Getting your mind right before buying your new notebooks, sharpening your pencils, and taking care of the other million things that need doing before you walk into the classroom on the first day.

Change. The only constant. Your textbook this year may be the same as last year's and the year's before, but everything else in the world around it has changed. Tony and Charles look back at almost 50 cumulative years of teaching in Japan.

Sorting out the cognitive and affective filters that the teacher and student bring to the classroom experience. The case for multiple universes in the classroom.

Language and culture - inseparable, we know. What to do when personal convictions and native cultures clash. Sorting out language instruction and cultural relativism.

Every class needs a syllabus, but what does that mean? Drudgery or useful tool?

Grades. The end of the academic year. Converting a semester or year's work to a number between zero and One hundred. What's fair? What's practical? What makes sense? Is it vacation time yet?"

Looking back at 2012: mistakes made, lessons learned, forgotten, and re-learned. As they say in Chicago, "Wait till next year."

With grading right around the corner, Tony and Charles talk about spreadsheet basics and tips.

What we say we do, what we think we do, what we do. Tony and Charles come clean. What really happens when we close that classroom door.

So what in the world is a Moodle? Different ways of using web technology in the classroom; roll your own or buy into an existing learning management system?