So Much to Learn...So Little Time

Great moments with S2

My postings seem to be all about my S2 class at the moment, but they are doing such good and interesting work, with such gusto

I mentioned in recent tweet how happy I have been with them, particularly the standard of recent homework, but also the great work they've been doing in class. Due to their cooperation and sense of fun the recent series of lessons has been so enjoyable I thought I'd share them with you.

For those of you who know Métro 2 (Mod 2 Unit 4) we are looking at arranging to go out, using the conditional phrase "on pourrait". Since acquiring an IWB I've been finding an awful lot of super resources via TES Connect, but the one below is my favourite. I made a simple search using "on pourrait" as my keyword, filtering it through Modern languages. This gave me 17 different resources. I looked at 2 or 3 before I came to chocolatchaud's "Qu'est-ce qu'on pourrait faire?" PowerPoint.



What an brilliant idea...an Explosion of Ideas. Using the powerpoint I presented the idea of the "on pourrait + infintive" construction and gave each table group an A4 sheet with a photocopy of the spider diagram from slide 2. I then explained the task, emphasising that the ideas didn't have to be serious BUT they had to be in good (ok reasonable) French, and that they had to get as many as possible. On the board I put up a 15 minute countdown courtesy of e.ggtimer, and I gave them some background music ( a couple of tracks from Trans-Europe Express by Kraftwerk) which was not hugely appreciated but I kept it on anyway.

After the fifteen minutes were up the recorder's from each table went to another table and discussed and noted their ideas for 2 more minutes. On their return the groups then had to decide of their Top 5 activities.

Then I dropped the bomb...the next lesson they were going to find their perfect partner via Speed Dating. That caused no end of groans.

That evening I collated all the top 5's and drew up this table ready for the next lesson.

Speed Dating Sheet - Free Legal Forms

The lesson involved a major room reorganisiation which had the students puzzled on their arrival, but they soon got over it. Next came the tricky part of explaining what to do.

• in the column headed "moi" tick 5 fave suggestions
• put 1st partners initials in next column, ask "Qu'est-ce qu'on pourrait faire ce soir?"
• place a tick against each of partners 5 responses
• answer partners question with your 5 faves
• on signal move 1 place to the left and repeat process

At first I gave them 2 minutes using classtools.net timer, but as they got more confident we got it down to about 45 seconds per pair...serious speed dating. Here's a wee film I took whilst they were working, and as you can see each and everyone student was working away, and having a laugh along with it.



This took us almost to the end of the lesson but first they had to find their ideal partner by finding the best match from the responses gained during the exercise.

At the start of the 3rd lesson I dropped the second bomb, now they had to sit and work with their perfect partner. Cue serious groaning all around. The aim of this lesson was to introduce the idea of making excuses using "je ne veux / peux pas, parce que..." Again I resorted to TES Connect and found an excellent presentation by Cestrian to introduce the excuses. To this I added my own slide with an exemplar of the sort of dialogue I wanted them to produce. Here it was my turn to be proud of myself as I dicovered how to add sound to a ppt.



I then set them to work producing a dialogue in their pairs. This took longer than I anticipated because of various disruptions affecting the timetable, but we finally got it done.

Then we came to the culminating event...presenting the dialogues. Of course as soon as I mentioned the video camera the grumbles started. My initial idea was to have each pair do a sort of Alias Smith and Jones head-to-head, but then I had an even better idea (inspired I must say by Emma's homework). Why not get puppets to do the speaking for them.
They seemed to like this idea much better.

Here are the results:



In analysis the series of lessons took a little longer than I antcipated, but in some respects I wasn't able to control that. I really enjoyed this topic and the students have definitely had fun in the lessons. We didn't go into the grammatical explanations of "on pourrait + infinitive" but the students have used it in a question and in making a series of (ridiculous) suggestions. Most importantly they have worked with lots of other classmates and they have showed off their creativity and imagination both in thinking up strange activities and producing their dialogue.

As the implementation of Curriculum for Excellence approaches is it more of these kind of lessons we should be getting our learners to experience? Yes and no I think. On a simple physical and mental basis maintaining the kind of drive necessary for these lessons would be impossible everyday...and doing this kind of stuff everyday would render them becoming as stale as lessons in classes taught by those who have "taught the same thing successfully for the last 25 years and can't see why i should change now." However these kinds of lesson allow students to experience different kinds of learning (collaborative, direct teaching, experiential) and to allow their creative juices to flow. It also allows for something to be created at the end, i.e the film.

I'd be grateful for your thoughts.

languages, learning, edtech, lesson, french

Powered by ScribeFire.

