Integrating ICT into the MFL classroom:

Learning to work together

Virtual Space Odyssey is the latest article on the subject of ICT in languages in this week’s TES Teacher supplement. It describes two collaborative projects which show the benefits of using ICT to get pupils to work together in their own school or across different schools.

The MFL department at Aldersley High School in Wolverhampton are seeing how a virtual reality environment (VRE) can motivate their pupils and encourage them to continue studying languages into KS4. The VRE is a type of online community which allows pupils to work collaboratively with each other by:

• creating e-portfolios of their work
• sending text messages
• peer assessment

Using a personal digital assistant (PDA) or PC, groups of language learners can log on to the VRE and work together in their virtual space. The 3-D environment is visually appealing and allows members to listen to, read and watch files in each others’ areas. MFL teacher Sam Fenton points out that working together in the VRE can boost the confidence of more reserved pupils and enable mutually beneficial peer assessment. She also believes that pupils are motivated by creating work for a real purpose and audience.

The project is funded by the Midlands Curriculum Centre for Languages (formerly known as The Black Country Pathfinder). Buoyed by the success of the VRE at Aldersley, director, Dr Henriette Harnisch now wants to use it to bring together groups of AS students from the same cohort in different schools in the North East. Using the VRE in this way is a practical solution for managing dispersed groups and ensuring courses run.

The second project is designed to facilitate eTwinning. St Julie’s Language College in Liverpool is seeing how the free website Writely.com can strengthen links with their partner school in France. The site allows users to create password-protected web pages which can be accessed by any approved subscriber anywhere in the world. The Liverpudlian pupils collaborate with their French peers by sharing pictures and text over the net.

John Hopwood, former MFL teacher supports both projects at Aldersley High School and St Julie’s. He likes the way they allow pupils to collaborate with each other at home as well as at school in a safe environment moderated invisibly by their teachers. He sees them as practical examples to facilitate eTwinning.

The article also mentions the website www.think.com which allows pupils to share audio and video files with each other. Virtual Space Odyssey is now available to read in full from The TES website in its archives section.

Still in training

My Dragonfly Training course Integrating ICT into the MFL classroom has been 'on tour' again this week with consecutive dates in Manchester, Birmingham and London. It's been great as always to meet and share ideas with like-minded colleagues from around the country.

The course is designed to show how PowerPoint, Word and freeware can be used to enhance the teaching and learning of modern foreign languages. We cover a great deal on the day which makes it good value, but rather intense for some. Having comprehensive course notes is reassuring though and offers delegates the opportunity to work through tutorials again in their own time.

These dates mark the last time I'll be running the course in its present form, but I will be providing similar training for Keynote Educational in the Autumn term.

Check out pictures from the three days here

TES ICT Blog: ICT & Modern Foreign Languages: Using the freebie software Desktop Messager

