So Much to Learn...So Little Time

Date with the scalpel - big thanks to my students

Monday finally sees me have my date with the neurosurgeon at the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, and hopefully soon after I am going to stop hurpling around and get back to work...just in time for the Easter break with a bit of luck.

In a nice gesture one of my S2 classes made me some get well soon cards. As a retuen gesture I thought I'd return the gesture and took a picture of each card and made a slideshow with them.

I had to cringe at the "inventive" use of a dictionary to write GET WELL SOON  in French. "Bon guerison" rather than "Obtenir bien bientot". Nevermind, its the thought that counts

THANKS 2G.

Technorati Tags: operation

Audiko - ringtones

This could be a fun little application for a modern language classroom

Audiko

audiko is a simple service which helps you to make a ringtone of your favorite song!

Create kids speakings (eg verb drills, or vocabulary etc) and then transform them into ringtones. I won't go as far as saying all students would find this idea a cool addition to their mobile but it could definitely have its uses.

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!


Obviously with a service such as this there are copyright issues and students should not be encouraged to use commercially available material to upload.

Upload an audio file, and it will take you to a wave form (see below) all you have to do is slide along the wave form and find the bit of the foem you want. Easy.

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!


Click on create ringtone and it does what it says on the button. Here's one I prepared earlier using Yanick's 5x table rap. Once your ringtone has been created you can;

• download it to a computer
• download it to an iPhone
• copy a wap link into your mobile to download it directly
• or as I've done here embed it on your blog.

I'm not sure if there's a limit on the length of clip, but 30 secs is enough time to conjugate the verb "avoir" in the present tense.

The great thing about it is THERE IS NO SIGN UP SO NO IDENTITY PROBLEMS.

Technorati Tags: audiko

Easi-Speak - easy learn

TTS - Easi-Speak via kwout

How about this for a potentially superb resource for language lessons.
A bright, colourful mp3 recording device, battery powered and compatible with a pc. The uses of this in an mfl classroom are endless:

• have as many students doing speaking exercises as you have microphones
• in group work have a microphone on each island so that everyone can do the work
• strategically place the microphones all around the room when recording drills etc.

And loads more that I haven't thought of in the time its taken me to post this.

At the beginning I said it is a potentially superb resource...I wonder about the quality of recording. Most mp3 players are capable of recording voice but the actual recording quality is doubtful. I would be very interested in testing out this resource committing to buying one.

Technorati Tags: easi-speak, resources, languages

O Cameroon Cradle of Our Fathers

...or so goes the opening line of the Cameroonian National Anthem (version anglaise.)

The country of my wife and sons is currently undergoing some major upheaval. For many years Cameroon has proudly sat as a beacon of peace in the turbulent political atmosphere of west / central africa. Surrounded by the likes of Nigeria, Central African Republic, Gabon, Republic of The Congo and Equatorial Guinea. Any worldwise person will understand that each of these countries has suffered its own recent turmoils whilst Cameroon has managed to remain a relatively stable state.

Not for much longer I fear.

Now, although peaceful Cameroon has an abysmal reputation for corruption, be it from the lowest ranking police officer up to the President himself every one is on the take. If you want to get anything done you have to pay the officials extra...and yes its easy to say "I wouldn't, it's against my principles", but if you want to obtain your exit visa on time give the guy money a beer or he'll sit on it...I know from experience.

However things are beginning to get much more serious and I fear that some kind of civil war could erupt at any time. On Monday the taxi drivers and bus companies went on strike over the rise in the price of fuel (bear in mind Cameroon is an oil producing nation) and Douala (economic capital) and Yaoundé (capital) ground to a halt. Unfortunately some people decided that this would be a good time for a bit of a riot, some deaths ensued. Negociations took place and an accord was reached with minimal fuel price reductions being implemeted.

The disturbances have, however continued, this time on a far more political basis.



Paul Biya, President of Cameroon has been in power for 25 years and is now 70+ years old. In December he proclaimed his intention to change the constitution to enable him to run for President again, à la Robert Mugabe, essentially ensuring that he becomes "prèsident à vie." Cameroon is a one party democracy the RDPC (Rassemblement Democratique du Peuple Camrounais) is by far the biggest party and has essentially fixed elections there for years, essentially by buying food, or paying for voter registration cards so that people vote for them. In a typical Biyaism, he blamed the unrest on a campaign orchestrated by "apprentice sorcerers in the shadows"(????) In other words his arch nemesis, the anglophone John Fru Ndi of the SDF (Social Democratic Front.)

