On Monday, I shared my ideas for using ICT in the MFL classroom with a group of PGCE students. On the same day, Ken Royal, a senior editor with Scholastic Professional Media, wrote a post about "Twitter, Twitter ICT Stars"http://blogs.scholastic.com/royaltreatment/ I was extremely flattered, if somewhat gobsmacked, to be included in Ken's list of 5. I follow so many people on Twitter whom I consider to be so much more proficient than me. During the past week, José Picardo also published the collection of blogposts written by my fellow MFL Twitterati (as coined by @simonhowell) at http://http://www.boxoftricks.net/?p=1736 These are colleagues that now form part of my PLN (Personal Learnign Network) and upon whom I now rely at least as much as my own beloved department in school; they are a constant source of support, advice and humour when needed.
Events like those of the past week let me appreciate just how much I have come on since the summer of 2008. The A-Z presentation was fairly easy to produce, as most of it is software I have used either to teach the pupils, or for them to work creatively in Spanish. I was confortable presenting the ideas to the PGCE students, firstly because I use them regularly and secondly because I totally see their value in my own teaching and the pupils' learning. The same for the Box of Tricks blogpost, as Edmodo is a valuable tool in my day-to-day teaching.
I blog this not to blow my own trumpet, but to say that if I have progressed this far over the course of the past 18 months, then it is within the grasp of any enthusiatic teacher. There are so many advantages to harnessing the free technology that is out there, and it is easily accessed through the power of your PLN.
Tuesday, 23 February 2010
Sunday, 21 February 2010
A-Z of ICT in Modern Languages
I have the honour of presenting to the Modern Language PGCE students tomorrow at Queen's University in Belfast. I spoke to the same group last term about the use of games in the modern language classroom, so this time I thought I would go a little more high tech, stealing Alex Blagona's theme from the London Languages Show, and do an A-Z presentation of ICT in the ML classroom.
I have uploaded the presentation to Slideshare http://www.slideshare.net/asalt518/a-z-of-ict-in-modern-languages
A Z Of Ict In Modern Languages
View more presentations from Amanda Salt.
I have uploaded the presentation to Slideshare http://www.slideshare.net/asalt518/a-z-of-ict-in-modern-languages
Sunday, 24 January 2010
Making the most of your PLN
How much do I love my Personal Learning Network or PLN? Quite a lot, actually, to put it mildly. They are a constant source of friendship and support, as much as my 'real' friends, if not moreso in my teaching career, given that they are facing the same challenges and issues as me, day in, day out. But also, they push my boundaries and move me willingly outside my comfort zone in terms of the practical application of ICT to my teaching and the pupils' learning.
A small yet hopefully hugely benficial example is the idea of using Audacity to record questions and then get pupils to record their answers and upload them to our wiki http://spanishingrosvenor.wikispaces.com I read about this on the forum of the MFL Resources yahoo group, and also on Joe Dale's blog This should prove especially beneficial to KS4 pupils studying for their GCSE, but is equally applicable both down and up the school. I particularly like the impact it should have on pronunciation, which should help with the new GCSE.
A final thought on this area is to also bring our new digital voice recorders into the classroom if we can't make it to a computer room. I am going to trial using the fruit machine from classtools.net to bring up a random series of questions which pupils will then answer in one minute on the DVRs. This will be a long-term plan, and I am interested to see what rewards we reap.
Another idea I picked up from one of my Twitter friends is to condense your life down to 50 words, either orally or as in this tweet, written.
A small yet hopefully hugely benficial example is the idea of using Audacity to record questions and then get pupils to record their answers and upload them to our wiki http://spanishingrosvenor.wikispaces.com I read about this on the forum of the MFL Resources yahoo group, and also on Joe Dale's blog This should prove especially beneficial to KS4 pupils studying for their GCSE, but is equally applicable both down and up the school. I particularly like the impact it should have on pronunciation, which should help with the new GCSE.
Answering Questions Using Audacity
View more presentations from Amanda Salt.
A final thought on this area is to also bring our new digital voice recorders into the classroom if we can't make it to a computer room. I am going to trial using the fruit machine from classtools.net to bring up a random series of questions which pupils will then answer in one minute on the DVRs. This will be a long-term plan, and I am interested to see what rewards we reap.