26 June 2006 at 14.45

ICT & Modern Foreign Languages: Using the freebie software Desktop Messager

MFL teacher Joe Dale devotes his eighth ICT blog to the delights of Desktop Messager, free software that lets you make and record annotations for interactive whiteboards and/or data projectors During his inspiring seminar Blogs and Podcasts, the learner is the resource at Language World recently, famed edublogger, Ewan McIntosh posed the thought-provoking question: “What’s the most up to date piece of technology you’ve used in your teaching recently?” “Chalk!” shouted one joker from the audience. “Quickly suggest something else!” replied Ewan, with an amused tone. ’Digital projector’, ‘interactive whiteboard’ and ‘mobile phone’ were the next few answers and these seemed more in line with what Ewan was expecting when he asked the question. Encouraging teachers to try out new technologies is not always easy. I quote the above exchange because like Ewan, I think it's important to promote interesting ideas with the intention of improving teaching and learning in the classroom. With that in mind, here is another ‘chalk alternative’ in the form of the freeware tool Desktop Messager. You can use Desktop Messager with a data projector and/or interactive whiteboard for whole class teaching. It allows you to not only write and annotate in different colours and brush sizes on a board, but also to record, save and playback your messages. Being able to play annotations as a recorded sequence is what makes this program special. The software marks a progression from conventional writing implements such as chalk and creates new exciting possibilities. Installing the software Download the setupDTM.zip file from the Desktop Messager website. Unzip it by right clicking the file and selecting Extract All. Double click on the file setupDTM.exe to install the software on your hard drive. To launch the program, double click on the Desktop Messager icon. Once opened, the tool docks itself automatically at the top left of your screen. The controls running from left to right are as follows: Extinguisher – to delete all annotations Eraser/Brush – to rub out annotations bit by bit (activated only when clicked) / to write or draw on the desktop (The same button performs two actions. You have to toggle between the two) Slider – to change the brush size between 2 and 16 Pallet – to select a colour indicated by a T Play – to play the sequence you’ve selected from the drop-down menu Stop – to pause the current annotation Record – to start the recording of an annotation Bin – to permanently delete the annotation selected in the drop-down menu Envelope – to email your annotation to a fellow Desktop Messenger user PayPal – to make a donation to the author Red Cross – to close the program Blue Line – to minimise the program To get started Click on the record button and start to write or draw. When you’ve finished, click Stop and then type in a file name in the pop-up box. Click on the arrow button to save the file. Clear the screen by clicking the Extinguisher button. Click Play and watch your work appear before your very eyes. Teaching Tips while recording a sequence Write out your learning objectives then during playback ask your pupils to repeat them as they appear word by word Pupils guess what a picture is once it's been drawn Pupils guess what a picture is while it's being drawn Ask pupils to label a picture Ask pupils to draw a picture from a written prompt Highlight mistakes by writing in a different colour Rub out mistakes and write over the top Create a set of images and text which you rub out in turn for presenting new language or for telling a story Create a picture made up of different elements drawn by different pupils Make line drawings or annotations using colours which refer to a gender code such as blue for masculine nouns, pink for feminine nouns and green for plural nouns Make annotations over the top of a Word document containing typed text then rub them out to reveal the text underneath. Desktop Messager is a great little tool which makes learning more memorable. When pupils make mistakes in their writing such as word order, spelling or accents in the wrong direction, the teacher or the class can tell them where they have gone wrong so that they can immediately correct themselves. Then during playback, they can see the mistake they made being repeated, but with the corrected version appearing over the top written by them or the teacher. My pupils have been enthralled by the software. They find it genuinely exciting to follow the movement of their writing or pictures as they're played back in front of them, particularly when their mistakes are corrected seemingly by magic by the software. They also like the way the software doesn’t show the pauses they may make when working at the board. Perhaps most importantly, they feel a sense of pride when showcasing their work to others. More Practical Advice Recordings are saved by default in the folder C:Program files/Desktop Messager as dtm files. These files can be launched by: · double clicking on them · accessing them with the software’s drop-down menu · hyperlinking to them through another program such as Microsoft Word or PowerPoint To keep your recordings organised, it's a good idea to file them in separate folders according to topic. To make it easier to see the annotations, it helps to have a plain background too. To achieve this, minimise the program and then launch a program such as Word. Next, maximise Desktop Messager again by clicking on it and run your annotation. A final word of warning: If you save a recording with the name of an existing file it will simply overwrite it, permanently deleting the original. Moreover, there is no ‘Are you sure?’ message prompt to remind you. You have been warned! Desktop Messager makes it easy for pupils to learn from their mistakes. It also provides a variation on traditional ‘chalk and talk’ methodology. Why not give it a go? I bet your pupils will think it’s magic!

   

Adopters, Adapters and Innovators

ICT in MFL – intergalactic communication technology! is an article in the summer 2006 issue of the Association for Language Learning newsletter. Written by ALL International Challenge Award 2006 winner Fiona Hilton from Brinsworth Comprehensive School, Rotherham South Yorkshire, it describes her impressions of the ICT-related sessions at this year’s Language World.

Interestingly by her own admission, Fiona was initially sceptical about the benefits of using ICT in MFL. However, having been involved in the CILT Action Research Project she now openly testifies to being ‘a fully fledged techy’ who uses ICT on a daily basis to enhance her pupils learning opportunities. Fiona is convinced that in the last three years ICT has combatted both her pupil disaffection to language learning (especially with boys) and has given them a more autonomous and independent attitude to their work.

Seeing ‘a plethora of ICT seminars on best practice’ at Language World, Fiona concludes that MFL teachers who are fans of ICT can be divided into the following three categories:

• Adopters
• Adapters
• Innovators

According to Fiona, Adopters are those language teachers who ‘are almost convinced of the success of using ICT but are still tentative in their approach, using Word or PPT, possibly some authoring software and the internet’. Adapters are ’confidently using a wide range of applications and provide opportunities for pupils to meaningfully get involved and produce their own material, using ICT, in the target language’. Innovators, on the other hand, are ‘at the cutting edge, pioneering new projects using ICT and applying them to language teaching and learning’

A self-confessed ‘Adapter’, Fiona left Language World inspired and ready to start her pupils blogging, podcasting, filming and recording. She encourages others to metaphorically ‘get on board’ too, comparing the conference to a shuttle and the practioners to astronauts about to set off on a new intergalactic ride into the unknown!

