Integrating ICT into the MFL classroom:

Trolling the TES Staffroom MFL forum

The vast majority of users of net forums are there to find out information and to network with others in a kind and considerate way. Unfortunately, from time to time a troll appears who, to quote Wikipedia:

is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum or chat room, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional response or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion.

Last night, one such troll delhaye began the thread Does Joe Dale et al live on planet earth??? on the TES MFL Staffroom forum questioning the educational value of technologies such as blogs, podcasts and Twitter and the fervour of predominantly male language teachers, (allegedly) to be constantly promoting them. Thanks to the power of RSS, I read the post in Google Reader just before going to bed and so could 'sleep on it' and reflect on how or if I wanted to reply.

Deciding not to rant at delhaye, I chose to write a response which provided many links to different case studies on the use of ICT in MFL as well government documents encouraging its use. Reading his or her reply however, I wonder why I bothered as it only seemed to reinforce the impression that the only reason he or she started the thread in the first place was to be controversial for the sake of it rather than wanting to engage in a serious discussion. 

Anyway, this is what I wrote. Hope you find it interesting and that it clarfies my position on the importance of using technology to enhance language learning in the 21st century ;) 

Dear delhaye,

Thank you for starting this thought-provoking thread. To see an example of how MFL teachers use technology in the classroom, you could have a look at the CILT video case studies on effective use of ICT which I and others took part in last year.
http://joedale.typepad.com/integrating_ict_into_the_/2008/09/cilt-video-case.html

Here are some more case studies you may find interesting from the CILT 14-19 website, concerning topics such as blogging, podcasting and using a Flip video camera
http://joedale.typepad.com/integrating_ict_into_the_/2008/05/blogs-and-podca.html

As for Twitter, I’ve compiled a list of language teachers (most of whom are female) from the UK who use the micro-blogging tool to share ideas and network with each other as part of their personal learning network (PLN)

1_kiwi_chick, actualleigh, adamsutcliffe, aliceayel, amandasalt, annagrainger, astrinity, atantot, aurelagazel, bellaale, blagona, canard2008, CarpsofStDay, charte, daisybundle, danieleur, dernley, Debs1302, dominic_mcg, educ8me, elstriker, estherhardman, froggy29400, froggyval, gaelle15, german_tutor, gillottsmfl, gorsey, helenmyers, henriettemfl, huguettemf, icpjones, jendav, jjpadvis, josepicardo, jowinchester, Kath52, kaymcmeekin, kmetsch8, langwitch, louiseCrossley, lisibo, lynnehorn, lwelsh, mariefrance, markpentleton, missferretti, moodlefairy, mrslwalker, mrsmfl, mrsnpalmer, neildjones, nicpearson, northgatemfl, petitejoueuse, PrinceLanguages, painsleymfl, reesiepie, robertgreen, sam_enerve, sghani, sgiller, spanishsam, strychy, suzibewell, tortugueta, valleseco, veneziabonita, wizenedcrone, yorksmum

See these links for further info about creating your own PLN
http://joedale.typepad.com/integrating_ict_into_the_/2009/03/creating-your-pln-using-twitter-.html
http://joedale.typepad.com/integrating_ict_into_the_/2008/12/nui-galway-modern-languages-symposium.html

Government policies have also been encouraging the use of ICT in MFL too. The following quote comes from the Dearing Review for example:

"Young people’s familiarity with ICT offers a great opportunity to language teachers. It seems to us that a determined commitment to use this world, which is so familiar to young people, is a key to increasing the engagement of young people of all ages with languages. New technologies can facilitate real contacts with schools and young people in other countries. They can also provide stimulus for creative and interactive work."

In a recent Ofsted report on the use of ICT in primary and secondary schools, it was noted that:

"In the schools visited, students almost always enjoyed working with ICT and were well engaged by tasks that enabled them to do so. Using ICT contributed effectively to their personal development. In sharing ideas, it helped to develop the skills of working independently and cooperatively. ICT was particularly successful in motivating disaffected boys and improving their attitudes to learning, for example through giving them opportunities to record podcasts in modern foreign languages."
See link: - http://joedale.typepad.com/integrating_ict_into_the_/2009/03/ofsted-praise-podcasting-in-mfl.html

Last Wednesday’s Guardian article on the leaked report on the reforms to the primary curriculum also made it clear that teachers were expected to be more ambitious with their use of ICT in the future and in particular that by the time pupils leave KS2 they should be familiar with such technologies as blogs, podcasts, Wikipedia and Twitter. See link for my post about this:
http://joedale.typepad.com/integrating_ict_into_the_/2009/03/going-live-on-bbc-radio-4-pm-programme.html

That said, ICT is not for everyone and is certainly not a panacea. However, there are a growing number of teachers who are experimenting with the power of blogging, podcasting etc to see how it can enhance their traditional practice and I am all in favour of this. In my own practice, I’ve found that departmental blogg is motivating for pupils as they know their work is going to be published to a real audience. Likewise, I’ve found the rehearsing, recording and editing needed to produce a good quality podcast is also an excellent way to practise and revise language structures. See this post about the Nodehill French Grammar podcasts we made for more information:
http://joedale.typepad.com/integrating_ict_into_the_/2007/06/nodehill_french.html

Hope this clarifies mine and others’ practice. The important thing here is we are all in this together. More and more young people are dropping languages and we need to work as a supportive network to try our hardest to improve uptake.

Best wishes

Joe

Thanks to josepicardo, actualleigh, 4goggas, aliceayel, dominic_mcg and to those who replied to the thread for your support.

 

 

 

 

Going live on BBC Radio 4 PM programme

 

Download Joedaleonradio4pm

On Wednesday much to my surprise I was asked to appear live on the PM Show on BBC Radio 4 to give my views on the article Pupils to study Twitter and blogs in primary schools shake-up which had come out that morning in The Guardian. Written by the former head of Ofsted, Sir Jim Rose, the leaked draft proposes fairly radical reforms of the new primary curriculum in England suggesting that pupils should for example be used to using such technologies as blogs, podcasts, Wikipedia and Twitter in their lessons.

Joined by former secondary school teacher of the year Phil Beadle, we only had five minutes to discuss the issues raised by presenter Carolyn Quinn meaning we had to be clear and concise in what we said. Phil whose ideas on technology have already raised a few eyebrows in the blogosphere took the view that although blogging could be motivating, podcasts were no more than audio files on a website (ignoring the power of RSS to distribute content on demand) and that Twitter had no place in a primary classroom as it would only help to further reduce pupils' attention spans.

As you will hear in the interview, I disagreed with much of what Phil said, arguing that as many primary pupils are already using social networking sites such as Bebo in their free time that we as teachers should channel this enthusiasm to create exciting educational opportunities in and out of the classroom.

If I had had longer, I would have clarified that I was not promoting that pupils set up their own Twitter or blog accounts or that they take part in online activities unsupervised. For these proposals to work, I feel the teacher needs to control the use of these tools by:

• creating a class blog to publish the pupils' work (text, audio, video, images etc) and to moderate comments so that no-one could publish anything inappropriate
• considering which topics across the curriculum would lend themselves well to audio or video podcasting and ensuring adequate time for rehearsing, recording and editing
• setting up a class Twitter account run by him or her to allow for a number of possible educational outcomes including live feedback from his or her personal learning network. Have a look at these posts by Steve Wheeler, Jennifer Blanchard and Laura Walker for more ideas on how and why Twitter could be incorporated into the classroom
• researching the microblogging tool Edmodo. See links from José Picardo and Mark Warner for further advice.
• letting his or her pupils use Wikipedia to find references for their classwork and remembering to acknowledge the source (of course). Have a listen to this E-learning Stuff podcast W.. W.. W.. W.. Wikipedia for an interesting discussion of using Wikipedia in education

The story was also run in Friday's TES and included the following quotes from the review:

"ICT is to be incorporated in all subjects and as Sir Jim promised in his interim report, is expected to be far more ambitious. Podcasting, webcams and video conferencing are all there, reflecting what is already going on in many primaries."

"Children will be expected to understand emails, messaging, wikis and twitters, alongside websites, film, newspapers, leaflets and adverts. They will be expected not only to read books, poetry and plays, but also graphic novels, modern poets and cultural tales. In writing, pupils will be expected to share ideas using ICT by combining written text with illustrations, videos and sound. By age 11 they should be able to create webpages."

As I said on the PM programme, this is welcome news although it has huge training implications as highlighted by Doug Dickinson in his post When is a leak not a leak?. Other reflections on the original Guardian article in the blogosphere include reflections by Lisa Stevens and TeachNet Learning. Many others voiced their opinions about the proposals on Twitter and sent words of encouragement as I whistled across to BBC Southampton via various taxis and the ferry.

Thanks to johnmayo, markpentleton, actualleigh, mrmackensie, parslad, dawnhallybone, tricias, iusher, MattandCat, m_as, SchoolDuggery, kaymcmeekin, NeilAdam, damonlord, GaryH2UK, mwclarkson, AntHeald, GrahamAttwell, PlaceFarm, VentnorBlog, blagona, digitalmaverick, ssutherland, dwsm, tonycassidy, GeoBlogs, twowhizzy, Illendil, kenroyal, nickg33, ostringer, krysiaS, Big_Jen, air73 for your support.

A big thanks also to Chris Vallance who recommended me in the first place to appear on the radio

and to Gareth Davies and VentnorBlog for blogging about it subsequently. See James P's lovely comment below:

You can listen to Wednesday's PM programme on BBC iPlayer for a few more days or just click on the link above for the five minute discussion for which I have been given permission by the BBC to publish here.

Wednesday was an unforgettable day and hopefully not the last of its kind ;)

Ofsted praise podcasting in MFL lessons

Ofsted has recently published a report on the importance of ICT at primary and secondary level based on research in 177 schools from 2005 to 2008. Point 48 under the students' achievements and standards section makes for interesting reading as it highlights the potential of technology to engage students and make them more independent. In particular, inspectors recognise the power of podcasting to personalise learning and enthuse unmotivated boys in their language lessons.

In the schools visited, students almost always enjoyed working with ICT and were well engaged by tasks that enabled them to do so. Using ICT contributed effectively to their personal development. In sharing ideas, it helped to develop the skills of working independently and cooperatively. ICT was particularly successful in motivating disaffected boys and improving their attitudes to learning, for example through giving them opportunities to record podcasts in modern foreign languages.

Is this important? I think it is!

To download the full report, click here.

Thanks to Pat Brennan for the heads up
 

The benefits of using Audacity in languages

 

During the Open Source Schools presentation at BETT 09, MFL HoD José Picardo from Nottingham High School gave a great practical talk on the benefits of using Audacity to put together professional sounding resources for his students.

In the presentation, he explains the advantages of using the powerful tool for recording and editing sound to create podcasts, assessment opportunities and distance learning materials which cater to auditory learners.

José emphasises that as the software is free it can be put on a school network without making a dent in his departmental budget. Moreover, pupils can install it at home and produce their own personalised resources to help them revise work covered in class.

To finish with, he does a quick demonstration showing how easy it is to make a recording and add background music using the intuitive interface.

Great job José

Podcasters' Emporium is the duck's guts!

 

For the last week or so I've been checking out the fabulous Podcasters' Emporium podcast from the Lifestyle PodNetwork which features some great discussions and tips on taking your podcast to the next level. Launched by James Williams in December 2007, the first nine episodes are a welcoming introduction to the enthralling world of podcasting and feature a range of interviews from different Australian enthusiasts in the field.

At the turn of this year, James decided to take on a co-host Dave Gray from the Aussie Geek podcast for Episode 10 and this has changed the dynamic of the show a little as it now seems less scripted and more spontaneous than before. Their impassioned delivery is very engaging as is their interesting use of informal language and Australian colloquialisms such as 'the duck's guts' meaning something is awesome.

I've certainly learnt a lot over the 13 episodes to date and I would recommend anyone interested in issues such as planning your podcast, microphone technique and using a mixing desk to have a listen. Episode 4 on online privacy is particularly thought-provoking.

For feedback, you can join the Podcasters' Emporium Facebook group, follow the show on Twitter or James' and Dave's personal accounts, Skype them on podcastersemporium or send the show an email. The duck's guts indeed!

Testing iPods in Special Education

 

In this clip, we see pupils with special educational needs from Louisa-Muscatine Elementary in Iowa using Video iPods to help them do better in their basic skills tests and personalise their learning. The pilot project set up in 2005 allows students to listen to each question being read aloud while they follow the text on the screen and paper.

"Because of the capability of the Video iPod, students will be able to pause the test and advance to the next question at their own pace. Viewing the questions on the screen will help students with the one to one correspondance of each test question allowing the teacher to observe and assist individual students without interrupting others".

As the teacher Michelle Ryan says, the great thing about the iPods is that the pupils can work more independently from her and she can focus in on how each child is coping with the demands of the test.

The project report does highlight some teething problems with the initiative such as the time-consuming process of scanning in the papers and transferring them on to the portable devices as well as concerns over the security of the iPods and the test papers. Some have criticised the cost of purchasing the iPods in the first place, suggesting the money could have been better spent on traditional technologies such as pen and paper!

If you would like to make tests for iPods or mobile phones, have a look at the following links:

• Create mobile phone quizzes in MS Paint
• How to create a video from PowerPoint
• Mobile revision with eBook to images
• PowerPoint on iPod and YouTube
• Playing PowerPoints on an mp3 player or mobile phone
• Convert PowerPoint into an iPod movie
• Cool stuff you can do with your iPod
• PPT to iPod tutorial
• The iPod in Education
• iPods in the classroom
• Love of Learning
• Using the iPod for Oral Fluency
• Sean on the News 
• iPods help special-education students excel

Creating Your PLN Using Twitter

Gina Hartman, Educational Technology Specialist from Francis Howell School District has made a great presentation about how Twitter and wikis can be used by teachers to create their own personal learning network and allow themselves to connect with others from around the world. 

