Who impacts whom?

November 17th is a public holiday in Czechia, the Struggle for Freedom Day. It marks the protests held on this day in 1989 which led to the Velvet Revolution. Fifty years earlier on this day, Czechs had protested the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia. Many shops and offices celebrate the day by working, business as usual.
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November 17th is also the birthdays of two friends: Jeff who set up my Versatile Moodle site about 10 years ago and Pavel who plays bassoon in the opera orchestra. Brno opera is performing Peter Grimes tonight, the first of three reprises of this stunning production which I didn’t see when it premiered a few years ago because I was working in Tashkent. I bought six tickets for my firends, so we’re in for a superb evening.

Brno's production of Peter Grimes

​Despite being a public holiday and the birthdays of friends and an opera to look forward to with other friends, the best thing about today was the first post I read this morning. One of my Tashkent students, Muborak Hazratkulova​, was so taken with SkELL and VersaText, that I always introduce in my teacher training and my books, that she submitted a proposal to present her work with these tools at TESOL in Oregon, which was accepted but she was unable to secure funding for the trip. Since then she has presented this work at two conferences.

Lubos and me in Samarkand. He was the only Czech friend who visited me there. COVID lockdown started during his visit and he had the devil's own job getting evacuated a week later.

The first was in Samarkand and she was then selected to present it again at Inha in Tashkent by the American Councils. Her message this morning began, Dear Professor, I am writing to express my heartfelt gratitude … It concludes with thanks for helping her increase her knowledge about integrating technology in the classroom which she now shares with other teachers.

At the moment, several people are piloting a new e-course I spent a month creating recently. It teaches teachers how to use VersaText when creating text-based lessons and I plan to launch it early in the new year. I will now reply to this ex-student, conference presenter and promoter of SkELL and VersaText, and invite her to be a pilot.
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PS
While uploading photos for this post, bassoonist Pavel has just texted me to say that the opera tonight is cancelled because the Swedish singer in the title role has COVID.