard Tolkien fan of Elvish singing & dancing 💚😃💚.

           ​

        All things considered, do you want to know where you stand? Take this quiz; sort of sorting hat thing (sorry for the pun). ⏩ What Hogwarts House Do I Belong In?

My Humanistic Alternative to Hangman Game

   Growing up in the USSR, a popular classroom board game was Hangman. The teacher would think of a secret word and write the number of spaces at the bottom of the board and the kids would try to guess the letters. Each time the kids guessed a letter which wasn't in the secret word, then the teacher would draw a man hanging from a gallows bit by bit. The object of the game was to guess the word before the man was hanged... It is actually pretty gruesome, and perhaps unsuitable for young learner classes.

    I don't like it. I recommend playing a better game than this which is known as "Bring the shark fin nearer"! Do you see the difference?

    You still have a secret word for the pupils to guess, but this time, a shark is getting nearer and nearer to a pupil drastically trying to swim away doing a magnificent front crawl stroke. It is easy to draw on an interactive whiteboard and the kids will love it. This will make a nice change for them and for me too.

Veronika is the 1st lucky winner, who has escaped the Megaladon teeth!

 💥💥💥

Here you can see very lucky swim spectators.

 

A Good Day in the Woods with My Son

   Well, I took my son hunting today. We didn't shoot anything, but there were some great promising signs and a nice large squirrel rubbing on a tree on the property. I think it was a fox squirrel. He was on the ground and stole a whole apple. A few good shots were illegal: one on the road and one too close to some trailers. The birds, fresh air and autumn leaves, ivylike climbing plants -- yes, I'm "hung up" on the trees!

   Disclaimer: We're against killing animals; we will never hunt for real. 

   Tony just felt like showing off the .25 cal rifle we built ten years ago. I know, it's not all tacticool but it has some reach to it. 

My Online Advice

E-learning is an incredibly powerful tool that many schools abroad have embraced following new Covid-19 cases which resulted in the lockout. But here in Russia, remote learning without quality platforms is becoming less personal, less engaging, and less effective. It is solely dependent on  school teacher enthusiasm and usually involves primitive correspondence courses wherein the student corresponds with his teacher via e-mail.

But, let’s take a look at some of the advantages of e-learning; let's imagine that we are working with an ideal distance learning system. Then what our e-learning - now with Smolensk connection - would be like if we were using such awesome platforms?

Also, I will talk about phrases  and concepts rendered in English which teachers of English as a foreign language can find useful when speaking about remote learning environment.

Point 1. Excellent online advice team.

Often your students need reassurance and lots of conversations to explore the option of online learning; how validated and valued the course is.

Point 2. Fantastic tutors and course leader.

Need enthusiasm, professionalism and knowledge during these challenging times? Look no further!

Point 3. All programmes are 100% online.

Basically, you choose the programme you want, enrol and enjoy access. You take classes at a time that works for you.

Point 4. A wide range of online learning platform activities.

Online tasks must engage the whole spectrum of learners; to be accessible and well-explained.

Point 5. Well thought out modules.

The material for study should give a great deal of flexibility to the student; lead to a more thorough understanding of educational issues, be very formative in their range and depth.

Point 6. Quick Delivery Of Lessons

As compared to traditional classroom teaching method, this mode has relatively quick delivery cycles. This indicates that the time required to learn is reduced to 25-60% of what is required in traditional learning.

Point 7. Access To Updated Content

A prime benefit of learning online is that it makes sure that you are in synchronisation with modern learners. This enables the learner to access updated content whenever they want it.

Point 8.  A vibrant online community.

You can study in your own home and this is convenient. But it can also be a little lonely. So you need a community, where you can collaborate with others on the course and even engage in online debate.

Conclusion

Due to the wide set of benefits it gives to pupils, e-learning may become quite popular and appreciated among students and teachers. But very often there are numerous important drawbacks to e-learning, which we have been experiencing for this month of coronavirus lockout.

Podcast download link ⏬

Declassifying Coronavirus Lockout

(Educational Approach)

Word of Experience

Teens like the funnies. Everyone used to have their own favourite but Covid-19 mass hysteria has become a hit getting joy de vivre out of students' heads. It is this aspect of miscalibrated Coronavirus that makes today's comics valuable as a training tool and a method of coping with stress and fear.

     Effective training is no laughing matter – but it could be if you do not subscribe to the social media hysteria peddled by the country's political elite. Just open the Sunday paper to the funny page and grab a pair of scissors...

     So, if you like the idea of using comics for learning, the resources to do so are right at your own ink-stained fingertips, which are hives of nastiness and are home to various types of bacteria, fungus, and yeast - pandemically speaking, of course!

     Time: 15 - 30 minutes depending on variation chosen.

     Materials:  several dozen colour comic strips from the Sunday paper.

     Variations: 

1. Spread a few dozen comics on a desk and invite pupils to read them with a metaphorical eye. What aspects of the characters or stories relate to the topic you are teaching? Are there parallel connections or opposite views that point out contrasts and contradictions? If someone were to write a sequel to a particular comic, what would it be? 
2. Change the Equation. Take one of the comics and re-purpose it for your own use. Change the dialogue to tell a story or make a point that's relevant to you.
3. Instead of comic strips, try using screenshots from debunked RT television network fakes... 
4. Get Creative! Distribute comic strips with the words blacked out. Ask partners to write dialogue for the comic characters so the strip illustrates a key learning point.

* * *

Word of Innocence

Rescued from the shelves of linguistic oblivion, 'decrassify' is a wonderful old word you are probably meeting for the first time. Decrassify is the act of removing what is unrefined, unsophisticated, or unintelligent in something...

I still wonder what the world would be like if we simply had more people who cared about us and fewer people who controlled us. So face-time with family, greet the teacher across the street with a cheery wave, celebrate your Faith, celebrate your hopes and wishes for the world and for each other. We need a bit of good news to look forward to, for a change.