#ILIlC3

For the past two years I have been fortunate enough to talk at the ICT Links into Languages conference in Southampton. It is a weekend of learning, sharing, collaborating and sheer unadulterated joy. This year's conference will be taking place on 9th-10th February 2013 and you can sign up for it here This year's theme is ‘Jail breaking the MFL Classroom’ and the keynote speakers are the fabulous duo of Joe Dale and Isabelle Jones. I am delivering two talks/workshops. The first is called "Triptico Tips to jailbreak the languages classroom" This session will illustrate how to use the Triptico resource application to liven up your classroom and turn learning on its head. There will be practical demonstrations of the organisational tools such as the group sorter, timer and score board. I will also demonstrate the higher order thinking tools such as the hexagonal Think Link resource and show how it can be used for promoting Solo taxonomy. The session will give specific examples from my own classroom practice as listed here and here as well as feedback from the pupils. There will also be plenty of time for participants to create their own resources which they can then take away with them, as well as showing them how to access the files already created in the likes of the Twitterati Dropbox. The second session is entitled "LITERALLY JAILBREAKING THE LANGUAGES CLASSROOM" This session will look at how to move the pupils' learning outside the languages classroom with practical examples which I have done with my own pupils including using Posterous to moblog a language trip, Voicethread to collaborate with other language learners around the world, Animoto to create videos such as the videos my pupils made on why our school should be the venue for the 2020 Olympics and QR codes to create a speaking wall with videos created by pupils on a variety of topics which other pupils can then access using their mobile phones to scan the QR code. This conference is an excellent opportunity to meet like-minded language teachers, learn some new stuff, share ideas and enjoy the excellent atmosphere. The Show and Tell event last year had us tweeting for months afterwards! If you want to catch some of the buzz in advance, search for #ililc3 on Twitter or join the MFL Twitterati

#ILILC2

So my second visit to Southampton for the ICT Links in Languages was much anticipated and did not fail to impress. There was much excitement amongst the attending members of the #MFLTwitterati on Twitter in the weeks leading up to the conference, both from those of us lucky enough to have attended last year, and those who were coming for the first time.
There was a gathering of the clans on the Friday night, with the unveiling of the wonder that is Suzi Bewell's #mfltwitterati t-shirts.

This set the tone for the whole weekend. The workshops and talks were excellent, led by Joe Dale and José Picardo's fab keynotes, and the chance to network, meet new enthusaistic language teachers and chat was superb. I am going to blog about the brilliant workshops and talks I attended over the next week or so, but suffice to say there was plenty of expertise, stimulation and humour on show.
The highlight for many was the Show and Tell on the Saturday night, with just the right level in terms of weightiness of topics combined with singing, dancing and general euphoria. It is enough to mention human dominoes, Tchik et Tchak, turnips and barmen to provoke sniggers and laughs from all who were there.
In these days of pressure and stress, #ILILC2 was a much needed tonic and a wonderful opportunity to catch up with many of my PLN whom I now consider true friends.

#ililc Inspiration in a hashtag

The ability to bottle the ambience from the weekend's ICT Links into Languages conference in Southampton could have made someone a large amount of money. To say that delegates were left enthused and inspired is an understatement.

It was such a pleasure to meet some of the MFL Twitterati for the first time, and it felt like meeting old friends for many of the others. It is the curse of the Northern Irish to constantly feel inadequate, but who could fail to be humbled in the presence of the demi-gods that are Joe Dale and Rachel Hawkes? Their keynote speeches were the perfect bookends to an excellent conference.

There were several noteworthy things about the weekend. Firstly, all the delegates seemed to be singing from the same hymnsheet. Aside from Joe and Rachel, Wendy Adeniji had so many excellent ideas on how to turn language teaching and topics on their head, Clare Seccombe made me want to pass her the contents of my netbook, as well as giving us loads of excellent sites to check out, Dale Hardy's G&T talk was truely thought-provoking and from Chris Harte came the superb 'Languages:Reboot' (yes, I know this post is all superlatives, but what can you do?!) which left us ready to throw out the textbooks and the SOWs, and embrace all that is postive about spontaneous language and pupil independence. Oh, and then there was the Show and Tell, the socialising and all the injokes that have left other non-attending Twitterati a little bemused.

On a personal note, I owe Joe Dale a debt of gratitude, for without his coaxing, reassuring and general cheerleading, I would not have presented, and would have missed out on the opportunity. Yes, despite the stress and the lack of sleep worrying, it was worth it. Though note to self, 'footery' is a Norn Irish word that has no meaning for anyone not from the wee isle, and no matter how slowly I think I am speaking, there will still be those who will fail to understand me.

Returning home from such a weekend can bring you down to earth with a bump, but the power of Twitter is such that #ililc must surely still be trending. People have been tweeting lessons they have taught using ideas from the conference, as well as tweeting and teasing online acquaintances who are now considered friends.

Stealing @charte's idea from his blogpost, a whole lotta MFL Twitterati love to the following: @bootleian @chrisfullerisms @charte @bellaale @blagona @lwelsh @lisibo @icpjones @suzibewell @joedale @froggyval @reesiepie @smaguire777 @sghani @wendadeniji @mariefrance @JulietDPark @purer_ethics @kath52 @mrshampson @estherhardman and those I have missed. I only wish I wasn't a plane ride away...

INTEGRATING ICT INTO AN MFL DEPARTMENT

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