my animation

GOANIMATE

The wonderful yahoo group that I am a member of, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mflresources/, is a great source of both actual resources and links to brilliant websites. One of the recent emails caused a bit of a frenzy within the group, when we were given a link to a video created using goanimate http://goanimate.com/go/movie/0NnfTGpxHT5c/1 on the passé composé. It was truely inspirational and I immediately signed up to have a play. It is very much a work in progress but the site is proving very easy to use and I think it has great potential in the languages classroom.

nings and wikis

Well, if ever proof was needed that pupils are happier and quicker to embrace new technologies than adults, the proof is before my eyes. I set up a ning for fellow teachers www.belfastmfl.ning.com with an associated wiki http://belfastmfl.wikispaces.com/ to share best practice and resources. Uptake has been slightly disappointing and use has been limited so far, although I still have great hopes for it. I then set up a wiki for my pupils http://spanishingrosvenor.wikispaces.com and already we have 74 members! Let's see how contributions come in for this..

FUNKY FLIPCHARTS AND INTERESTING INTERACTIVITY BY LESLEY WELSH (IOW CONFERENCE 08)

My final session at the Isle of Wight conference appropriately was with Lesley Welsh, a new friend I had met over the course of the weekend. Of all the areas of ICT and new curriculum, the interactive whiteboard is the area I am most comfortable with, and most proficient at using, but I was keen to see what ideas Lesley came up with and any tips she was able to pass on. (Thanks to Lesley for her electronic copy of a lot of the ideas below!)

TIPS FOR USING YOUR IWB
-Drag some pictures out of the resource library or import them from another application, revise them with pupils then move them around and get them to guess what it is under the spotlight. -Use the Primary resources in the resource library for MFL teaching
-Use the camera tool for importing images, thereby ensuring that you can enlarge the photo without losing the pixel qualities. -Make a team game using pictures of vocabulary, for example. Use the reveal tool and encourage two teams to shout out what they are seeing – the first team wins the point.
-Rub out to reveal. Put blocks of colour over certain words in a text, perhaps choosing those which relate to a certain grammar point you’re studying e.g. adjective endings. Pupils predict, then rub out to reveal the answer.
-Type a number of words onto a flipchart page. Pupils come to the front and rearrange them -Create a focus circle – give pupils some words around a circle and they need to come up with as many combination sentences as possible in a time limit (thanks to Ros Walker for this idea).
-Copy and highlight texts from the Internet. Use the fill tool to highlight certain words and use these with your classes. This can illustrate grammar points and keep pupils up-to-date on current affairs. -Use recordings from native speakers to liven up your presentations.
-Link to Internet sites with the latest news clips and music sites to show your pupils the real France/Spain, etc. -Use songs and lyrics to create a lively gap-fill exercise and do the feedback on the IWB. This will again help pupils focus on grammar points
-Use a voting system to ensure full participation and encourage shyer pupils to interact
-Use a variety of question types – test spelling, grammar, comprehension.. Use pictures and target language text to ensure that tests don’t become a simple translation exercises.
-Use the tickertape facility to play a memory game

Some of these ideas I use frequently, some I have used and had forgotten and some I never knew in the first place. The interactive whiteboard is a valuable teaching tool in the classroom, providing that the activities are varied and the teacher is guiding.

SHARON BALCH AfL IN PRACTICE (IOW CONFERENCE 08)

As our Vice-Principal pointed out today, in Northern Ireland it is no longer the Revised Curriculum, it is the curriculum that we are teaching in First and Second Year at KS3. Whilst I believe that Modern Languages are and always have been very much 'Revised Curriculum', my colleagues and I sometimes struggle with the whole 'no marking' idea that forms part and parcel of Assessment for Learning. It was therefore with great interest that I went to Sharon Balch's session on 'AfL in Practice'. She covered the topic in great detail, and here are some of the points that she made:-

• Clear objectives lead to better engagement and more effective learning which in turn leads to improved standards.
• Lessons are objective-led, and a team (including pupils) meets weekly to see what is working and what needs further work
• Learning Intentions should be pupil-friendly
• A consistent approach across the school will see the greatest benefit
• It is vital to recognise the importance of success criteria, and to develop strategies for effective plenary

