Integrating ICT into the MFL classroom:

Facing the backchannel at FOTE10

Download Building_on_firm_foundations.mp3

At the beginning of this month, full of cold and coughing for England, I gave a 20 minute presentation at the Future of Technology in Education event at Senate House in London. It concerned the value of creating a personal learning network using RSS, Twitter and other web tools as a way of improving your own continuing professional development for free in the difficult economic times we now all find ourselves in.

Subsequently reading the Twitter backchannel following my talk was a sobering experience to say the least. Reaction was mixed. Some had tweeted very positively and enjoyed the practical nature of the presentation which they felt would be an ideal introduction to a Twitter newbie.

Others were less encouraging and said I was preaching to the converted and some complained of my choice of PowerPoint formating, colour scheme and musical accompaniment.

After a day to reflect, Chris Grant summarised his impressions of the negativity clearly felt by a faction of the audience in his blog post FOTE10 and what I learned from Joe Dale reminding colleagues to not forget about the needs of everyday staff and learners when it comes to using technology effectively to enhance learning and that I was a brave man to present in the way I did! I've reflected a lot too on what happened and I'm more than happy to admit that I perhaps underestimated how techno-savvy the 300 odd people present in the room were.

However, to be honest having taken part in numerous backchannels in the past, I was surprised by some of the less supportive, nay flippant, nay downright rude tweets coming from certain individuals who felt the need to express themselves in this way. Obviously delegates are entitled to their own opinions, but I agree with Microsoft's Ray Fleming's comment on this Paul Smith post Looking back on FOTE10 where he says:

Over the weekend somebody (on Twitter) said that they wouldn’t be brave enough to present at an Education conference with a Twitter backchannel, because their “skin isn’t thick enough”.

I think that’s a real issue – if the back channel instantly critcises people who say things which are controversial, or (as happened twice on Friday) before they have even said anything – then it could lead to presenters striving for blandness, to avoid irritating anybody in the audience?

If you would like to watch an enhanced version of my talk complete with the Twitter backchannel as it appeared in real time, feel free to click on this link which Martin Hawskey from JISC has kindly created using the iTitle tool.

For those who are not yet completely au fait with the power of Twitter, RSS and other web tools as a way of nuturing a PLN and improving your own CPD, I've added all the links I refer to in the presentation below as well as including an audio version of my talk which you can download above. Comments as always are welcome.

7 Easy Steps for Creating Your Own PLN

Finally, thanks to Tim Bush and Frank Steiner for organising FOTE10 and for taking the trouble to produce embeddable video clips of all the presentations so they can be easily shared online.

Show notes

Twitter for educational purposes and PLNs

On the important difference between hitchhiking and bandwagon-jumping

Are we thinking? Then I'll begin...

Coming to terms with Twitter

Mike Elliott tweet

Mustering the MFL Twitterati

Tweetdeck

Twhirl

Seesmic Desktop

Pruning your PLN with Friend or Follow

How to bookmark Twitter links

Flash Forward

New growth from the grassroots

Keeping up with the Twitter times

Joe Dale - Keeping up with the Twitter times

SiftLinks

Subscribing via RSS & Google Reader to classroom blogs

What does your PLN mean to you?

Web 2.0 Futurelab event

MFL Flashmeeting

How to videoconference with Flashmeeting

MFL Show and Tell

You and Yours: the follow up

Raid on IT budgets 

Craig Smith from Language Perfect on the success of the European Language Olympics

Download Interview_with_Craig_Smith.mp3

For the last couple of weeks the MFL resources forum I subscribe to has been buzzing with enthusiasm about an online language learning competition which has seen pupils from Somerset to St Andrews answering over 14 million vocabulary questions 24/7 in a mad bid to appear as high as possible on the site’s scoreboard. The success of the European Language Olympics designed to run in conjunction with the timing of the Commonwealth Games could be described as nothing short of a phenomenon and overwhelming proof of the power of technology to provide rigorous distance learning opportunities for pupils who have the desire to compete with each other, school against school.

To get some background on the roots of the competition and the software behind it, I contacted one of the main organisers, Craig Smith on Skype in order to give him the opportunity to explain further. I also asked members of MFL resources to contact me with possible questions and observations I could put to Craig during our discussion. Claire Hampson from Thirsk School was a particular star in this regard as you will hear. Claire heavily promoted the competition on her languages blog and even made a Jing video screencast to show her pupils how to get started. Amanda Salt and Annalise Adam used their blogs to advertise the competition too.

You can listen to the outcome of our 30 minute chat by downloading the mp3 above and as always your comments are most welcome. I was particularly pleased that Craig explained the scoring system which has clearly confused some of you taking part and I was impressed by his team’s indefatigable willingness to support colleagues for free even into the early hours of the morning New Zealand time.

The overall winners of the competition Tunbridge Wells Girls' Grammar School were announced during the Show and Tell session at The Language Show over the weekend. In the clip below, kindly filmed by Pete Goodman from the Chinese Staffroom, you will see Helen Myers representing the Association for Language Learning who promoted the competition in the UK announce the top three places in reverse order.

Well done also to Emma B from Longridge High School who came top of the pupil scoreboard with an incredible 34015 points! Awesome!

Thanks to Craig for taking the time to answer all your feedback and for Wendy Newman from ALL for first helping to kick start the competition in the UK. Looking forward to next year’s competition already!