Integrating ICT into the MFL classroom:

Newbury Park are flavour of the month

Language of the Month, the award winning project from Newbury Park Primary School was mentioned yesterday in the Telegraph article Language lessons: When a new language is child's play. The report explains how each month children from the school create multimedia resources to teach their classmates basic phrases from their mother tongue. Forty three presentations are now available for download in languages from Afrikaans to Yoruba.

This is a great example of how children can promote language awareness and global citizenship in a way which makes perfect sense to anyone.

VoiceThread for language teachers

Randy Thornton and Silvia Tolisano have published tutorials on using VoiceThread in the languages classroom. Click on the links below to check them out.

Download flintro.mov

Digital Storytelling- Part VI VoiceThread

Blog rules offer support for internet safety

Creative ICT consultant John Sutton has created some blog rules as a guide of how to ensure the safety of your pupils online. Check them out now.

How well do you know your world?

If you'd like to test your knowledge of world geography, why not try out this fun quiz. Careful though. It is addictive!

TinyURL for shorter web addresses

Have a look at this TinyURL commercial a comical explanation of the useful tool for shortening long web addresses. A must for Twitter fans.

Bluescreening for languages

Creating a chroma key effect (blue or green screening) can be a fun way of bringing your videos to life. Vincent Everett has been experimenting with green screen technology with the 30 day trial version of Video Edit Magic and you can see the results above. Have a look too at the great videos from Windy Nook which 'seem' to have been filmed in Paris.

Although bluescreening can be expensive with some software packages, it is possible to do it for free using Windows MovieMaker. Have a look at this tutorial to find out how.

Modern Languages in Primary Schools

Brendan Duignan, regional project leader of the Modern Languages in Primary Schools Initiative in Ireland has made some useful tutorials on getting started with Photo Story 3, Vokis and Audacity. Check them out now.

For more background information about the MLPSI have a listen to the NDLR podcast with the national coordinator Tanya Flanagan and look at this month's InTouch magazine which also includes the article ICT in the Language Classroom.

Quel temps fait-il à Foxford?

New MFL blogger James Padvis from Foxford School and Community Arts College has come up with the idea of using Twitter to get his pupils to post daily updates about the weather in Coventry. Wait till I tell the MetClub!

Promote your feed with Feedburner

Using a Feedburner is a great way to publicize your blog or podcast feed so others can subscribe and you can see how many readers or listeners you have. To do this, you first need to find out what your feed is. In Internet Explorer 7, this is easy.

Go to your blog or podcasting portal and click on the orange icon at the top right of your browser and click RSS. If you have a choice, I suggest you select RSS 2.0.

Copy the address of the feed e.g http://nodehillfrench.typepad.com/two_stars_and_a_wish/rss.xml

Burning a blog feed

Go to Feedburner and register for an account. Paste in your feed into the box and click Next.

Click Activate Feed.

Click Next twice.

Click the Publicize tab and click FeedCount. Click Activate. Choose the body and text colour and click Save

Copy the HTML code and paste it into a template on your blog. For TypePad users:

• Click the TypeLists tab.
• Click Create a new TypeList.
• Click on the dropdown menu under List type and select Notes
• Type in the title e.g. Subscribe.
• Click Create New List button
• Click in the box under Note and paste in the html code.
• Click Save.
• Click Publish.
• Click on the link for your home page e.g. the name of your blog and click Save Changes.
• Click VIEW SITE to see the changes

In Feedburner, click Chicklet Chooser and select Plain Text. Copy the HTML code and go back to your TypePad account.

• Click on the TypeLists tab and your new TypeList Subscribe
• Click Add an Item and paste in the HTML code in the Note box
• Click Save
• Click on the link for your home page e.g. the name of your blog and click Save Changes.
• Click VIEW SITE to see the changes

Burning a podcast feed

Copy your podcast feed using the same process as above e.g. http://nodehillfrench.podomatic.com/rss2.xml.

Sign into Feedburner, paste your feed into the box, tick I am a podcaster! and click Next

Click Activate Feed and click Next

 

Fill in details about your podcast and click Next twice and. Click the Publicize tab and follow the same procedure as above.

Sing a French Song

Clare Seccombe, AST and webmistress of MFL Sunderland has published some traditional songs and rhymes recorded by a talented foreign language assistant from the local area. Included with the downloadable mp3 files are the words and translations to help you sing along.

Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques ...