This is the reflective (mostly) blog of Adam Sutcliffe, a teacher of Modern Languages at The Gordon Schools in Huntly, Aberdeenshire.
All opinions expressed in this blog are entirely my own. Any complaints should be expressed directly to the author.
Grange Hill has failed its Special Measures and is finally closing its doors. Boo hoo! For much of my generation (born late 60's) Grange Hill was our introduction to "Big" school before we even set foot inside its gates. Although I have proabaly not seen an episode since I left school, it does seem a shame that it has come to an end, although I wonder if it has the same effect on today's teenagers as it did on us (well me anyway.)
Cast your mind back and remember the trials and tribulations of Tucker, Trishia, Roland, Zammo and Benny etc. And the teachers...I personally have modelled my entire teaching practice on Mr Bronson (including his sartorial elegance.)
And what about the titles...remember the sausage???
Anyway here's some pictures to remind you of what once was.
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.
"Hello Blog. This is my first attempt at using SpinVox. Tired of using the telephone to post Blackberry to ___ to to make posts to the blog. You can also make memos and you can also blast multiple respondents. Let's see if it works."
I really like Liz Kolb's blog about using mobile phones as tools. I have been meaning to investigate the things she mentions in this post for some time. However I came to a slight impasse when I discovered that the application (Jott) for using a cell phone to post to blogs, or make memos etc as a voice call was restricted to the US.
Being a super duper researcher I googled "jott uk" and came up with the name Spinvox as a uk equivalent. So just for kicks I though I'd try it out.
First you sign in. Good news is that there are 10000 free accounts on the go at the moment so get it while its hot. When you sign up you decide on the services you want to use:
voicemail - ensures you get your voicemail messages as a text (not worth it for me, being billy-no-mates)
memo - call in things to remind yourself and they come up as an email
blog- speak direct to your blog. Say your message and up it comes
blast - send a message to multiple recipients
social networks - speak in your SN wall updates
text - speak an sms (not yet available)
messenger - something about when the phone is not available (also not yet available)
Once you are registered you get an email detailing the telephone numbers to call (from your registered mobile). It also gives you a PIN, which you can change at anytime in your account. You might have to add an email address to your mobile settings for your blog. I didn't for Typepad. To post to my blog I called the number given (normal landline BTW so useful if you have a price plan) entered my PIN and spoke. The quote at the top is pretty much what I said, except for the bit in the middle where I kind of lost my train of thought and fluffed my lines a bit.
This is the email memo I sent myself. I didn't mess this one up.
If some of the features of this service remain free I would like to see it linked in with Google Calendar or other calendar apps or even some of the other organisational applications mentioned in Liz's post.
I can imagine that the blog thing would be great on class day trips to places of interest. Kids could phone in their thoughts to their class blog.
Last week Yanick and Aicha were joined by their older brother, Raoul. They are very happy about it and the house is now a very noisy place. This was Raoul's first ever experience of snow. Unfortunately it didn't stick around long enough to go sledging. I now have my work cut out; supporting Raoul with learning English whilst maintaining his French, supporting Yanick in his excellent progress in English, whilst trying to ensure he doesn't lose his French, trying to ensure that Aicha also learns both; and then I have to go back to work in March...for a rest.
I am officially International Edublogger No. 21. My badge is at the top of the blog to prove it. I came across the International Edublogger Directory on a comment on a Student 2.0 post. Being curious I had a look and followed the instructions to add myself to this as yet relatively small directory.
Edubloggers are actively invited to submit their details for admission. At the moment for me it is another way to promote my blog. I am really hoping I will get more readers from it...how vain of me.
Flippin' 'eck. On a small scale this is the power of twitter. I posted my previous opus at 23.29. About five minutes later I then advertised it on Twitter. Then...
In this second post relating to how web 2.0 apps can help in the Foreign Languages classroom I am looking at, for want of a better term, audio resources. I have used this term loosely to include recording applications, sites to help jazz up recordings (free music and sound effects), podcatchers and even a set of rubric(s)(sp?) to help assess student produced podcasts. Again its a bit long, so please have patience and most of all I hope you find it useful.