Out of this World!

You can get hold of a copy of the summer 2006 issue of the newsletter by becoming an ALL member or by downloading it from the ALL website.

Heinemann hear pupil voice

For the last year I've been designing the games for the new Heinemann French Teacher Presentation Package ‘Expo Electro 2'. Well, when I say 'designing' what I actually mean is filling in some templates in Word and sending them off to the publishers, describing how the games should work, ideally.

Now, I'm not a Flash programmer. That's someone else's job. I'm the practising teacher who uses his experience in the world of ICT and MFL saying what works and doesn't work in the classroom, allegedly. Anyway, twelve months on and the final cuts are nearing completion. The time has come to test out the results and see what the PS2 and X-Box generation make of them.

I admit that I had primed my two Yr 8 classes that we were going to have some important visitors in the afternoon who wanted to gauge their reaction to some new language games. I impressed upon them the need to be honest in their opinions (never a problem usually!) and say what they particularly liked. Servane and Victoria were struck by the enthusiasm of our pupils' reaction to the games and their ability to justify their opinions about them. I was proud of the way the pupils responded to the task set too. They were certainly in full 'voice' and game for a laugh. The time proved to be well spent and the overall feedback was overwhelmingly positive.

To get a glimpse of the games before they are released officially to the public, click on the Flickr badge on the left of the blog and select the 'Heinemann Visit' photo set or just press play below.

Make a Free Flash Slideshow

Never miss a photo opportunity

Creating comic strips from a set of photos is a cool way to practise new language in context. Easy to make, all you want is a digital camera, a few speech bubbles and a bit of creativity. Software such as Comic Life (Mac only) makes the job even easier, but all you really need is something as readily available as Microsoft Word.

To get started your pupils should:

• storyboard their ideas
• sort out the order of shots that will make up their story
• shoot each scene
• download the shots on to a computer
• paste them into Word
• add speech bubbles

MFL teachers Lynne Horn from Tobermory High School from Argyll and Bute has used Comic Life to create photo-stories with her pupils which she has then pasted into Word as different images. Thea Pallut on the other hand from Grantown Grammar School in the Scottish highlands has made her comics just by using the inherent features of Word such as Callouts (Microsoft speak for speech bubbles).

In the Modern Foreign Languages Environment's Creative Teaching section on cartoons, there are more examples of Comic Life creations as well as some Word templates to draw in any budding cartoonist and get him or her started.

If your looking for a web-based alternative, why not try out Captioner an online tool from Flickr toys for adding captions to your digital photographs? Unfortunately the bad news for MFL teachers is that at the moment, it's not possible to add accents. See the discussion on this topic here

For those that prefer to customise existing templates, there is humor.com, a French website which let's you pretend for example that you are appearing in the latest Harry Potter film, have won an Oscar or are playing football for your national team.

Well, we can dream can't we?

The Links Effect

Forging multicultural links with schools abroad can prove to be a richly rewarding experience. eTwinning as it is commonly known is becoming easier through websites such as eTwinning, eLanguages ePals and globalgateway.

Musselburgh Grammar School won a European Award for Languages in 2005 for its part in an eTwinning project where Ewan McIntosh, now Development Officer for the Modern Foreign Languages Environment helped to set up over twenty links with schools from other countries from Europe and overseas.

The UK eTwinning National Conference took place at the National College for School Leadership, in Nottingham on the 16th-18th June 2006. Speakers including Ewan, ran sessions and hands-on workshops on such topics as podcasting, digital video, wikis and blogs. Delegates had the opportunity to create their own examples and post them on Ewan's blog

The Times Educational Supplement has also played its part with its campaign Make the Link. The May article Virtual travel broadens the mind describes the inspiring work of Alex Savage, advanced skills teacher in ICT and modern foreign languages at Notre Dame High School in Norwich. It is clear from the article that taking part in the TES project has had a significant impact on his school.

Alex is quoted as saying:

“ICT is about using technology to communicate, and global citizenship education gives you real reasons for communicating.”

Having already established links with schools in Malawi, Japan and USA, Alex has now set up links with French schools around the Toulouse area. Communicating with their peers via video conferencing and online forums has not only improved their French, but more importantly their impressions of France.

“Norfolk is one of the least racially diverse areas in the country, and collaborating with young people from other nations can help dispel any stereotyped views the students have.”