LAFTAS

I've blogged before about the Language and Film Talent Awards promoted by CILT. Fortunately as the deadline was pushed back I got a chance to get one of my classes to produce something.
We only had effectively 2 weeks of lessons (5 periods in all) and I was at the GLOW conference for 2 of them, so the kids basically came up with the stuff on their own. Here are the videos and I warn you they are rather off the wall but interesting all the same. There are also some good ideas in there but I didn't have the time to tease them out and help the kids to develop it in their films.

What goes around comes around.

NB IT SEEMS THE EMBED FILM DOESN'T WORK, BUT THE "INTERNET ARCHIVE" LINK TAKES YOU DIRECT TO THE FILM.

I am sure each and every generation of teachers feels it is unique and faces its own problems. Ours perhaps being how to use technology to complement teaching in the classroom, or increasing levels of indiscipline. BUT as with music very little is ever new, just slightly different. Check this film from the Internet Archive to see what I mean.

Mr Grimes, an authoritarian type teacher learns how to deal better with his students and get them working for him by using what would in this day and age be termed Assessment is for Learning Techniques (ok so no traffic lighting but having student elicit answers themselves).

I came to this archive via Mr M's Video School blog, in particular his post about GLOW. Thanks Mr M. And what an ace resource this Internet Archive is. For free as well.





Technorati Tags: internetarchive, adamsutcliffe, videoschool, teaching

Powered by ScribeFire.

Ready for la rentrée

In actual fact I won't be. Still laid up with my prolapsed discs and looking like surgery (according to the chiropractor)
However never let it be said that I have stopped working. I have a great S4 French class, most of whom I have taught all through school. Just in their moment of need their favourite teacher isn't there...me that is. Due to the supply situation in the 'Shire there is no MFL teacher to fill in so they have a really nice lady who unfortunately isn't a French teacher.
Now I would dearly love to really put 2.0 tech to the test and deliver the odd lesson via my apple and the pc in my room, but this ain't possible. So in order to give a helping hand I've put together this wee presentation to assist with the prep of a folio piece. I will be posting this on the departmental resource blog along with written details.
How nice am I...more likely how frustrated at being out of the loop.

Click To Play

Technorati Tags: teaching, learning, technology, french, languages,

Powered by ScribeFire.

Non-Web Applications I use - Part 2

iMovie 06
I love this almost as much as GarageBand. Notice I have specifically mentioned the previous version of iMovie rather than the 08 one. I don't get the new one...well actually I've not spent enough time with it but it didn't leap out at me. iMovie 06 interface is simple and to my way of thinking, logical. You upload your film edit it and then export it in whatever way you choose. I had few problems a bit ago with it not transferring files properly to my usb storage drive but that seems to have been solved by an update. I enjoy mucking around with it and trying new things and this and GarageBand have released a (quite) creative part of me that I didn't know was there. I've even got some senior students using it for their drama project and they seem to find it easy enough.
As it is part of Apple's iLife suite it fits quite happily with GarageBand, iPhoto etc, so you can add garageband jingles as part of the soundtrack (same for iTunes) or you can use pictures from iPhoto.
There are all kinds of themes you can integrate into your projects but I've not investigated those as yet...one step at a time.

Uploaded with Skitch!

iPhoto
The new iPhoto is great. No longer do you have to search through your library photo by photo, your uploads are automatically sorted into date organised events. The new editing tools are also miles better than the previous version; even though I know next to nothing about photography and editing even I can make a photo look better. I really like the facility to use your photos to create things such as calendars and card etc. I created 2 fundraising calendars for the school using iPhoto and a colleague's pictures. Dead easy and they look great. As I don't have a .Mac account its not that easy to email photos direct from iPhoto. I did try out the MailPlane app but gave it up when I had to pay and went back to Thunderbird...but this is why I have a Flickr account anyway.

Uploaded with Skitch!

iShowU
iShowU is a screencast recording application. I tried out the demo version at first but wasn't all that impressed. Then I heard about Jing and tried that but I couldn't get it to record anything. So I went back to iShowU and started to muck around with the demo...lo and behold I worked it out, so I bought the full version. It seems to be relatively simple to use, but it took me some time to come out with a recording I was satisfied with. You can set the amount of screen you want to capture, and the quality of image you want (there's a huge choice and I found what I wanted through the old trial and error technique. You can record from the inbuilt computer mic or via a usb mic (recommended). Using this app I have produced a couple of tutorials for my Connecting Classrooms Partnership wiki.

