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)

Boys and Languages

After a month into the new timetable I can say that I am very happy with my S3 German class.

Through a mixture of timetabling and us sorting out classes it so happened that a class of boys sprang out of nowhere. It wasn't planned as some great educational experiment, it has just happened. And I'm really enjoying the class at the moment.

It is a mixed ability class with and a wide range thereof. Some of the boys like contributing voluntarily, but some will only do so when asked. They enter the class and get ready and they get down to work quickly. There is a real workng atmosphere in the class. One boy's mum who I know quite well said that her son is really enjoying the class because there are no girls to distract them... I'm not saying this is a reason for separating the sexes but it does make you think.

Anway we had a lot of fun this morning sending my vocab podcast to phones via bluetooth (shhh don't tell the Rector), mainly laughing at some of the names they have given their phones (I H8 fish, Ginger 4ever or Caravan of Tinkies!!!!!).
We then worked on some basic "at the doctors" dialogues with a view to having the boys perform.

Not one of them whinged when I brought out the video camera and set up the "doctor's surgery". Every pair wanted to have a go. They all really enjoyed themselves. Particular congratulations to Martyn who through the magic of television performed his role play on his own.

Here are the results.



As an addendum, i noticed that José has been writing about similar experinces with his class of boys...although his was far more planned than mine. But I feel we are experiencing similar results.

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Blogging CPD

After promising to do so for ages, I am hopefully going to do a bit of CPD with some colleagues this lunchtime. The topic: Blogs, and how to start one using typepad

I have put together a presentation in keynote (which now looks rubbish in ppt but oh well) and I also sent it to garageband and added some music so there's 2 versions.

During the session (only the first in a small series I hope) my colleagues will have the opportunity to set up their own blog under the school's account.  So fingers crossed that there will be someone there.

Click To Play

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BACK to the Chalkface

After a long 4 and a half months off work...half of it due to needless waiting around thank you very much NHS Grampian, I'm back to work tomorrow. I'm still not 100% but needs must. This time off has given me quite a lot of time to think and I'm returning with a few ideas in mind.

• I am not going to spend every lunchtime doing "something" as I have for last 4 years. I will give up 1 per week, the rest are mine.
• Having experienced the benefit of timely communication from my son's teacher I have decided to be more proactive in communicating with parents, particularly for something positive
• I am going to get some students blogging
• Encourage creativity and reflection

Lets see how it turns out.

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

Web 2.0 Apps and their Use in the MFL Classroom...mashups

Following on from a couple of previous posts regarding web applications and non-web applications I have used in the class, I set out on a little bit of personal research to have a look at some of the new web apps and see how they could be used in an MFL classroom (filters permitting) or to aid language learning. Regular readers will have seen the recent posts about specific language learning resources. These post and others to follow deal with applications which don't necessarily have a language learning purpose but can be adapted for this purpose.

In this post I want to deal with what I've termed mashups, for want of a better word. They permit the user to manipulate text, images, audio and even video.

Glogster:

Glogster's tag line is "poster yourself". And it is simply that. You create a poster including pictures, text, video etc. I think this would be superb for language learners. Students could create e-posters about themselves, celebrities, their town etc. They can show off their writing in a foreign language, or they could record themselves speaking the language on their phone/mp3 player and upload it. They could even make a wee video and upload it. In one piece of work students could present both their Speaking and Writing skills whilst at the same time showing of their creative skills.
Obviously, knowing the kind of networks we all work with in schools it may not be possible to use in school, and if possible it would probably need some preparation beforehand. Students would possibly have to load pictures/audio/video onto a pen drive  at home. I think though that it is at home that this would be great for learners to sink their teeth into. Once their glog is created they can then either embed it in a class blog or email the link to their teacher.
Here's one I did earlier.

Le Glog de Monsieur S.

Scrapblog:

Scrapblog is similar to Glogster in many ways, in that you can add photos and videos etc. It differs in one obvious way, and the clue is in its name, scrap...blog. It's the e-version of a scrapbook. That is you can create multiple pages, add a sountrack to the project and even add Ken Burns Effect to your pages.

I think this application would be a great way for students to write about and create a pictorial representation of a holiday experience, say a school trip to France etc. In my example I thought about the topic of school and how I could represent that. Obviously mine is a quick version just to have a look through (which is why the embedded video has nothing to do with our school) but there are definite
possibilities. This is more of a long term project though.

Update: Scrapblog can also be used to tell a story. Why not adapt a fairy tale in a foreign language and jazz it up with photos?

Mixbook:

This app is essentially photo based, but text can be added. Again this is great for writing and showing an account of a trip and such like. What I do like about it is the fact that you can collaborate with friends. So a group of students could work on a project of some kind away from school, and not have to be together. Even better, if a student (or class) has a penpal a mixbook of images and writing comparing and contrasting each others' lives etc. A way for both (sets of) students to practise their language skills whilst ensuring they understand each other.

