[This is a little introduction to one of the people whose pictures is on the right, Sandy Millin, If you would like to read about Kevin Stein click here, or about the pictures in general click here. ]
I honestly can’t tell you how or when I first encountered Sandy online or her blog. I can only guess it was during an ELT chat. Whatever the story is behind my meeting Sandy, her presence, tweets and blog have been a reassuring comfortable and safe element online.
Which Blog
I guess I need to clarify before I go any further which blog I am talking about as Sandy has several! Sandy Millin, almost infinite elt ideas, and Independent English.
I’ve talked about why you should have infinite ideas before, and Independent English is focused more at students than teachers (although I have certainly found out about some great resources, and how to use them, from it.) As such, I’m going to focus on her main personal reflective blog. Although, you should definitely check out the other two.
Unlike Kevin’s more narrative style of blogging Sandy’s tends to be more details, and provides some suggested activities or resources for teachers to use. That’s not to say either is better than another or that Sandy doesn’t provided narrative details, it’s just a general difference.
I’ve never seen one of Sandy’s lesson but I can only assume that if they are half as good as her blog posts, they’d be amazing. The amount of material she produces in walk through form (with extra resources, such as screencast). All this whilst keeping up a regular teaching timetable.
Technological and non-technological resources
Although Sandy has a good selection of posts on technology and using the wealth of resources available on the technical side: such as IWB, Powerpoint, or the brilliant post on getting your students to use internet resources. She also has technology bare activities using pens, noughts and crosses or on revamping writings.
All this shows that Sandy doesn’t use computers and the internet for novelties sake but for actual useful language opportunities.
On top of that Sandy is also very generous in providing space for guest posts on her blog and has featured a number of people who don’t have their own blog. Her generosity continues to show in her posts linking to other resources teachers have put together.
If you still aren’t convinced why you should check out and follow Sandy’s blog then I’ll let the statistics do the talking. She has 229 email followers on her blog and 1493 twitter followers.
P.S. There is one final reason I choose Sandy. On a very personal level she has sent me messages encouraging me both professionally and personally. She is one of the twitterati I would and certainly hope to meet face to face.