EFFECTIVE STRATEGIES FOR INCORPORATING AfL

• Display visuals for WALT and WILF, including in pupils' books
• Include the 4 key skills for MFL in WALT and WILF
• Create ruler guides ie strips of paper to stick onto the back of a ruler with key vocabulary
• Create a learning mat for each year group with an emphasis on evidence of each key skill, plus generic vocabulary
• Provide extension activities to improve listening and writing skills on the back of the learning mats
• Use target sheets and stickers to give feedback, or get pupils to use them and say why they think they are working at a certain level
• Use traffic light stickers and statement banks for self- and peer assessment, so that pupils know that a green sticker means excellent work, etc
• Use very structured task sheets for writing tasks, with detailed lists of what to include in each paragraph. Pupils can then tick off as they cover the point in their essay
• Share success criteria with pupils for speaking tasks, and then use "2 stars and a wish" for peer assessment
• Use a 'learning journey' sheet with pupils to gain feedback in a plenary
• Type all the learning journeys up together to make an excellent revision guide for the pupils

Sharon has found the measurable impact of all of the above easy to see in results, with a huge impact on boys' writing in particular

CRITICAL SKILLS PROGRAMME

This is a series of tools allowing pupils to engage with learning as never before, and with the teacher moving from being the lead to being a guide and support. It incorporates the idea of collaborative learning communities, with standards-driven and problem-based learning.The pupils start to set their own targets and to recognise quality learning.

In order to set CSP challenges, pupils should be given task roles, such as Facilitator, Recorder, Time Keeper, Resources Manager and Quality Checker. After the task, it is vital that pupils reflect back on their own work, with questions or a statement as guidance for what they did do as well as what they would do differently next time.

Sharon's presentation was excellent, crammed full of brilliant ideas and practical support. She is the first to acknowledge the vast amount of work that has gone into her fabulous resources but her talk has certainly given me plenty to aim for within my own department for AfL and CSP.

MOODLE BY DREW BUDDIE (IOW CONFERENCE 08)

How many of us have a VLE in school? More and more, I guess, though it is not by any means standard, and even if you do, it can be dramatically underused. I went to this session prepared to be convinced about the benefits of Moodle and was blown away. Drew Buddie's use of this VLE appears to be as energetic and hands-on as the man himself, and as he led us through the various areas and applications, I was increasingly impressed. Here are some of Drew's tips and ideas..

• Give your Moodle site a cool name. This gives it a personality and makes it much less clinical. www.anagramgenius.com is a website which can be useful here.
• If your Moodle site is not an official school site, there is no need for a crest etc. The kids may be more likely to use it.
• The calendar is hyperlinked so that if work is set, it is linked into the pupils' calendar.
• You can start a course with closed eye, and only open it up once the pupils are in the room, then save and close the eye at the end of the lesson. This is useful for tests and for those subjects in new GCSE where they have to guarantee that the work is only done in that lesson
• Alter the administration for permissions, to allow people to view
• You only see courses you are enrolled for as a pupil
• Turn editing on = how you add things
• You can pack up your course leaving out pupil contribution and then reuse it the next year
• Put past paper questions onto Moodle for that course.
• Show parents the submitted assignments (or that the pupils haven’t submitted at all!)
• You can mark on the document or give feedback and let them try again
• If being strict with deadlines, then close the course for submissions at a given time
• Export the submissions data for each pupil and you will have table with results for each answer
• Sandbox area is a work in progress area and then move it once finished
• You can store content on a memory stick and show people what you have done at courses or at 'Show and Tell' sessions
• The course name can be too long so giev it a short name for the breadcrumb trail
• Use an agreed code for the school Moodle e.g. MFL for all our courses
• Students when log in see next ten things that affect them in school
• Hot Potatoes tells you how many clicks it takes the pupils to get the answer right
• Chat facility - ‘Next chat time’ sets when they can chat. This is good e.g. for the day before their A level exam. It is safe because only course members are on, plus there is a permanent record of what you chatted about, to protect the teacher. Also, pupils can cut and paste into a Word doc and then search for key words to find discussions they have missed
• Choices are good for AfL e.g. ‘Have you enjoyed this weekend?’ Set options and then save and return to course. Once voted, select ‘Choices’ then select ‘View responses’
• The forum can be used for example with G&T pupils, given pseudonyms, and Year 7 pupils discuss with Year 13 anonymously
  I think that Moodle has tremendous potential, although like anything Web 2.0, you only get out what you put in!