  View this book full size or get a printed copy at Mixbook

Technorati Tags: mfl, languagelearning, web2.0, learning, teaching

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Pr(o)of of the Pudding...

I was going to call this post "A Negative View of the Web by Academia", but then I read on and around my subject and this is what I found. This is how an article from Mashable starts:

University Of Brighton Professor Places Ban On Google And Wikipedia

January 13, 2008 — 08:06 AM PST — by Paul Glazowski — Share This

So I read on and find out that a university professor at the University of Brighton has banned her students from using these tools for their research because " professor Tara Brabazon claims that students have grown too accustomed to taking

“the easy option when asked to do research.” "

And that is it with regard to direct quotes from the original source of the article. This Mashable piece goes on to decry academics, particularly in the fields of history, literature, science etc as almost Luddite in their fear of new technology. Apparently these educators fear the Chaos and will revert back to the "officially approved" doctrine.

Now, because this article interested me it almost prompted me to write a rant, but I thought ,"No, I'd better get more info," so I clicked the hyperlink shown in the picture below.

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This took me to this headline from The Argus: Lecturer bans students from using Google and Wikipedia.
This article starts off in a similar vein until we get to the quotes from Professor Tara Brabazon:

"Too many students don't use their own brains enough. We need to bring back the important values of research and analysis."

She said young people were finishing education with shallow ideas and
needed to learn interpretative skills before starting to use technology.

The article goes on to explain that Professor Brabazon is giving a lecture locally entitled, Google is White Bread for the Masses.

Now it is obvious that Prof. Brabazon does not particularly like her students using these tools for their research but I feel that her main bugbear is that students are using them, and them alone as their research. To my mind she trying to encourage a sense of academic rigour into her students, who seem to believe the first Google find or Wikipedia page they see. She is trying to get her students to go beyond those original sources.

I then went on to (ironically) google Prof Brabazon. Very interesting to say the least what she lectures on:

Tara Brabazon is Professor of Media at the University of Brighton, United Kingdom.

Not only is she no Luddite she lectures on subjects such as "Thinking Pop and Creative Industries". She also holds a Graduate Diploma in Internet Studies and has written 10 books, including The University of Google:  Education in a (post) information age.

Google is a
brand name that has transformed into a verb for web searching.  The
word has also entered popular culture.  But an absence in this
narrative of commercial success is the impact of Google on education.
Googling signals simple and intuitive surfing, rather than planned
researching, and quick answers to difficult questions.  The costs and
consequences of students entering this digital shopping mall for
research, scholarship and interpretation require attention.

Interesting eh? Obviously this professor knows a heck of a lot more about this than you would have believed from the first article.

This is what I had to do to write this post. And this is what Prof Brabazon is trying to get her students to do(ish). If I'd have simply written a commentary on the mashable article I would only have seen half the story, whereas by finding the original article and looking up the person concerned I got the whole story.
And I'm rather pleased with myself about that.

Did you like the title???

Technorati Tags: tarabrabazon, adamsutcliffe, google, mashable, wikipedia, research, universityofbrighton

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What Kind of Teacher are You?

Are you this kind of teacher?

Or are you this kind?

Images courtesy of Alec Couros from his Doctoral Thesis, Examining The Open Movement: Possiblities and Implications for Education, and were originally uploaded to Flickr by Alec. 
Thanks to Mr W. for bringing them to my attention.

May I be so bold as to suggest that if you are reading this you are probably a networked teacher, or on the way to becoming one. I find myself more and more a networked type and I have to say it suits me down to the ground. I have never thought so much about my job (vocation?) ever, and have never had so much contact with fellows world wide; at this particular point in my life when due to my ruptured discs I am not in my "Typical Teacher Network" it is really quite comforting and stopping me wallowing in too much of my own pity.
For example I was ironing a few clothes on Sunday ( I can still do a bit of work) with Twitteriffic chirruping in the background and Ewan wanted some contributions for a piece he was in the course of writing. I had a few thoughts and so did a few of our mutual followers. You never know I might vaguely recognise something he writes in The Economist.
Yesterday I caught a tweet from Lucy Gray asking for examples of presentations showing good practice in Global Ed. I sent her a link to one I did for our Welwitschia Partnership...lo and behold I discovered she has set up a whole network dedicated to Global Education.Fantastic.
One BUT though. I put out a tweet for any GLOW monitors to ask about their role. Nary a tickle. Glass half full version, non of them are online tonight. Glass half empty version...they don't know about Twitter...oh dear, better not utter my true thoughts.

All hail the network.

Technorati Tags: Aleccouros, networkedteacher, network, adamsutcliffe,

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Non-Web Applications I Use - Part 1

This is going to be a biggie. Please have patience. (This also my first use of ScribeFire)

I've been meaning to do this for a while, as a follow up to the post I did back in October about web tools that I've used. The purpose of this post is to look at the computer based apps I use day to day or in putting together special projects. Unfortunately for you PC users I use a MAC so most of them are mac-based, however I'm sure there are PC versions of some things.

