Today was spent adding content that has been on the regular site to the mobile site. Again just a case of striping the code and keeping each page under 10KB.

It's difficult to judge just how popular web browing using a mobile phone in Japan is. I know among the expatriate community it isn't so popular as there really isn't a great deal of English langauge content created but from a few conversations with Japanese it seems that they use their phones like we would surf the internet from a PC. The big providers Yahoo, Infoseek etc tend to rely on categories to guide users through to selected sites and it takes a lot of jumping through hoops to get listed.
I personaly use google mobile to search from my docomo mobile phone. It's also offered in a Japanese language version but I'm yet to meet any Japanese that use it!

I'm back. From where I here you ask?

Well, I picked up a form of bacterial pneumonia which saw me spend a week in hospital. Even after I was discharged it's taken a week or so to fully recover my energy levels.

Must say a big thank you to all the doctors and nurses who took care of me during my hospitalisation. I'd never really thought about my health until something like that happened...

Anyway, spent today adding the trial registration form to the mobile, or keitai, side of englishpool. Creating pages for Japan's mobile phones is a relatively easy process as there are only so many commands that can be used and each page is limited to 10KB, including images. The main work with adding mailforms is making sure that they display correctly on a range of popular handsets. Also learnt today how to force the phone set to switch input methods (Alphabet, numerical, kanji and katakana) which makes it a lot more user friendly for anybody trying to enter their details.

Must say a big thankyou to the people at this site www.imode.nl for their guide to creating an i-mode site. It's all in Dutch and a little out of date as it was intended for the first roll-ourt of i-mode in the Netherlands back in 2002. But it covers the basics.

Catch up with you soon.

Today added 2 new pages to the web-site. Both pages are in the lesson ideas section.

First page has the weather bingo instructions, graphics and instructions on it.

The second page we have the picnic basket craft and activity explained.

So if you're looking for ideas to use in your English, or eikaiwa, classes for younger learners please take a look.

I know blogs are meant to be done daily, but really, with the amount of things going on I don't just have the time.
Last week I was out at our schools in Narita and Kasai doing some staff training. It was great to be out and about and meeting the teachers and staff at these schools and doing what we do best, teaching students to use English.
Also last week we had the students newsletters to get out. Of course once the newsletter was complete the main points were then posted on the site. This month we had a brief history of Mother's Day.
As I was a little late getting a craft ready for Mother's Day (Golden Week got in the way) I though I'd remedy that with a craft based around taking a picnic. The craft includes a template for making a basket, flashcards and instructions. Click here to see the craft in full. You can also done load a printable copy of the craft.
And finally we cleaned up the mobile web-site offering a little. I'm still trying to figure out quite how people will use the mobile site and it's something I need to learn more about, but I think it has great potential.

Worked on getting a template up that would enable potential students to enquire about trial lessons at Kasai and Tsukishima. So now potential students can leave their contact details anytime of the day and we can then follow up with arrangements during the schools working hours.
I must add a big thankyou to the guys at tectite for the FormMail template and detailed installation notes and explanations. I knew I needed something that used php or cgi but couldn't find anything that was written in understandable language until I stumbled across their site (and I still have no idea what php and cgi stand for, or what they do!)
Also thanks to accessify.com for the pop-up window that works and doesn't get blocked by the pop-up blockers, again all simply explained that even a novice such as I can follow it.