#ililc4 Amanda Salt A level and new technologies

Here is my talk from #ililc4 on A level and new technologies:

COMBATTING END OF TERM-ITIS

The school year in Northern Ireland ends at the end of June so our internal summer exams are long over and reports written and checked. SMT rightly tell us to keep the pupils working until the end of the year. The problem is that there are so many different trips out and activities going on with different groups of pupils that it can be hard to find activities to do that are both fun and meaningful to engage tired and oft excited pupils who are counting down the days to the long summer break. To add to this, I have picked up two classes from a colleague who has gone on maternity leave whom I have never taught before, so I am trying to learn their names too. So what to do?

Form 2 have been learning about sports and pastimes so they are off to make short video clips of themselves talking about what they like to do in their free time. I am then intending to make a Talking Wall like the one Kelda Richards tweeted and blogged about, inspiring many of the #mfltwitterati to think about how we can do the same. I am also pricing Talking Postcards to add another facet to the Talking Wall. Said wall name prompted much discussion on Twitter in terms of how to translate it into Spanish. Any ideas? La pared que habla or La pared hablante seem most popular..

 Form 3 have been learning about the Olympics so I decided to let them work on a project whereby the groups are preparing videos promoting our school Grosvenor Grammar as a possible venue for the 2020 Olympics. They have been very focused, with some off recording clips round the school including teachers saying Me gusta plus their favourite sport, whilst others were creating the logo and slogan, as well as pulling the clips together. Some are using Movie Maker and Photo Story, some have stuck to Powerpoint whilst others have favoured Animoto as there is now a facility to incorporate video clips. The projects are due in this Tuesday, and I will upload the finished videos to our http://spanishingrosvenormoblog.posterous.com/ and our wiki as well as playing them on the plasma screens in school.

 Form 4 produced scripts on their work experience last week. Some have chosen to record them using Audacity and upload them to our class page on Edmodo. Others have elected to record them on their phone and then email them to our blog by Tuesday. I tried to use both Vocaroo and Lingt Language but we had temporary connection issues due to the school network so I will try again in the new academic year with these two promising sites. The whole school focus for the next academic year is oracy which ties in perfectly with our departmental decision to concentrate on speaking confidence using the likes of the Group Talk strategy by Greg Horton. These projects dovetail perfectly with this. Speaking the language with confidence is what all pupils yearn to do and what can knock their confidence most so the more activities like this we do, the more they will see Spanish in action.

BLC 08 DAVID TRUSS "THIS MY BLOG HAS TAUGHT ME"

WED 16TH JULY SESSION 2
“THIS MY BLOG HAS TAUGHT ME”
DAVID TRUSS www.pairadimes.davidtruss.com


David's talk included how you should consider the following when you have a blog:
• Leadership
• Audience
• Podcasts
• Learning
• Blogrules – what pupils are expected to do
• Web 2.Oh yeah – students sharing ideas and thoughts with the teacher coming in. Bear in mind that the teacher intervening in a dialogue can sometimes stop conversation, but that they should be there to ask a question in order to steer the dialogue in the right direction, or to intervene if necessary

What did David learn in the first year or so of having his blog? He made the blog a private and sheltered environment. He created Wikispaces – http://sciencealive.wikispaces.com, where the kids like to see cluster maps of visitors from around the world.

If we consider Bloom’s taxonomy, whereby
Higher order 6 Create
5 Evaluate
4 Analyse
3 Apply
2 Understand
Lower order 1 Remember
then using a blog and a wiki are excelllent tools for creation and experiment by the pupils.

Other ideas to arise out of David's excellent talk included:
• One pupil’s idea may trigger someone else’s e.g. blogging about science experiments
• Eduspaces – forum for social networking for teachers
• TakingITGlobal – online community for youth to get involved in local and global community
• Encourage contributors – check profile. Allow them to do assignment on paper if they want

Why blog? It is where we do most of our learning, connect with other educators, challenge ourselves to improve and link with other people

It is BLC 08 and in particular these 2 talks by Ewan McIntosh and David Truss, that I credit with the creation of this blog and my Spanish wiki http://spanishingrosvenor.wikispaces.com
Here's to connecting with others and pushing ourselves further in 2009!