So here we go. To make it easier for me I'm just going to list in alphabetical order, as I go through the applications menu.

Audacity
A great, FREE audio editor. You can record directly to it via your computer (use internal or external mic), voice music whatever you want. You can also import audio files from other sources such mp3 recorders etc. Once your sound file is in the editor you can cut, paste copy etc until you have the sound file you want. You can also import copyright free music from various websites (google podsafe audio and see what it comes up with. Now to export your file as mp3 (the most commonly used and recognised form of audio compression) you also have to download and add a Lame 3 encoder. You only have to do this once and instructions come with the download. Click here for features, here for screenshots and here for tutorials. If you use a variety of different computers there is also a portable version which you can download to your usb drive and use on any computer. Here is the mac version.

My aim is ensure that at least one suite of the new pcs in school has Audacity uploaded to enable the students to use it in school. Asked for it ages ago, but we only have one technician and then I've not been there.

Audio hijack
Does what it says on the tin, records to record any audio on your mac. If your macine can play it, audio hijack can record it. With the pro version you can create podcasts containing music clips and skype / iChat recordings. You can record your vinyl or cassettes and have the recordings sent direct to iTunes. You can even record from multiple sources. As yet I have only used this once to record a skype chat with Joe Dale. The sound quality seemed fine. I think though that I would like to investigate the pro version further, I wonder whether it can't be used to record input from multiple microphones, then I could use it to record conversations with more than 2-3 voices and upload to garageband to edit.

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Disc Label
Lets you produce labels, covers, case inserts for cds and dvds that look seriously professional. It can import track lists and track info onto your design. You can use pictures from iPhoto and it is LightScribe compatible. Used it to produce  cover for the fundraising DVD I produced towards end of term, for the schools chosen charity, Spinal Injuries Scotland.

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(Photo copyright Slacker)

DVD Player
It plays  DVD's!

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Griffin Final Vinyl

A piece of software that comes with Griffin's iMic. The iMic is a usb audio adapter that allows you to connect your mac or pc to any sound input device. Along with Final Vinyl this device allows you to convert your vinyl and cassettes into mp3 files. Compatible with GarageBand, iMovie and Final Cut Pro. This could be useful to back up some of the older cassette based resources we have in the department.

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GarageBand

I love GarageBand. It is so easy to use and yet so powerful and great fun, and that's just the podcasting element to it. I've not even made a serious exploration of the music-making side. I've made podcasts, vodcasts, enhanced podcasts, imported from iMovie etc etc.  Well what is it. Its a recording studio on your mac. If you are so inclined you can record your own music by linking real or software instruments (as I say I haven't gone into this yet). With the newest version,'08, there is the Magic GarageBand function which can help you get started. (Here's one I did for a film I made about Huntly Cricket Club).
I really do enjoy being creative with this application. I like the recording process, the way it handles, how you can add images to reflect part of an audio recording (enhanced podcast) and I'm just beginning to discover all the effects and fun things to do with each track. What I love most of all are the included loops, sounds and melodies (all without copyright) contained in the package. I enjoy trying to find the right piece of music to fit the mood. All in all its my favourite toy. Tons better than audacity. Apparently the closest windows app would be mixcraft.

       

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I can Animate
THE animation tool for Mac. Used mainly for stop motion animation (think Wallace and Gromit). You can capture from a digital video camera or a web cam. Clips can be exported to iMovie. You can create animations by drawing within the app and you can also make time lapse films. I've tried stop-motion and time lapse, both of which are time consuming but still fun. Before using I Can Animate I tried a couple of other similar apps (iStopMotion and Frame Thief)
Both of these were fine to use but I Can Animate just felt more instinctive (and I didn't have to pay for a full version..ha!)
Tell me what you think:
Swordfight (Frame Thief)
Murder Most Fowl (iStopMotion)
But my favourite is this one
Yanick Gets His Hair Done (I Can Animate)

I would like to use this in class but the time it requires I just don't have. It's something I'd like to get kids to look into doing at home to get them creating something to which they can add some French. I had thought about an animated pencil case.

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iDVD
When I first got my own pc one of the things I wanted to was transfer stuff from mini dv cassette to dvd. It seemed as if I had to download and mash up all kinds of different apps (either that or I was just daft and didn't understand what I was doing) and it just didn't come together. Then I got the PowerBook from school...
iDVD segues so seamlessly with all the other iLife applications that even one with my lack of nouse got it. Making a dvd is so easy with iDVD. It has some lovely themes, especially the new ones, which sing and dance and make everything look professional.
You can put together a dvd from scratch by choosing everything from themes down to the buttons, you can make a Magic iDVD where you just choose your theme and add your desired media or you can create a dvd direct from your digital video camera and the application does everything for you.
My one gripe with iDVD is that it seems to take an age to swap between themes and options. The new version is better and it now tells you how long your project will take to encode (a long process.) At the end of the burning you also have the option to burn another disc without having to encode it all again.

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