USING DIGITAL VOICE RECORDERS IN THE CLASSROOM (IOW CONFERENCE 08)

Kathleen Holton led this excellent session on using digital voice recorders (DVRs) in the classroom. Kathleen's school had got funding from CILT to do a project using the DVRs, in order to enhance performance in the speaking exam. Kathleen found that pupils didn't know how to revise for the oral element, and decided to take a more proactive and hands-on approach. The school purchased 9 Sanyo ICR DVRs, which have a good quality internal mic, as well as a battery recharging pack. The great thing about these DVRs are that they record as an mp3 file, wich makes them easy to upload and for the pupils to use.

USES & PRACTICAL POINTERS
-Upload individual conversation answers for each pupil
-DVD available from CILT Cymru, with 18 different case studies of ICT and MFL
-Record the conversation naturally, with teacher correcting mistakes. Pupils will benefit from hearing the mistakes when they revise.
-Introduce with KS3, to maximise improvement for the GCSE exam
-Practise dialogues in class then go out into corridor to record
-Start with name, so not confusing for the teacher when they upload
-When saving, change Track 1, etc, to pupils’ names
-Next lesson, start with their recordings – Excellent for AfL
-Build a positive culture for listening and evaluating – positive praise e.g. for not pronouncing stuff that shouldn’t be pronounced
-Use mistakes for AfL e.g. giggling
-Use recordings for departmental moderation e.g. ‘Is this an A? What is a variety of structures?’
-“Evidence at KS3” folder can be easily kept
-Recording dialogues = good for oracy
-Upload recordings to wiki
-Use a Voki to introduce your wiki home page
Go to voki.com Register yourself
Put a voki on your wiki and get kids to interact with the voki as a voluntary task
Send a voki back to reply
Select the ‘Text to speech’ box whereby they type and choose a French voice to read DON’T USE PHONE AS PHONING USA!! Mic or text as speech.

OTHER HANDY TIPS
-Moodle. If you use Moodle, put links to department wikis and blogs in the right-hand sidebar
-www.quizlet.com To improve vocab. Type up vocab from AQA list. Familiarise/learn/test = excellent way to learn and test. Embed into wiki for maximum exposure

This was an excellent session, full of very practical and helpful advice that we can put into practice immediately. Even if you don't have DVRs in your department, free software such as Audacity could be used to do a similar job.

BLOGS AND PODCASTS: FREE YOUR MIND AND YOUR CLASS WILL FOLLOW (IOW CONFERENCE 08)

The inspirational Adam Sutcliffe led this session, based on his own experiences teaching at The Gordons School. He had loads of great advice to offer about blogging and podcasting both with and for pupils, and shared with us lessons he had learnt...

• If emails, etc, are included in the definition of literary texts, then we as teachers must use them.


• It is good to reflect in English on what you have done over the course of the term


• Safety concerns –blogs are as safe as you make them. If the settings are right, posts cannot go online till approved.


• 2 stars and a wish / ‘Rocks and Sucks’. Peer assessment of recordings by the pupils is very 'Revised Curriculum', and can produce great results, if prop[erly set up. Teachers should set up a comment bank to help them and provude a tick box sheet to use as they listen. Pupils can then use the tick box sheet to write a comment

PODCASTS - why use them?