Another idea I picked up from one of my Twitter friends is to condense your life down to 50 words, either orally or as in this tweet, written.
Mi Vida En 50 Palabras
View more presentations from Amanda Salt.
Friday, 15 January 2010
BETT 2010
Unfortunately I didn't make it over to BETT so I tuned in via Twitter's live streaming twitcam
Sunday, 8 November 2009
IMAGE CHEF
I saw Suzi Bewell's ImageChef heart on her blog http://allsaintslanguagesblog.typepad.co.uk/all_saints_languages_blog/ and I couldn't resist. Alex Blagona had mentioned this last week in his A-Z of ICT presentation at the London Language Show (See http://alexblagona.blogspot.com/ for the full presentation) and I was keen to try it out, so I pasted a list of vocabulary for KS3 Spanish classroom objects, to see how it looked. I can see a lot of potential in this, for introducing vocabulary, where pupils look up the vocabulary within the shape that they don't know, as well as producing revision mind maps.
Thursday, 5 November 2009
FLIP lessons and mindmapping - a new approach to learning
As a Specialist Language School, the spotlight is well and truely on our results at both GCSE and A level. That, combined with a deep-rooted desire that has always been prevalent in our department to constantly self-assess and improve, has led us to re-evaluate our approach to GCSE Spanish for Form 4 and 5.
We have never relied on textbooks, but this year we have brought in elements of from our KS3 booklets, such as breaking our booklet for each year down into smaller, more manageable topic booklets, listing that topic's GCSE vocabulary list at the front and including oral questions at the back of each booklet. The pupils have already commented that they much prefer this approach.
I am now dipping into each booklet, rather than laboriously ploughing through each worksheet. By doing this, stronger pupils are left with a series of worksheets for revision, avoiding that age-old lament " I don't know what to revise for the exam", whilst weaker pupils are not put off by the sheer volume of work facing them. I also want to work more actively with the vocabulary, bringing in some ideas again from KS3, as well as ideas I am picking up from others.
To that end, I decided this week to incorporate some ideas that I had heard at the London Language Show 09. We had already targeted some pupils in Form 5 who would benefit from smaller class numbers on occasion, and decided to split the two classes which run simultaneously into one larger and one smaller group once a week. The smaller group, of around 10, would look at approaches to grammar, writing and oral work in an environment which should encourage support and requests for help. The larger group will therefore work with me on a weekly basis, as well as a group of mentors, formed by 4 Upper Sixth pupils and 2 undergraduate past pupils who are volunteering in the school once a week. We are very fortunate to have access to a new laptop room, with 48 wireless laptops, and this has been booked for the purpose.
Listening to Chris Harte's excellent presentation at the Language Show, I discovered that he already had a name for the idea I was toying with, although he has taken it much further and with an integrated approach throughout the school. Read more at http://chrisharte.typepad.com/learner_evolution_chris_h/2009/10/flip-a-model-for-developing-independent-language-learners.html
My idea, strengthened by the inspiration Chris has provided me with, is that the learning is turned back to the student. ~They identify strengths and target weaknesses / areas for improvement. They can use the lesson to catch up with work they have missed through absence, go over something they didn't understand, focus on grammar, work their way throughRichard Hamilton's vocabulary drills, use some of the many online interactive websites available to them, record themselves using our new digital voice recorders, etc. Pupils will be encouraged to sign up for workshops on grammar, as well as work on an individual basis with the mentors on their pronunciation and oral answers.
The first lesson took place this week, and there was a surprising lack of chaos, given the large numbers in the room; 38 pupils, 6 mentors and myself. I had presented the idea to the pupils using a powerpoint presentation the day before, and they had taken the time to fill in a FLIP sheet detailing strengths, actions and success criteria. This definitely helped the flow of the lesson, and pupils settled quickly to work.
Lessons to draw from Day 1 would be that whilst we want to empower the pupils with choosing their own learning, I think that I will give some gentle encouragement to use the mentors more - pupils were reluctant to come and speak on a one-to-one basis, yet this obviously would greatly benefit their spoken Spanish and confidence levels in the long-term.