If these protests continue I can see a beautiful country, of wonderful people descending in anarchy and chaos. There are over 200 different ethnic groups living side by side in Cameroon. Any party wishing to come to power must appeal to as many of these groups as possible and with unrest at large this may not be possible. I do hope that the politicians are able to sit down and work this out, otherwise Cameroon will become another sad statistic of new African republics gone bad.

At time like these the politioans need to keep in mind the motto of the republic:

Paix - Travail - Patrie / Peace - Work - Fatherland.

Further reading.:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7268861.stm
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jq_Y-mQ73wgLbYgnxYa73YGfMCcw
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/world/africa/28cameroon.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSL28501881?rpc=28

Technorati Tags: cameroon

What is Education Coming To?

BBC NEWS | UK | Heads 'ignore bullied teachers' via kwout

The unfortunate and saddening thing about this is that it is entirely unsurprising.For some Headteachers it is obvious that the image of their school is far more important to them than the welfare of those who work and learn in them. There are teachers around the whole country who have to stand in front of pupils who have bullied and insulted them with no reprisal, because of a fear of how the school will look.

SURELY PARENTS NEED TO KNOW WHAT KIND OF SCHOOL THEY ARE SENDING THEIR KIDS TO EVERY DAY.  

Teachers are facing increasing pressures from all sides. From "leadership" (in speech marks because the kind of leadership that allows this to happen is not worthy of the name) to improve grades in league tables, from parents who believe a teacher is a actually a surrogate for themselves and from kids in the form of insolence and lack of respect.
Heads want their school to look good and the children to achieve. Who are facilitators of achievement? The Teachers. If assaults and insults to teachers go unpunished, you are going to get demotivated teachers and the whole thing will spiral downwards. However a strong show of leadership will give a message to the minority perpetrators of such attacks and the whole school will see the benefits.
Or I am just being naive?

On the other side of the coin, teachers suffering these kind of attacks need to be stronger. See your union rep (if indeed you are in a union.) You can't get the sack for approaching your union representatives. Follow the discipline system in school to the absolute letter.

I would like to know that now the NAHT has come out and said this, what is it going to do?

Technorati Tags: teaching, learning

Integrating Technology with Instructional Strategies - Putting The Pieces Together

The title of this post is not the kind of title I usually dive into and read about, but for some reason, and I'm jolly glad I did, I looked at this article in my reader and then clicked on the link.

Putting the Pieces Together via kwout

This link took me to what could be one of the best sites I have ever seen for resources and ideas on how to integrate technology into the classroom and ensure that it enhances student learning; surely the grail of most of us. I know for myself that it is all too easy to get excited by the latest new application without necessarily thinking thoroughly about how it could improve learning rather than simply being a fun tool.

This resource has been put together by Sherri Miller who is an Instructional Technology Resource Teacher for the Gloucester County Public Schools in Virginia, USA and is based on research into finding the teaching strategies which have the most impact on learning. (Classroom Instruction That Works, by Robert J. Marzano, Debra J. Pickering and Jane E. Pollock.)

In this research 9 strategies with highest probability of enhancing student achievement for all students in all subject areas at all grade levels" were identified. This website compiled at the behest of teachers looks at examples and templates of various technologies which could be integrated with these strategies.

This interactive chart on the site's front page identifies these strategies, all of which make perfect sense to any reflective teacher.

Putting the Pieces Together via kwout

Having only just looked at the site I'm not in a
position to review the activities here, but here are a couple of
tasters that have leaped out at me.

In each of the categories Sherri gives readers a definition of that strategy, as outlined by Marzano and cites some of the author's recommendations for classroom practice. For example the most effective instructional strategy is that of identifying similarities and differences. One of the stages in doing this is by classifying. (In MFL we use classification activities to identify parts of speech or gender from a text for example.) Examples given are from proprietary software such as Kidspiration but there are such a proliferation of flash based tools on the web now (ClassTools) that it shouldn't be much of a problem to create something similar.

Another instructional strategy is that of non-linguistic representation, in other words using imagery along with language to try to instill knowledge. (Flashcards anyone). By giving students the tools to create a representational image of what they are learning, recall becomes more effective. This is what I was trying to do in my recent post with my son trying to learn about the menstrual cycle. Miller gives lengthy examples of how to go about this.

All in all this is a superbly presented resource, and all the better for being on the web.

Thank's NCS-Tech for sharing your find and thanks to Sherri Miller for her work. Brilliant.






Technorati Tags: sherrimiller, teaching, learning, technology, robertmarzano

Fleck for website annotation.

I've forgotten where I learned about this nifty little website.

Fleck allows you to add post-its to a website and annotate them. If you have a wordpress blog you post to it directly (including annotations).

It seems really easy to use and it looks good.

Here's a link to an article about Teach First that I "flecked".




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Living and Growing in P6 (and in French) (Part deux)

Click to Play

A  short animation showing the female reproductive organs and the passage of the egg.