To help teachers in this process, Gina has set up a wiki Twitter4Teachers which contains pages of useful contacts divided up according to subject and area of interest. The page for foreign languages teachers is here and features a wealth of MFL colleagues who are already using the microblogging tool to feed their PLN.

For those who still haven't understood what all the fuss is about Twitter, I suggest you first need to follow a core of people who are like-minded and wish to connect with you, then add more followers you come across via others' messages or your own research. The usefulness of the community you choose to set up is exemplified by the quote of high profile twitterer Drew Buddie a.k.a digitalmaverick who recently said in The Telegraph that "Twitter is my Google" 

Although Twitter is not a traditional search engine designed to find facts and content quickly and easily, some would argue that it is a gateway to the most current thoughts and ramblings of millions of people around the world. For this reason, power users like Drew prefer it to Google as they can not only find out up to date information very quickly but that they value the personal endorsements and objective advice that come with it in the same way that Amazon reviews help you to decide what to buy.

For teachers interested in educational technology, Twitter can prove an invaluable way of receiving trustworthy information on the latest piece of kit/website from colleagues who are actually using it in their classrooms. Likewise, it can serve as a useful back-channel to a conference presentation allowing the audience to focus and share ideas while their creative juices are flowing.

Microblogging can also be a powerful tool in and out of the classroom. See Tom Barrett's presentation Nineteen Interesting Ways to Use Twitter in the Classroom for some inspiration. His use of Twitter for live feedback is particularly impressive. Have a look too at Anne Mirtschin's post My class was all a-Twitter for another great example.

Supportive collaboration between people who may only know each other through their online connections can be seen on a daily basis on Twitter and perhaps explains one reason why it is such a popular tool amongst educators worldwide. Many state that thanks to Web 2.0 tools such as Twitter, blogs, wikis and podcasts they have been able to greatly enhance their own continuous professional development (CPD) and learn an unimaginable amount from the kindness of strangers as well as people they have met in person.

The problem with deciding to follow hundreds or even thousands of people though is that you are faced by the dilemma of whether to sift through everyone's messages (not to be recommended) or run the risk of missing out on something important. If this situation applies to you, I suggest you use Twitter Search to create RSS feeds for all those people who you are particularly interested in (your core group)and then subscribe to them in Google Reader so you can read their messages all in one place when you have the time.

To do this, go to Twitter Search and put in the username of someone you want to follow then click on Search to generate the latest results. Click on the link Feed for this query on the right hand side of the page and copy the feed in the address bar which should look like the example below with the name of the person you want to track replaced by the word username:

http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?lang=en&q=username

In Google Reader, click the Add a subscription button and paste in the feed. Click Add and wait until the messages load. When you've finished scanning the tweets, click the Mark all as read button and you're done. Now whenever a new tweet is sent or someone replies to the person you are tracking, you will see all their messages appear in bold in your reader like in your email client. To help you manage your subscriptions, you can create different folders and assign all your Twitter feeds to the same one. Easy.

Here are some lovely, enthusiastic and helpful language teachers from the UK who I'm sure would love to hear from you and help get you started:

1_kiwi_chick, actualleigh, adamsutcliffe, aliceayel, amandasalt, annagrainger, astrinity, atantot, aurelagazel, bellaale, blagona, canard2008, CarpsofStDay, charte, daisybundle, danieleur, dernley, Debs1302, dominic_mcg, educ8me, elstriker, estherhardman, froggy29400, froggyval, gaelle15, german_tutor, gillottsmfl, gorsey, helenmyers, henriettemfl, huguettemf, icpjones, jendav, jjpadvis, josepicardo, jowinchester, Kath52, kaymcmeekin, kmetsch8, langwitch, louiseCrossley, lisibo, lynnehorn, lwelsh, mariefrance, markpentleton, missferretti, moodlefairy, mrslwalker, mrsmfl, mrsnpalmer, neildjones, nicpearson, northgatemfl, petitejoueuse, PrinceLanguages, painsleymfl, reesiepie, robertgreen, sam_enerve, sghani, sgiller, spanishsam, strychy, suzibewell, tortugueta, valleseco, veneziabonita, wizenedcrone, yorksmum

Why not follow some of these innovative and creative practitioners and see what effect it has? Like Suzi, you may find the experience highly rewarding.

 

Although obviously not everyone will want to enGorse the power of Twitter! But there Hugo!