So Much to Learn...So Little Time

An A-Z of Good Practice Modern Language Teaching

Advance apologies to those who came to this post thinking it will answer all questions about MFL teaching...it will maybe help with some.

Today 80+ mfl teachers had a chance to meet up at an in service event organised by Aberdeenshire Council, and facilitated by Pat Young who, amonst other things, is involved in the LTS Virtual Advisory Service. Pat is a very personable presenter who had some very good ideas, which she had used in her own classroom.
Her session, An A-Z of Good Practice in Modern Language Teaching, was on the face of it an excellent opportunity for real sharing to go on. Unfortunately the presentation lasted all day and could quite easily have fitted into a morning.
Lots of interesting ideas were looking to burst out but we didn't really get the time to discuss and share. In my eveluation I suggested that a future model, and probably less expensive one, would be to invite all ML departments in all the shire schools to come up with 3-5 examples of good practice in their department and be ready, in true TeachMeet style, to deliver a 7 min / 2 min presentation on them should their name appear on the Random Name Picker. Why?

• teachers delivering in service to teachers is far more effective as we believe it
• cost effective, only travel expenses to pay out, no consulatncy fees
• every dept would have to have something prepared
• get teachers out of comfort zone of sitting and listening to presenters drone on...you might be next.
• should provoke discussion which could be carried on online (shock horror) afterward

Anyway, if you arrived here hoping, indeed, for an A-Z of good practice below is what the day produced. In black are those I came up with at the beginning, with very little cheating, the red is what Pat suggested. (Suggestions for others would be most welcome)

I was also asked an interesting question as well. View my enthusiasm for all things technological, whether or not I still have a place for the more traditional methods of language teaching? Of course, I answered. I do enjoy using fancy stuff but there still is time for text book work etc and I only try to use the tech to enhance my teaching and kids learning...that's the intention anyway.

A-Z of Good Practice in MFL - Get more Business Documents

Pic by Paperfaireys

Free Your Mind and Your Class Will Follow - The Slidecast @iowconference08

Here's a slidecast version of the talk I gave at IOW Conference 08. I'm looking at why blogs and podcasts have a natural home in the MFL classroom.

Free Your Mind And Your Class Will Follow : Using Blogs And Podcasts In The MFL Classroom

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: iowconference08 learning)

The Isle of Wight Conference 2008

Integrating ICT into the MFL classroom:: Book now for The Isle of Wight Conference! via kwout

This years MFL feast at Nodehill Middle School, sees yours truly being asked to impart his knowledge and wisdom...

Joe's got me working hard with 2 sessions and a round table on the Saturday and one session on the Sunday. I shall firstly be examining reasons why teachers should be using blogs and podcasts in their classrooms in a session entitled Free Your Mind and Your Class Will Follow. (Those of you who like funk will maybe recognise that I have adapted a a classic Funkadelic song title here)

My other session is enttiled From Pod to Vod (no funky vibe rip off title here) and I will be looking at using Quicktime Pro to quickly edit movies and then posting them to the web using blip.tv. I am hoping to show various methods of capturing video that could all be used in class with minimal effort. If I have time I also intend to show how to create resources that kids can use on their mobile phones.

As at SLF the other week it's also going to be great fun meeting up with some colleagues I know only virtually.

IOWconference IOWconference08 joedale

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SLF, Teachmeet, CPD

I am hoping this year that I get to go to SLF (now much as I would like to see Stiff Little Fingers live again (1989, Brixton Academy), if only to hear the opening riff of Suspect Device.)

I put in my request the day we got back to school, and even before the holidays I had booked my seminars: Cabinet secretary's Address, How Online Technology is Changing CPD, and Using Cross-Curricular Activities To Deliver the $ Capacities
I've even found an old mate (via Friend's Reunited) who lives in Falkirk and will put me up.

Most importantly I am hoping to go Teach Meet for the first time, and meet up with the tons of people who I read about (and whose blogs I read).

I've also taken the (not really so) scary step of putting myself down for a presentation...a nano one just to get me going.
In it (in a Fast Show kind of way) I shall be mostly talking about using Quicktime Pro and Bluetooth to share learning resources with students via their mobile phones.

According to the Wiki there are still some things needed, like a VENUE??. wifi, projectors, grub and liquid refereshment. So on the off chance that anyone reading this feels able to contribute head on over to the wiki and make yourself known.