We made this to help Raoul understand the topic he is covering in class, Living and Growing. We made the labels in French to make sure he understands the topic, rather than adding the burden of learning the English terms.

My Top 10 Tools for Learning

Jane Hart of the Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies is in the process of compiling her latest Top 100 Tools for Learning. The first round for 2008 closes on March 31. Here's my Top 10 (well 11 actually, but it could have been more.) Click here to find out how to submit your entries. I also find Jane's e-Learning Tip of the Day extremely useful.

1. Garageband

I just love this apple application. Make music, make podcasts, make vodcasts. The world is your oyster with this. Sorry for Windows users.

2. iMovie (HD version)

Another top apple application. I prefer this version because I'm used to it. I've not tried out the O8 version because I use a G4 PowerBook and you need an Intel Mac.

3. Gmail

Best web based email by far. Although I actually use Thunderbird to actually read my mail. But with Gmail it is so easy to find "lost" messages. I've also recently learned about a really useful trick with gmail where you can create supplemental adresses by adding a + after your user name. More info here.

4. Gabcast

Great tool for podcasting by phone. Especially if you have a contract mobile with free minutes.

5. Glogster / Scrapblog

Superb mashup tools that kids could use to create e-posters. Advantage of these over paper is that you can add audio and video to your "canvas"

6. ClassTools

Brilliant resource for creating Flash exercises. The best thing is, you don't even have to know about Flash.

7. Slideshare

Great for sharing presentations. But I love the Slidecast facility where you can add an mp3 file to run with your slides. Great for vocab drilling because you can show the flashcards at the same time.

8. Twitter

I have picked up so much from Twitter since it "invaded" my life. Although it can be very distracting. Twitpic is a great way of sharing pictures via twitter.

9. Voice Thread

Not used this yet but the potential is enormous for kids to produce multimedia presentations and comment on each other's work. Very AiFL. Especially great because you can set a pro account for educators for free.

10. Voki

Greal all round resource but in particular good to encourage shy kids to speak a foreign language, because they don't have to see themselves.

I have blogged about these applications here, here and here. Oh and here and here as well.


Technorati Tags: garageband, imoviehd, janehart, gmail, gabcast, glogster, scrapblog, clastools, slideshare, twitter, voicethread, voki

Why Learning a Language is Important in Primary Years...and should continue into Secondary

I like Google Alerts. It always throws up some interesting stuff.

This one came from my "Languages" alert and is a Forbes article based on an interview with Noam Chomsky, noted linguist.
In the article he speculates that the learning of a language has a critical period for development, and that for languages this could be from birth to around puberty.

If you have learned a language by that time, you will be able to learn more languages later, but probably in a different way, and maybe by connecting it to the languages that you do know.

I'm sure most language teachers would agree with this and indeed anecdotal evidence nearly always concurs. How difficult do adults find it to acquire a second language?

From birth children seem to absorb language (mother tongue) with no need for formal lessons and the idea of language lessons has always been to try to include as much target language as possible to attempt in some way to replicate this. However as kids get older it becomes more difficult for them to absorb any new language.

This is why it is important that kids get the chance to learn a 2nd language in primary school, whilst they are still at their most receptive. It is also important that at this stage they get a chance to really enjoy a second language. In my experience most kids really do enjoy language study in the primary stages.

However, as a secondary teacher I fear that all too often we seem to slog this fun out of language study. Why? Is it because we start to get into the nitty gritty of language, i.e. grammar and it becomes boring? Is it because we often have to deal with a class in S1 where kids arrive at totally different stages in their language learning; some at zero because they have changed language and some for whom a lot of the S1 topics have already been covered in primary? Unfortunately as a common denominator we often start at the basics again.

What can we do to resolve this problem? To my mind TRANSITION becomes all important. Somehow secondary teachers need to be able to latch onto the enthusiasm of the primary school whilst still pushing the boundaries of linguistic knowledge? But how?

Could this be where emerging tech should get involved, by enhancing the creative skills of these kids? Rather than starting with a text book why not use kids prior knowledge and introduce them to the delights of podcasting to introduce themselves. Or use web resources such as glogster, scrapblog start to compile e-folios. Lets try to build on the creativity kids often get to express in primary to ensure that they remain motivated to study a language throughout secondary. AND let us encourage those who may not be naturally gifted linguists to be as creative as possible with the language that they know. Lets allow CREATIVITY and COMMUNICATION to be the by-words rather than 100% accuracy.

Photos:
"Talking at Google: Languages on the Internet" by Stephanie Booth
"transition" by SGT Butler (deployed)

Technorati Tags: primary, secondary, languagelearning, creativity, communication