The second thing I did differently this week was to get my three KS4 classes to produce mindmaps of their topics (Region and Leisure) in advance of getting access to the vocabulary lists. I had really enjoyed Tony Buzan's talk at the Language Show, and was determined to start looking at language learning and memory. I asked them to produce separate mindmaps; for Region, they looked at geographical vocabulary, places, adjectives and opinions. For Leisure, they produced them for sports, pastimes and associated verbs. Pupils in all three classes really enjoyed the lesson, although the weaker class struggled more to put the vocabulary down on paper initially. It was a really beneficial exercise and one I will definitely repeat.
I look forward to continuing on this path, and to see how this impacts on the pupils and their progress in Spanish.
We have never relied on textbooks, but this year we have brought in elements of from our KS3 booklets, such as breaking our booklet for each year down into smaller, more manageable topic booklets, listing that topic's GCSE vocabulary list at the front and including oral questions at the back of each booklet. The pupils have already commented that they much prefer this approach.
I am now dipping into each booklet, rather than laboriously ploughing through each worksheet. By doing this, stronger pupils are left with a series of worksheets for revision, avoiding that age-old lament " I don't know what to revise for the exam", whilst weaker pupils are not put off by the sheer volume of work facing them. I also want to work more actively with the vocabulary, bringing in some ideas again from KS3, as well as ideas I am picking up from others.
To that end, I decided this week to incorporate some ideas that I had heard at the London Language Show 09. We had already targeted some pupils in Form 5 who would benefit from smaller class numbers on occasion, and decided to split the two classes which run simultaneously into one larger and one smaller group once a week. The smaller group, of around 10, would look at approaches to grammar, writing and oral work in an environment which should encourage support and requests for help. The larger group will therefore work with me on a weekly basis, as well as a group of mentors, formed by 4 Upper Sixth pupils and 2 undergraduate past pupils who are volunteering in the school once a week. We are very fortunate to have access to a new laptop room, with 48 wireless laptops, and this has been booked for the purpose.
Listening to Chris Harte's excellent presentation at the Language Show, I discovered that he already had a name for the idea I was toying with, although he has taken it much further and with an integrated approach throughout the school. Read more at http://chrisharte.typepad.com/learner_evolution_chris_h/2009/10/flip-a-model-for-developing-independent-language-learners.html
My idea, strengthened by the inspiration Chris has provided me with, is that the learning is turned back to the student. ~They identify strengths and target weaknesses / areas for improvement. They can use the lesson to catch up with work they have missed through absence, go over something they didn't understand, focus on grammar, work their way throughRichard Hamilton's vocabulary drills, use some of the many online interactive websites available to them, record themselves using our new digital voice recorders, etc. Pupils will be encouraged to sign up for workshops on grammar, as well as work on an individual basis with the mentors on their pronunciation and oral answers.
The first lesson took place this week, and there was a surprising lack of chaos, given the large numbers in the room; 38 pupils, 6 mentors and myself. I had presented the idea to the pupils using a powerpoint presentation the day before, and they had taken the time to fill in a FLIP sheet detailing strengths, actions and success criteria. This definitely helped the flow of the lesson, and pupils settled quickly to work.
Lessons to draw from Day 1 would be that whilst we want to empower the pupils with choosing their own learning, I think that I will give some gentle encouragement to use the mentors more - pupils were reluctant to come and speak on a one-to-one basis, yet this obviously would greatly benefit their spoken Spanish and confidence levels in the long-term.
The second thing I did differently this week was to get my three KS4 classes to produce mindmaps of their topics (Region and Leisure) in advance of getting access to the vocabulary lists. I had really enjoyed Tony Buzan's talk at the Language Show, and was determined to start looking at language learning and memory. I asked them to produce separate mindmaps; for Region, they looked at geographical vocabulary, places, adjectives and opinions. For Leisure, they produced them for sports, pastimes and associated verbs. Pupils in all three classes really enjoyed the lesson, although the weaker class struggled more to put the vocabulary down on paper initially. It was a really beneficial exercise and one I will definitely repeat.
I look forward to continuing on this path, and to see how this impacts on the pupils and their progress in Spanish.
Wednesday, 4 November 2009
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