GabCast This is a super little application for podcasting, particularly if you don't have access to a computer. Why? Well because you can cast your pod by phone. Call the access number (dependent on which country you are in) record what you want to say and that's about it. If you want to know more details about how this works and some of my ideas about how to use it in a modern languages classroom you'll have to click the player to listen to it. Once you have recorded your thoughts and had them published you can share them with the world via your blog, facebook or myspace pages by embedding the player. Gabcast! So Much to Learn...So Little Time #1
GCast Gcast is pretty much the same as Gabcast, except that there don't appear to be different access numbers dependent on where you live. It also seems you have to input a US telephone number as a security check. I used a friend's number which worked fine. Couldn't get it to work with my home phone. It give you 2 ways to create a podcast, i) by using your phone and ii) by uploading audio. Once you've done that you can add music to it by creating a playlist...just fiddle around and follow the links it makes no sense me just telling you here. Learning by doing! THIS ISN'T AN EDITING TOOL. Any way this is what I came up with by phoning in a message and then adding a song from the associate website, GarageBand.com (see below.)
Voki has had quite a lot of coverage in the edublogger world, particular with Sharon Tonner'sVoices of the World project. Basically you create your own avatar and let it speak. You can upload an audio file from your computer, record directly via a microphone, phone in a message (USA only I think) or text in what you want said.
From an MFL point of view this is a superb application. It allows students the creativity of designing their persona and it also allows them a certain level of anonymity...great for the shyer members of the class. Kids get a kick out of seeing a cartoon like figure talk with their own voice. Obviously as this is Web 2.0 you can share your Voki's either direcly via email or mobile phone, or embed them in your SN site or blog. Here's my French speaking Dubya:
vozMe is quite a nifty little tool. I transforms text into an mp 3 file that you can listen to or download. Obviously its a computerised voice, but it is still of reasonable quality. Here I copied the first couple of paragraphs about Spanish from Wikipedia and created the mp3.
Ok not strictly a web application, but this is the portable version of the very popular and super useful audacity audio editing software. By portable this is a version you can carry with you wherever you go on a flash drive. Just download it and transfer it to your pen drive (along with the Lame MP3 encoding file.) You can then quite simply use audacity on any computer, unless of course you work in a school and even as a teacher you are not trusted to upload anything onto the empty 60gb of hard drive you have available...oooppps a touch sarcastic there!
A simple way of hosting your podcasts. In the free version you get 500mb storage, but you can pay and get more. Podomatic alows you to upload your podcasts to their servers, and it then creates a feed for them to enable listeners to subscribe. Aside from hosting your podcasts on a blog style page, podomatic lets you embed episodes in your own blog. In an MFL context, this is a great way of storing students audio work, which enables the wider world to listen and comment on it. I think podcasting is one of the best things we can do in language lessons as it encourages Speaking and more importantly give the Speaking a purpose and an audience. Therefore anything which can facilitate this is most welcome.
Joe Dale uses podomatic to host his students' grammar podcasts. Here I've created a channel for my son's funky times table podcasts.
I chose this site more as an example of what could be created in podcast form, rather than a specific application. This site features downloadable audio guides to cities around the world. What I like about this site is that anyone can contribute. I therefore thought it would be a fantastic way of getting kids to use their language skills to prepare audio tours of their own area, for foreign visitors. This would also incorporate so many different skills and curriculum areas (eg history); involving planning, preparation, scriptwriting, proof reading, recording and editing. And of course providing a real purpose and audience for their work. Obviously students could just as easily upload to their guides to their own blogs, web spaces.
This is a superb site not only for podcast production but for listening to new music. All the music on the site is free to download, as long as you cite the performers appropriately according to the Creative Commons licence under which the work is registered. As we are not supposed to use copyright music from the charts to funk up podcasts, the music from this site can be used. Ok so its not chart stuff, but if you are producing a podcast to highlight the rules for French -er verbs, you wouldn't want Marylin Manson to growling away whilst you speak. Search jamendo for some nice French accordian music to set the scene.
If you check out my presidential widget in the top left of this page the track on that came from Jamendo.
Similar idea(ish) to Jamendo, but this is pretty much all instrumental stuff and all composed by the same bloke (Kevin McLeod.) There are some nice stress free tunes to add as backing to your podcasts and again they don't cost a penny, unless you want to make a donation. Again you must credit the composer somewhere or somehow in your podcast. Kevin even tells you how you should do this in the FAQ.