• Access for all, even long-term sick pupils
• Production of resources
• Blue tooth vocabulary guides to their phone, for example, if no Internet access at home
• Excellent use of skill areas for languages. Production of podcast = listening (to it) speaking (production) reading and writing (script)
• Pupil confidence - set A-level class to producing podcasts on –AR verbs for Form 1.
• Transferable skills - Pupils don’t realise that the stuff they do on Bebo can be used in their classroom
• Ease of use - Use podcast gadgets such as Utterli / gcast / gabcast to create a webcam or audio, then call a phone number to post to the blog. This can be excellent when used from abroad, on a school exchange, for example.
• podomatic – create, find, share podcasts
• VoiceThread – edvoicethread with unlimited student accounts, so that pupils can post work which can then be commented on orally by many viewers
• voki.com – listen and write with a dictation facility. The big advantage of Voki is the anonymity of the speaker behind the avatar. Other uses include pronunciation of frequently mispronounced words and the spell and translate facility.
• Exam practice – pre-record questions (set to music) with space for answer, or podcast conversations with the FLA (Foreign language assistant). For examples of this, see the Ashcombe School.
  

Thanks to Adam for an excellent insight into the work he does. See more at his site:-
http://thegordonsschools.typepad.co.uk/asu

THE NEW CURRICULUM: MAKING IT WORK FOR LANGUAGES (IOW CONFERENCE 08)

Kathy Wicksteed is Subject Lead for languages for DCSF/ALL subject specific support for the new secondary curriculum. She talked about the new curriculum and how it benefits the pupils. Whilst we in Northern Ireland have the Revised Curriculum, there are many parallels between the two, and lessons to be shared.
Are we broadening pupils' horizons? The new curriculums offer excellent opportunities to give pupils skills and knowledge which will enable them to fly more than ever before. In order to do this, teachers are having to move away from structured, content-driven schemes of work, to more open topics, cross-curricular work and thematic units. This can be a big step for us as teachers, but the advantages for the pupils include the acquisition of tools for learning and the development of thinking skills and personal capabilities.
Kathy highlighted some useful websites for language teachers, which tie in with the idea of enriching experiences and teaching languages in context:
www.etwinning.net
www.in-terre-actif.com
www.elanguages.org
www.rafi.ki
www.freerice.com
www.dailymotion.com/fr

Kathy's presentation is available for download from www.all-nsc.org.uk

Belfast MFL Ning

CREATING DIGITAL EXERCISES AND INTEGRATION WITHIN THE SCHOOL'S VLE (IOW CONFERENCE 08)

In this workshop, Steve Whittle, the Assistant Headteacher of Hayes School, talked us through digital learning both in school and at home.

DIGITAL LEARNING WITHIN SCHOOL
The Hayes School uses a Tandberg Sanako language lab, in conjunction with an MFL ICT technician who creates resources for the department. Routines are established with classes, free software is sought, and websites are listed. Every lesson that pupils come into the language lab, they get a Digital Learning Plan( (DLP). This lists the tasks pupils should aim to do during the course of the lesson, with files held on the designated server and linked from the DLP. I LOVED this idea, as it can be easy to finish a lesson on the computers and wonder what the pupils have come away with. Also, staff who cover a class booked into the computer suite invariably complain that 'all they did was play games!' whereas this gives an excellent structure to the lesson.

Audio files were created with Sanako software, which offers the possibility of bookmarking different words in the listening to go back to. This is a useful tool which could be used by all ages and abilities.

DIGITAL LEARNING OUTSIDE SCHOOL
How can we extend the language lab outside school?
· EmbedVLE links from the main school website
· Use a VLE (Virtual Learning Environment) such as Moodle, which can be customised, with courses created for specific year groups and classes
· Create online vocabulary tests using sites such as www.vokabel.com
· Create a Wiki for your class - from Moodle, chat room
· Use the VLE for exam practice -Record questions and model answers for GCSE
· Incorporate SCORMS – self-marking tests www.wondershare.com Quizmaker
· Create an exam bank of sound files, etc, of past questions by topic
· Create authentic listening materials – songs: listen on Sanako, do the exercise in Word
e.g. matching Spanish and English
· Provide links for RSS feeds

GENERAL
The danger is that the language lab becomes a testing ground rather than an area of learning. It is important to have a team approach in the department, with each leading a course in the VLE, in order to spread the workload and maximise the potential.