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.
So the gaming in education craze is hitting languages. Now I am not a fan of gaming per se. For one I am utterly useless and secondly the word gaming brings up images of those killing and car jacking games that all my students talk about. BUT I am prepared to open my mind and think about the uses of appropriate games to aid in the teaching and learning of languages. Having watched Derek Robertson of LTScotland on the BBC (thanks to Ewan's handy recording) I was rather impressed by the work that is going on via Consularium.
On first thoughts something like this could be an excellent way of acquiring vocab, especially if you could set the game to work on vocab pertaining to a specific topic. I wouldn't be averse to trying out this kind of thing for say 5-10 minutes at the beginning of each lesson or every other lesson. Plus it appears the games are being developed with Berlitz, therefore there will be some serious language learning content...I would hope.
Now don't get me wrong, I am not advocating that this kind of approach should over take teacher based language teaching, but it could be an enjoyable yet useful addition to a teachers tool box. (Nightmare for security though...count them in and count them back...)
Virgin and Berlitz are planning a series of games (going under the title of Mind Your Language with Spanish and English being the first releases (due this summer) and French, German and Japanese to follow in autumn.
It will be interesting to see whether these games have a similar sort of impact on the general populace as the Brain Training games have had.
By the way if you get to read this Derek, I'd be prepared to trial these games in my class if you wanted to set up a project...
A long time ago, deep in the mists of time, before my back decided to give up the ghost I set my S2 German class a task to produce podcasts in which they would explain the finer points of a particular grammar item. The idea was that the podcast (or Grammcast as I have termed them) would help fellow German learners grasp that point.
Due to my recent incapacity this never got finished, until now. This week I have recorded these Grammcasts and am going to post them on RateMyMates for the kids to assess them.
I recorded them without checking the scripts for accuracy, mainly because I have plans for the class next week and wanted to get their work published. This decision has thrown up what I hope to be a nice little teaching point, as in one or two of the podcasts there are some quite glaring errors. When I ask the class to listen to and assess their mate's work I want them to try to identify those mistakes (sensitively) and then come back and re-record the podcasts grammcasts accurately.
audiko is a simple service which helps you to make a ringtone of your favorite song!
Create kids speakings (eg verb drills, or vocabulary etc) and then transform them into ringtones. I won't go as far as saying all students would find this idea a cool addition to their mobile but it could definitely have its uses.
Obviously with a service such as this there are copyright issues and students should not be encouraged to use commercially available material to upload.
Upload an audio file, and it will take you to a wave form (see below) all you have to do is slide along the wave form and find the bit of the foem you want. Easy.
Click on create ringtone and it does what it says on the button. Here's one I prepared earlier using Yanick's 5x table rap. Once your ringtone has been created you can;
download it to a computer
download it to an iPhone
copy a wap link into your mobile to download it directly
or as I've done here embed it on your blog.
I'm not sure if there's a limit on the length of clip, but 30 secs is enough time to conjugate the verb "avoir" in the present tense.
The great thing about it is THERE IS NO SIGN UP SO NO IDENTITY PROBLEMS.
How about this for a potentially superb resource for language lessons. A bright, colourful mp3 recording device, battery powered and compatible with a pc. The uses of this in an mfl classroom are endless:
have as many students doing speaking exercises as you have microphones
in group work have a microphone on each island so that everyone can do the work
strategically place the microphones all around the room when recording drills etc.
And loads more that I haven't thought of in the time its taken me to post this.
At the beginning I said it is a potentially superb resource...I wonder about the quality of recording. Most mp3 players are capable of recording voice but the actual recording quality is doubtful. I would be very interested in testing out this resource committing to buying one.
Although they probably don't want my pity I feel desperately sorry for primary teachers in my homeland (England). Not only do they have to fit in literacy, numeracy, physical activity etc but now the government (bloody meddling, fiddling, dithering hare-brained (sorry hares) politicians at it again) has decided in its ultimate wisdom that primary age pupils must get 5 hours a week of high culture.
Where do you propose to fit in regular theatre visits etc into an already cluttered timetable. Is travel to a theatre / art gallery included in this time. What happens when results in national assessments start to drop because kids no longer have time to cover the syllabus (even though they shouldn't need to sit these assessments.)
People think teachers are always moaning about their lot..no bloody wonder. Let us get on with the job we trained for and keep your unknowing noses out of it. How are you qualified to tell teachers how things should be?
I am sure this will not be the last post on this subject in the edublogoshere, having already seen Doug's and Doug's thoughts.
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.
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'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.
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?
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.
Yanick's homework this week has been to learn his five times table. I was terrible at remembering these things, but he seems to have more of a flair for maths than I ever did. However after our attempt at his first podcast we thought we'd take it a step further and jazz it up some more.
As a bit of background Yan is my stepson who only came to live with us 2 years ago from Cameroon. Whilst there he had just learned to speak his native language of Bulu, and then started in Kindergarten to learn a bit of French. Since arriving here English as taken over as his main language. Obviously he's not quite at the same level as his mates but the progress he has made is phenomenal (cue applause). But he's got some serious courage to stand in front of a microphone and do this. I wrote the lyrics so any complaints about the cheesiness of them are totally valid.
The idea is to create something that will help in learning his tables, whilst having a laugh...and possibly to help others. Having already created a previous 2x podcast and the Making Papyrus movie I'm thinking of creating a wee blog, but first I want to talk to him about the idea.
Oh my family is expanding again; we have finally got a visa for Yanick's older brother. He's 11 and should be arriving in the week to start at school. Apparently he's a pretty decent footballer...next Samuel Eto'o.
This film looks at 2 other web learning resources, Palabea and iTalki. As learning resources for pupils I am not convinced as to their relevance they are more geared to using language learning as social network. Not that I'm against that per se, just they do not appear to be 100% set up to learn a language. The majority of this film gives advice about using these sites and the amount of information required to be able to use them.
This is a superb language learning resource. Well presented and well thought out. The audio uses native speakers and there is something for everyone. Use it while its still free.
On first thoughts something like this could be an excellent way of acquiring vocab, especially if you could set the game to work on vocab pertaining to a specific topic. I wouldn't be averse to trying out this kind of thing for say 5-10 minutes at the beginning of each lesson or every other lesson. Plus it appears the games are being developed with Berlitz, therefore there will be some serious language learning content...I would hope.
A long time ago, deep in the mists of time, before my back decided to give up the ghost I set my S2 German class a task to produce podcasts in which they would explain the finer points of a particular grammar item. The idea was that the podcast (or Grammcast as I have termed them) would help fellow German learners grasp that point.
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