So Much to Learn...So Little Time

Ma Famille et Moi

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A TGS Modern Languages Department French Vocablary Guide Podcast for S1.

This podcast will help you talk about your family; family members, pets, your nationality etc

Download Ma Famille et Moi  (M4v video version)

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Download Ma Famille et Moi (mp3 version audio only)

A Snowy Day in Huntly

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Never let it be said we passed up the oppotunity of a snow day to get out and enjoy it.

Schools closed, work finished...LET'S GO SLEDGING

A First for the 'Shire

Well done Aberdeenshire. The first authority to allow parents access to Glow.

Aberdeenshire Council - News Release: Aberdeenshire parents first to use national school intranet via kwout

Pssst, kids haven't seen it yet!!!!!!!!!!

Cleese, Creativity and Classrooms

John Cleese provides a ten-minute insight into what many of us know already, but fail to acknowledge:

1. We do not know where we get our ideas from (but we do know we don't get them from our laptops).
2. Sleeping on an idea can help make its reappearance later so much better.
3. Ticking things off and keeping all the balls in the air means you will not have any creative ideas.
4. In our frenzied connected world we need to make some time to make some mood for creativity: a tortoise cocoon from which we can check it's safe to come out into a self-created oasis in our lives.
5. We need to set aside time and place where interruptions are not allowed - we need to create boundaries of space with a starting time and a finish time, separate from ordinary life, and only then creating a space and place where we can play.
6. The problem with some teachers is that they may not know that they are not very creative, and therefore they may not value creativity even if they can recognise it.
7. If those in charge are egotistical and wish to claim credit for the work of others, then they shall directly or indirectly discourage others from being creative.

In keeping with Ewan's post here's how I reckon I match up to these insights:

1. No I don't know where I get my ideas from, but they usually occur after some form of thought process around and about it, and then voilà
2. This is a deffo. Works 100% for me, the more sleeps on an idea the better. I am going to show my cert classes this to encourage them to plan their work well ahead and to think and sleep on it, BECAUSE IT WORKS.
3. I am crap at making lists and Getting Things Done, but in my own haphazard way stuff does get finished. I get frustrated by my general lack of organistion but the thought of reading some self-help book to help me get organised fills me with horror.
4. If I need to do anything (on the computer) I turn off Twitter. Although I quite like it, it is the biggest disruptive influence (apart from the kids) to my attempts at being creative.
5. Oh yes, BUT in some situations this can be nigh on impossible. I usually get half an hour of quiet having put the kids to bed before my wife returns from work.

These next 2 are big ones:

6. This is unfortunately very true. We all know colleagues who have been doing the same thing every year, at the the same time, with barely a change (perhaps the worksheets are now photocopied rather than Bandaed.) But it isn't just teachers, many of those above us have a tendency to either simply be less creative or they have a creativity bypass once they install themselves in an office. Too much education management is REACTIVE, which by its nature is totally uncreative because you are reacting to events which have already happened. To be PROACTIVE is to be creative; you must refelect on what could occur and create scenarios to deal with it. 

7. How true is this? The minions do all the work but the bosses claim all the credit. Now they could claim a sort of creativity in that they may have been the ones who identified your talent, but when it comes down to it they are using your talent to their own gains, whci puts you off. Everyone in this big old world likes praise and recognition for their work. Not just the usual generalisation of "I know how hard all you are all working..." but genuine thanks, like coming to you and saying, "Thanks, Adam, for that Animoto you did for my presentation. It went down a treat."

What do you think?

A Curriculum for Excellence...

When A Curriculum for Excellence was announced in Scotland I thought that it sounded like the best move forward ever taken by national education system...in my experience at any rate.

The idea that teachers may once again regain some independence of thought and be freed from the restrictions of teaching to examinations was exciting. Obviously such a step change (you hear that phrase all the time but what does it actually mean) momentous revamp of a curriculum would take long hard work, massive interagency negociation and huge amounts of goodwill on all sides.

As we approach the advent of it's installation slowly but surely those in charge of education are beginning to show their hand. For instance, my local authority has drawn up its own version of a Curriculum framework which reflects much of what has been said in the documentation surrounding ACfE. In many ways it also conveniently ignores some of the principles stated in Building the Curriculum 3, such as the importance of discrete subjects in the Secondary curriculum.When A Curriculum for Excellence was announced in Scotland I thought that it sounded like the best move forward ever taken by national education system...in my experience at any rate.

The idea that teachers may once again regain some independence of thought and be freed from the restrictions of teaching to examinations was exciting. Obviously such a step change (you hear that phrase all the time but what does it actually mean) momentous revamp of a curriculum would take long hard work, massive interagency negociation and huge amounts of goodwill on all sides.