For those of you unlucky enough not to have a mac and and so be unable to use garageband, soundsnap is for you. It's an online library of thousands of downloadable sound effects, loops and weird noises. Most can be downloaded in either wav or mp3 format. And guess what? They're free, and they are all original. Specially recorded for the site by users. Obviously it could be a bit of a chore to find what you want but there is a tag cloud to help give you an idea. It could just be a great source of funny stingers for students to add to their podcasts. Once they are downloaded, just import them to your audio editor (eg audacity) and BOING, WHIZZ, POP you have a souped up podcast.
Now then you've done all that work and got your students hard at work producing aural masterpieces just itching to be released to a waiting world, you still have to assess them in some way shape or form. One way, if you don't have to produce any formal assessment is to get your kids to assess each other. Peer assessment. AiFL in action. However maybe you need to assess the work in some formal way. Ann Bell of University of Wisconsin drew up an assessment rubric for podcasts. Obviously this is aimed at university level students, but the ideas are there. If you wanted to use it in an official capacity I think you would have to obtain her permission as the rubric is copyright.
I want to recommend to all my readers that they read this Lindsea's post on Student 2.0, and then encourage as many students as possible to read what she has to say.
This post is a well written definition of what learning is (or should be) in this age. Many edubloggers posting on these kind of topics write in such an erudite way that I often give up and don't finish the article. Lindsea, however has written a simple piece, which whilst referencing classical thought doesn't lose it's impact. Not only does she define learning, she also has interesting views on what a teacher should be.
Our teachers become some of the most important and revered authority figures in our lives
Unfortunately I think the profession of teacher has become so eroded and so messed up by politicians over time that many students think of us as enemies, and thus of learning as a hateful process. Lindsea then goes on to differentiate between learning and thinking. If I have read it correctly learners aim to excel in passing exams and such like, whilst thinking is a far more dangerous activity. At the far extremes of this definition thinkers are often ready to die for their thoughts (eg Suffragetes to continue Lindsea's analogy.) I like to think that I try to encourage thinking in my classrooms, but am often forced to go along with the learning as dictated by the assessment system. However in my own little CREATIVELY SUBVERSIVE way I try to allow more thinking with my younger students, because I can get away with it.
This is how Lindsea belives a thinker in school should be:
“Question, think, explore and dissent at your own free will, but listen (and obey)!”
I like the idea of dissent ( I would probably have said disagree) because she has preceded it with questioning, thinking and exploring. In other words, disagree by all means but make sure you have a reason and support thererof to do so.
If in learning, a student applies critical thought and decides that that particular piece of information goes against their belief system and all ideas of truth, then I believe the student is still obligated to learn it.
This sounds a bit like the adage in Sun Tzu's Art of War, "So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will fight without danger in battles." Basically in order to disagree you must first undersatnd the opposing viewpoint. Nothing wrong in that at all.
So why do I say that teachers should have their students read this? Well, there are too many students out there who don't seem to believe that thinking is important. Words like these coming from a fellow student could have that all important influence. It could show students that they do have the right to disagree but that disagreement must come from reflection and not simple reaction. In Lindea's neo-education teachers and students embark on a journey of thinking and learning together, which still allows for students to hold their own opinions and for teachers to have their authority, promoting "learning both at it’s most basic, and most complex levels."
Learning is the process in which a person consciously takes their self farther away from ignorance. Ignorance is the lack of knowledge, the inability to understand something without guidance from an outside force.
Ok I know it's a bit political, but I couldn't think of anything else I could build into a widget. Got onto Sprout via Mashable. I've often wondered how widgets are created and this application seems to make it quite easy. You can add audio, video, images etc and the application does the rest.
I took the picture from a tshirt stencil by the Underground Action Alliance The track on the mp3 player is "The GWB Theorem" by Greg Baumont. The lyrics are a compilation of speeches by Dwight Eisenhower, Dubya himself, Orson Welles and an unknown. Very clever using the great Dubya's own words to mock him...actually it's not all that difficult is it?
Mashable still had Sprout invites last time I looked.
What do you think?
Teachers could use this application to create promotional widgets for school, class events, perhaps a countdown to a due date for an important assignment or to exam time. I'm sure there are tonnes of uses but I'll let you think of them...and then you can let me know.
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