Welwitschia Wiki Tutorial pt 1

Uploaded with Skitch!

iTunes
Do I really need to write about the "best digital jukebox on the planet". Create playlists, upload and browse album covers, burn your playlists and let the grace note database do the work when you import your cd's. But thats not all. Of course iTunes links with GarageBand and it is here you can store and convert your podcasts, vodcasts etc.. Then of course there's the store, a great place for music but more so a great source of free learning resources in podcasts. Finally I like to use iTunes to "impress" my registration group with my wide and eclectic taste in music...it's not worked yet though, "Who are Bad Brains?"

Uploaded with Skitch!

iWork 08 (Keynote)
iWork 08 is the new suite of presentation and spreadsheet tools from Apple. Pages is like microsoft publisher, Numbers is a spreadsheet application and Keynote is Apple's Powerpoint. I can't comment on Pages and Numbers as I haven't used them but Keynote leaves powerpoint languishing far far in the shade. It is stunning and so easy to use..the only difficulty is deciding what your presentation is about. The themes are amazing, as are the text effects and transitions. It simply looks superb. You can record your presentation and export it to post on the web or on dvd. You can import pictures, films, music, anything, because it all fits nicely with iTunes and the iLife suite. I love it, AND if necessary you can export to PDF, Flash or PowerPoint...but it just doesn't look the same.
Here's what I produced (during my enforced absence) to promote a languages-based filmmaking project.

Uploaded with Skitch!

Mousepose 2
A very cool presentational tool from Boinx. It helps you highlight the particular area of the screen you want to show by spotlighting that area and dimming the rest. The new version also includes keystroke visualisation, enabling your audience to see which keys you are pressing. You can also visualise your mouse clicks. Look at this pbwiki tutorial I made to give you some idea.

Uploaded with Skitch!

Open Office
As I didn't want to pollute (and have to pay for the privilege) my PowerBook with Microsoft stuff I decided to use Open Office as my word processing application. Put simply it is an open source office suite (as m/soft office) which includes a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation manager and a drawing programme. The WP app is very similar to other office suites and it works quite happily with M/soft Office. In other words I can write something on it at home, email it to school and open it up quite simply as a word document. It offers all the features you would expect from a WP app. (I haven't used the others in the suite.)
I do quite like it but there are times when it (or more likely me) doesn't seem to be quite the same as Word which I am much more used to using. I can't really explain how or why, because I don't really know enough about it. But for my needs it works perfectly well.

Uploaded with Skitch!

PDFPen
Not so long ago I had to download a pdf form fill it in and send it to someone (in Cameroon) via email. But you can't write on a PDF normally. So I thought I'd try this thing out. And it did indeed Smile on my Mac. It works. The form filling seemed to be a bit fiddly when I used it, but since then I have discovered how to lock the text filling tool on. Thats all I've used it for so far and I only have the demo, which leaves a not too obvious watermark on the document. In laymans (my) terms it seems to create another layer over the document on which you can then write. It served its purpose and who knows, I might need it again.

Uploaded with Skitch!

Quicktime
Probably the most readily used and available platform for content in the world. I convert all my films and podcasts to quicktime which ensures that most people can access the content.

Uploaded with Skitch!

Text Edit
When I just want to jot something down and can't be bothered opening Open Office I use Text Edit. Its a simple word processing app which lets you do quite a lot of fun stuff like importing music and film files. You can spell check, change fonts and format and create bulleted lists. Quite simple really.

Uploaded with Skitch!

Thunderbird
As i use Firefox as my browser of choice and was looking for an email client to host multiple gmail accounts I decided to try Thunderbird. No complaints so far. I've linked 3 gmail accounts to it and it works like a dream...i.e. I don't have to do anything more than click. I'm not even going to go into all the other stuff it can do because I don't understand although it has good junk protection and as it is open source it is very secure (a strange but wonderful paradox isn't it?)

Uploaded with Skitch!

Twitteriffic
My main Twitter client (I also use Twitterfox via my browser but that doesn't count for this post). I sings when a tweet comes in and there is a pretty looking blue bird in my dock. I use twitter but am not fully sure/convinced but can see its potential. I tend to use twitteriffic to advertise my latest blog posts. Oh yes its free if you are prepared to put up with 1 advert per hour otherwise I think it costs $14.95 to stay ad free...no prizes for guessing which version I have. The free one.

Uploaded with Skitch!

Well that's all folks. Hope this mini series has been a little informative and not too tedious.

Coming soon, Web Apps I've not used yet but will do soon...bet you can't wait.