As we approach the advent of it's implementation slowly but surely those in charge of education are beginning to show their hand. For instance, my local authority has drawn up its own version of a Curriculum framework which reflects much of what has been said in the documentation surrounding ACfE. In many ways it also conveniently ignores some of the principles stated in Building the Curriculum 3, such as the importance of discrete subjects in the Secondary curriculum.

Many of these ideas/desires are going to require a large time commitment (outside of the classroom) to enable them to be implemented. What is the one thing the money set aside for ACfE will not pay for...time. To cap it all my establishment is officially over staffed and the authority has told all schools that they must staff to formula...period (or should that be full stop.)

In a nutshell next session we are going to be extremely tightly staffed, the workload is (probably) going to increase as ACfE sets in (although I for one don't believe that it has to...but that's another post) and nothing concrete and CREATIVE  will get done PROPERLY.

UNLESS teachers take charge.......

Le crunch de crèdit

As someone who is essentially rubbish with his money these 2 latest videos from commoncraft are brilliant.
How effective would they be at explaining these potentially complex issues to kids in school...very I would say.
OK so they lean to the American market but the concepts being explained are the same the world over.

Nice one commoncraft.

Blast from the Past

I was having a rot through a box of CD's that I haven't listened to in years the other day, and I came across one that a mate had done for me containing a bunch of songs we had recorded with him and his brother in their bedroom when we were 16/17, so 1984ish.
Back then I used to play bass and played in loads of groups, this one never gigged outside of a bedroom but we still had a name (The Frogsisters????, I bet it was a good idea at the time.)
Anyway here was one of our least embarrassing attempts, credit to Nick Roughley for the song by the way:

New Year, New Term...New Decisions

This year I have decided to buck the usual trend of fellow edubloggers, by expounding on the great things I want to do in my class. I am going to turn my gaze homeward:

• I am not going to do zillions of hours of CPD nor am I going to offer my services to school on such a regular basis
• I am going to spend a lot more time helping my own kids develop. My eldest is starting secondary in August and with only 18 months of English under his has a lot of work to do to be at a stage where he is not going to find his new surroundings difficult. My youngest will be starting primary and I want to help her to start to read before she goes. I would like to teach help the boys learn how to type (and maybe learn myself) and help them to use all the fun stuff I do on a computer.

So sorry school and authority, I will do that what is required of me but for once very little more...possibly

Image: Keyboard Blur by striatic

Mrs Van Der Tramp Verbs - Learning Resources by S2

For what seems like an age now my S2 French class have been attempting to beat the passé composé into submission. We always do at around this time of year ans some students / classes have more success than others.
This year has been a little different as I've made extensive use of self produced and "nicked" resources for my smartboard. (By nicked I mean downloaded from places like TES Resources and Teacher Resource Exchange.)

I have also been desperate to test the creativity of the class.

With this in mind I set them the task of producing learning resources to help others learn the MRS VAN DER TRAMP verbs (for those non-linguists Mrs Van Der Tramp is a mnemonic which helps learn the verbs which take être as the auxiliary in the passé composé). I was inspired by this video I came across on YouTube.

I set out the basics of what I wanted which amounted to the production of a digital resource to teach the Mrs Van Der Tramp verbs. I took quite a lot of time talking about creative commons for images and music and gave them some websites they could use to obtain the aforementioned (creative commons search, jamendo, garageband.)

I also made some suggestions as to useful websites; animoto, goanimate being the main ones. I then left it up to them.

The results can be seen over at RateMyMates along with my commentary on their productions. Please, please, please pay them a visit and leave a comment. The work they have put in deserves it. I am so impressed with their creativity and imagination. (One of the boys who produced the Catcow film has gone on to make another 30+ films on Goanimate.
Obviously there would have to be a few tweaks to be made regarding accuracy and structure of some of the products but the important basics are there.

Go on have a look.

Here they are anyway (I forgot I had already preposted them a couple of days ago???):

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SWIM Talks

A couple of weeks ago I set my Higher French class a task: they were to do a presentation in front of the rest of the class on a topic of their own choosing.

My inspiration for this came from the TED talks, especially Sir Ken Robinson's take on education.
Hence the catchy(?) name for the series of talks, SWIM (Stuff What Interests Me), clever eh?

My reasons were manyfold but essentially I wanted to put my students in a controlled yet stressful situation where they were speaking French, as in their speaking test. BUT I didn't just want to limit their talk to topics from the Higher programme. I thought they might deal with it better if they were speaking about something which actually interests them.

Here's a link to the task sheet I gave them: SWIM Talks

And here are the first two talks from Andrew and Deborah.