Flipin 'eck, what with that and doing a couple of things at Joe's Isle of Wight Languages conference in October I almost feel like Ewan...ha!ha!

teachmeet08slf, slf2008, teachmeet08, stifflittlefingers, fastshow, quicktimepro, bluetooth

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What is Glow via animoto

I'm really quite a lucky boy. Having just got back to work the boss told me I'd been picked to attend a GLOW conference at the Stirling management centre for 2 whole days. Ok it meant me getting the train at 6.20 yesterday morning, but at least I got a chance to write my reports.
Anyway this conference is about sharing people's experiences with GLOW. But you haven't used it, Adam, it's not in school yet? True, but I now have a very good idea about what it is and what it might be able to do...more later.
Yesterday afternoon we were tasked in groups to come up with an ad for GLOW. Our wee group decided to use animoto, especially having just received an educators code giving free access to make full length videos (Leave a comment with your email and I'll share it or alternatively email [email protected].)
We used screenshots from colleagues glow pages (thanks to Caroline and Theresa) plus some GLOW images from the glow team's presentations, plus some photos taken on the day (and evening.) We recorded vox pops to the question "What is Glow?" and composed some music garageband. Uploaded it all to animoto..et voila.

And here's a second version just using animoto tracks

Technorati Tags: glowscotland, animoto

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Motivating learners - Embracing New Technologies for Learning

On Saturday 19th April Aberdeenshire Council's Education, Learning and Leisure Department hosted a CPD event at Meldrum Academy, called Motivating Learners - Embracing New Technologies for Learning.
The idea behind the event was for teachers to acquaint themselves or update their knowledge of the new technologies that are available out there with the potential to enhance teaching.

I was fortunate enough to be invited to present a seminar. My focus was Blogs and Podcasts. I would have liked to be able to host a hands-on session taking teachers through the recording of a podcast, but that wasn't a possibility with the available facilities so basically I looked at reasons for both students and teachers to blog, reasons to incorporate podcasting in the classroom, some resources available to make podcasts and finally examples of podcasts / vodcasts produced by myself and/or my students.

Unfortunately due to the time limits I was unable to show the delegates who came to my presentation the examples of blogs I'd hyperlinked into my presentation. With that in mind for those who attended and any of my readers here is the pdf file.

Free Your Mind and Your Class Will Follow

Alternatively here's the slideshare embed.

| View | Upload your own

 

Blogs and Podcasts - Free Your Mind and Your Class Will Follow

A Big (belated) Boast

Looking on SCILT today I came across the evaluations for Communicate.07 and I have to say it has really made my weekend. Check out   who got 100% positive comments for his seminar. Yup! ,Yours truly. First time ever getting full marks.

ECML

Do you know who ECML is and what it does?
I didn't before I was invited to Graz  and I suspect that many of my MFL colleagues in the UK don't know about...kind of like the European Language Portfolio I guess.
 
The European Centre Modern Languages is  a member of the Council of Europe and exists to support teachers of any foreign language in their work.
Download ECMLEnglish.ppt
Their official languages are French and English (yet their base is in Graz, Austria.)

They basically do a heck of a lot of work promoting innovative language teaching stratgies of which the BLOGS project was one.

Essentially I was invited to the final workshop in the life of this project and was their as (in ECML speak) a multiplier...somebody who would go away and promote the values and ideas developed in the project.

In the previous 4 years of this project a blogging platform was developed and then put to use by teachers and pupils throughout Europe. Some put a deal more effort into it than others. It's aim was to promote and evaluate the use of blogs as a way of promoting creative writing in a foreign language.

Much of our work was to study the posts and comments and come up with examples of different types of writing. I have to say at this stage that although the presentations were of an extremely high standard I was a converted blogger before arriving so much of what was said I already knew, believed or was practising. Still it was fantastic to meet and talk to all kinds of foreign language educators and share ideas, concepts and BEER. I still can't believe I was just hanging with folks far higher up the educational food chain than I yet who wanted to listen to what I had to say.

If I have come away from the experience with one thing it is with ideas as to how to use blogs in a different way from that which I am at the moment. I am really interested in trying to develop this as a way to improve my students writing skills. I also want to get more involved in some of this stuff as I found the networking side exceedingly stimulating. It was great that as we were all from different countries with different ways of doing things everyone seemed to concentrate on the positive aspects of their work and not dwell too much on the crap as we often do when we teachers get together.

My next aim to try to take part in one of these celebrated Teach Meets...any chance of coming this far north you guys...maybe one of you will read this.

ECML Photos

Here's my photo's from ECML BLOGS Workshop

Peter Ford: Blogging to Creativity and Beyond

This is Peter's presentation at the ECML BLOGS Workshop.

Peter gave the keynote at Communicate.06 which kind of launched me on  my merry blogging way.  A couple of points I picked up on:

• if you don't like blogs don't use them. They are only a tool to be used if you so wish
• a blog is just a box you write in with buttons to click
• teachers need to take risks in order to move forward
• blogs help give students a concept of audience
• "teach not tech" - whatever blogging platform you use the software should flow into the background and not become a hindrance to creativity

I've not edited the presentation at all so theres about 10 seconds until it starts:

Download peter_ford.MP3

Download ecml_final_workshop.ppt