Technorati Tags: twitter, twitteriffic, thunderbird, textedit, quicktime, pdfpen, openoffice, mousepose, boinx, smileonmymac, iwork08, itunes, ishowu, iphoto, imovie06

Powered by ScribeFire.

LAFTAS and Festival Pocket Films

A little while ago I blogged and posted my presentation for the LAFTAS (Language and Film Talent Awards) promoted by CILT.
In school we are using it as an opportunity for our S4's to think about the study of a language and its relevance to their future working life. I am hoping we get a whole raft of amusing, interesting films to judge.
This morning though this post cropped up in my reader from Liz Kolb's From Toy to Tool Blog. So here's a call to all creatively minded language teachers.
Enter the Festival Pocket Film. For the 4th edition of these awards the organisers have introduced an international section specifically related to producing films for viewing on mobile equipment (phones, pda's etc).
Here are some more details:

Project typology :
  All collective / participatory projects which use mobile technologies such as mobile communications terminals, small digital cameras, etc. and which result in an audiovisual presentation or diffusion of : films, news reporting, video blogs, video casts, webTV...

Examples :
  a teaching, technical or artistic workshop
  an audiovisual documentation of a particular community by its members
  the constitution of an audiovisual cooperative
  an informational relay program regarding environmental, - public health and cultural problems a participatory artistic project...

If and when I eventually get my back sorted an return to work I hope to be able to get something together for this project.

Something for A/H French

Hugo* is one of my Flickr contacts and produces wonderful examples of photo journalism. This weekend saw a demonstration in support of the homeless in Paris broken up in typical fashion by the Paris police. Hugo* was there and has produced an wonderfully human photo story, see embedded slideshow.
However this series of pictures could be used as a fantastic resource in H / AH, A'Level French when looking at the topic of homelessness or even simply protest. On the photo set's Flickr page, Hugo* has also included the article to which his photo's contributed. Every picture tells a story. Students could use individual pictures to describe emotions or use the whole show to produce their own news article. What could be more up to date and immediate than using 2 day old flikr photos.
What is wonderful is that these photos are free to use for non-commercial purposes and without alteration as long as Hugo Leglise-Bataille is credited.
Thanks Hugo*.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Photos by Hughes Leglise-Bataille

School Tube

SchoolTube now online.

Thanks to Jane Knight bringing to my (and everone who reads her) attention the existence of SchoolTube. It puports to be a safe environment for students and educators to upload videos. On initial inspection there are more appropriate categories for your videos than on TeacherTube. I am quite looking forward to using it.

An Experiment in Action Learning

The posts linked below on RateMyMates  are the result of a wee experiment with my students in 1F. Instead of using the usual direct teaching methods to cover the topic of school I asked the students to work in groups to produce either a film or a radio show.
The aim of the production was to introduce German-speaking visitors to The Gordon Schools; to give an idea about its history, the subjects studied, give some opinions, some interviews etc. The only real guideline I gave them was to use the vocabulary from their vocab guides to ensure reasonable quality German. You can see/hear the results for yourselves but here is my own analysis of how the experiment went.

1. I allowed it to go on for too long, although much of the time was down to various disruptions
2. some level of direct teaching is involved beforehand to ensure some familiarity with the labguage to be used
3. I'm not sure how much of the language they have learned
4. there are some fantastic ideas in there which with a little tweaking could produce really high quality work, both language-wise and creatively
5. once again just when you are getting brassed off and you think they are taking the mick the students come up with the goods...in general.
6. the script is king, queen, emperor and general dictator all rolled into one
7. on the whole THEY HAD A BALL..look at the bloopers at the end of the films

Will I do it again? YES, but with the above in mind.

Please leave 2 stars and a wish-type comments on their work!!!

Der_BJKKM_Shau

Die_Gordon_Schule

Ein_Tag_in_der_Gordon_Schule

The Gordon Schools Television

...now known forever as TGStv.
What do you think of the logo...just thought it up on the spot now.

So of you may be aware of my adventure into internet radio with school this last session (TGSi.) Although we didn't get as many "listeners" as I would have hoped I thought the quality of broadcast that went out was pretty high. A lot of good work was done by quite a small team. This next session I am looking at moving on from that into the realms of "TV",  or vodcasts to be more precise. I would like to produce a monthly news programme featuring two anchors and reporters reporting from various TGS events on video which then by the miracles of Garageband can simply be turned into a video podcast.
I also want my more senior students to help create resources which can be accessed by the younger ones. I have a secret yet cunning plan to produce a  kind of soap opera which will back up the vocab guides. We shall see.