Drawing on my own experience of the benefits of eTwinning, I've found that our link with a school in Brittany has proved to be very worthwhile. Both sets of pupils have found receiving real letters from their French/English counterpart very motivating. Next year, we hope to strengthen the link with more regular online communication through email and a school blog. We also intend to visit the school as part of our annual Brittany trip in May.

The potential benefits of eTwinning are irrefutable. So what are you waiting for? Why not make the link too. It could be the start of something beautiful.

ALL London does it again!

In January, ninety enthusiastic MFL teachers attended a Saturday morning session organised by The London Branch of the Association for Language Learning to hear two speakers present their uplifting ideas on teaching languages.

Neil Jones, Assistant Head at The Elliott School in Putney talked about ways of engaging learners by using interesting lesson content.

Mike Ullmann, Head of the Languages College at Hockerill Anglo-European College described the successful practice at his school which lead him to winning the prestigious award, Guardian Teacher of the Year 2005.

To see pictures from the January event at The London School of Economics, click here

Following the same format as in January, ALL London hosted their second successful training event yesterday at The Goethe-Institut. The two speakers this time were Francisco Villatoro, Head of Spanish, teacher of French and co-writer of languagesonline at The Royal Grammar School, High Wycombe and Steven Fawkes, Policy Adviser for Learning at the BBC and Past President of ALL.

Both speakers have kindly made their PowerPoint presentations ICT + MFL = Engagement and It's not what you use ... available to download from the ALL London website.

To see pictures from the June event, click here

The next event will be Saturday January 27th (venue tbc) featuring Rachel Hawkes of Comberton Village College on how to use music and song in the classroom and my good self talking about my 'whizzo ICT ideas!' (to quote Helen Myers, Deputy Head at The Ashcombe School in Dorking and webmistress of the ALL London website).

Prices are as follows:

£10 – non-members, £7 – group members, £5 – members (or people who join on the day will have money refunded if they have paid the non-member rate in advance), NQTs, & PGCE students.

The events also give teachers the possibility of matching names with faces as many delegates are members of the popular forums Linguanet, MFLresources and the TES forum.

Check for more details on the ALL London website in the months to come.

I'm looking forward to January already!

Watch, listen and learn

Designed to support schools and education authorities in Scotland, the National Priorities In Education website contains a wealth of subject specific materials and resources. MFL teachers Lynne Horn from Tobermory High School and Mark Pentleton, co-ordinator of the Partners in Excellence project have kindly created useful audio clips describing their different experiences of using ICT both in and out of the classroom. Admittedly, the clips are between two and three years old, but nonetheless they offer helpful and practical advice on how to get started.

There are also some nice examples of using a digital video camera to record role-plays in Gaelic on the site. The clips made by children from Ardchattan Primary School in Argyll & Bute give a good idea of what can be achieved with a bit of imagination and some colourful hosiery. Sock it to 'em, kids!

Access the clips online or download them by clicking on the links below (Make sure you have Quicktime software on your computer first though):

For Lynne Horn's words of wisdom click here:

ICT and impact across the curriculum
Project Impact on Teaching and Learning
Developing Learning Skills
Community and Technology Motivates
CPD Needs and Strategies
Learners and ICT
National Priorities are Addressed
Partners in Excellence project
ICT Gives Context to Learning
Challenges and Issues

For her pupils' click here: Ally, Kyle, Scott and ICT in Learning

Tobermory students PowerPoints:

Aline, Amy, Chloe and Charlotte
David, David and Heather
Heather, David, Andrew and Stefan
Katie and Andrew
Sam, Erica and Steven
Il y a un collège

Students French Digital Video

Ground Force
Horror Movie

For Mark Pentleton's wise thoughts, click here:

All Students
Awards and Impact
Creativity and Language
Language Zone
National Language Project
Project is NP Vehicle
Student Engagement

Other interesting links on the National Priorities site:

'Gaelic Puppets in Action' (1  2  3)

Walker Road Primary School, Aberdeen ICT and creativity in primary modern languages, ICT Suite and Learner Communication

Loudoun Academy, Galston ICT supports Community

HMIE ICT & Modern languages

What the research says ...

 

Carrying out your own classroom research can be very fulfilling. Supported by the Partners in Progress initiative CILT, the National Centre for Languages and the Association for Language Learning, teachers have been evaluating the level and nature of ICT use in language classrooms across the country.

The results of these Action Research projects are now appearing on the Languages-ICT website. There are over twenty different projects to explore covering a range of different topics all related to the theme of ICT and languages.

Most of the final reports are still in the process of being completed. Dates on the first set indicate when they were finished.

CILT and ALL hope to be able to fund more Languages ICT Action Research projects in 2006-07.