Integrating ICT into the MFL classroom:

Hosting the TES MFL forum, moi!

When I was originally asked to be the host on the TES MFL Staffroom Forum, I nearly fell off my chair! To say I was flattered would be the understatement of the year and I've been grinning ever since.

 

As part of the site revamp, The TES plan to have 'expert hosts' on all their fora to encourage debate and resolve queries.

This is not to say that I will be able to answer every single question ever posed about learning and teaching modern foreign languages since the year dot. However, I will do my best to help out with any issues I do have experience in (as I've been doing for the last few years on this blog).

Having used language fora since the end of the last century, I know that they are a great way of developing one's own professional development and learning from like-minded colleagues as are blogs and Twitter too. The strength of any online community is the willingness of its members to share their ideas. In vibrant ones, regular posters can become recognised as experts in their given fields over time because of the helpful feedback they give.

To single out individuals as hosts is perhaps too formal for some. I do appreciate this point of view, but not to the extent of turning down this fantastic opportunity which I see as somewhat of a busman's holiday as I already read posts on a daily basis via RSS as well as visiting the forum to check out replies to interesting threads.

It's also lovely to officially return to the site having previously written eighteen posts for the TES ICT blog and air my Times Educational Supplement category again.

So if you'd like to ask me something, just start the title of your message Dear Joe and I'll see what I can do to help.

 

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.

 

 

 

 

TESconnect with RSS

TESconnect, the Times Educational Supplement revamped website has launched today and I'm delighted to see that the popular staffroom forums and resource bank can now be tracked via RSS. Just click on the orange icon and paste the feed address into your reader. What a great timesaver!

TES ICT Blog: EdTechRoundup

ICT in the classroom: EdTechRoundup

MFL teacher Joe Dale explains the value of EdTechRoundup, a podcast explaining how technology can improve learning in the classroom.

30 January 2008 at 00.00

EdTechRoundup is a new podcast produced by a growing group of UK-based teachers who are keen to share their ideas on how new technologies can be used in the classroom to enhance learning. Very much a collaborative project, contributors who include colleagues from both primary and secondary backgrounds have been using weekly Flashmeetings, the ETR wiki and Twitter to decide on and organise the look and feel of the show.

The launch of EdTechRoundup was officially announced by Doug Belshaw, a history teacher at Ridgewood School in Doncaster, at BETT recently during TeachMeet 08 organised by Ewan McIntosh. You can see the moment itself by watching this Flashmeeting and fast forwarding to 2:43:55 when Doug appears on stage.

Episode 1 of the ETR podcast is now available for download from the ETR blog. You can also subscribe to it via this RSS feed in a reader such as Google Reader or iTunes by clicking on this link.

ETR 1 features two Scottish presenters: David Noble a chartered teacher from Hillside School in Fife and Sinclair Mackenzie, a physics teacher from Thurso High School who explain the intended format of the podcast and the intention of having a rolling programme of presenters for each show.

In this inaugural podcast, David and Sinclair first describe some of the ways they are using ICT in their own schools with blogs and Flashmeetings. They then go on to discuss a common frustration faced by many teachers around the UK who are not able to use certain tools such as Voki or YouTube in the classroom because they are blocked by their local authority through fear of misuse.

David mentions the excellent ScotEduBlogs which brings together posts from bloggers around Scotland as well as further afield and is a great place to catch up on the thoughts and experiences of educationalists using blogs to reflect on their own practice.

In the 'ICT buffet section' of the podcast, Sinclair tells listeners about Classtools.net which he has chosen as his 'educational tool of the week'. Classtools.net is a site which allows you to create a range of Flash exercises which you can use on an interactive whiteboard, save as a webpage or embed on a blog or site. Sinclair says how he used the Fishbone template to teach his pupils about balanced and unbalanced forces and how the History department in his school are using the Post-it template for annotating images with colour-coded notes.

Next is the 'guest interview' where I am asked to suggest five ways in which blogs can be used in class or school. Here are my top tips for educational blogging:

• use a blog as a way of publishing your pupils' spoken or written work to a real audience
• encourage others to leave comments for assessment for learning purposes
• moblog a trip abroad with a mobile phone or USB modem
• create a radio or tv station
• encourage creative writing with individual learner blogs

I finish by suggesting that teachers could set up a mother blog to tie sets of individual blogs together which share a common theme.

To round up the podcast, David recommends Edublogs as a suitable blogging platform to be used in education because it is free and doesn't have a Next Blog button like Blogger which can take you to a site containing inappropriate content.

The show notes for the podcast can be found on this ETR1 Del.icio.us page.

If you are are a UK educator and would like to get involved with the EdTechRoundup project, why not add your name to the ETR wiki or join one of the Sunday night Flashmeetings from 8.00-9.00? You'd be more than welcome.

Hosts for ETR2 will be Tom Barrett from Priestsic Primary and Nursery School in Nottingham and John Johnston from Sandaig Primary School in Glasgow.

Proof of how podcasting can help boost your pupils' listening and reading skills

The blurry image above was taken from last Saturday's Transglobal Edubloggers Flashmeeting organised by Paul Harrington in which I referred to an article which had caught my eye in that week's TES. For those that can't make out the fuzzy headline, it reads Headphones help pupils improve their reading and describes how a group of 159 pupils aged between six and thirteen were able to accelerate their reading age 'four times as quickly' as their peers over a period of ten weeks by listening back to recordings of themselves saying words they found difficult to remember.

The article written by Helen Ward is based on research carried out by Dr Flora Macleod, Dr Philip Macmillan and Professor Brahm Norwich from Exeter University in the study Listening to myself: improving oracy and literacy among children who fall behind' which you can purchase online for £16.45 includng VAT.

Although I've not read the original research, the article explains that pupils recorded themselves saying a list of words correctly with help from their teaching assistants using 'recorders designed for people learning foreign languages'.

"The researchers found that the children in the self-voice group made on average a gain of 1.56 months compared to those following their usual classroom routine, who gained 0.37 months".

It also states that when recordings were made by another speaker the children did not make the same progress 'as those who listened to themselves'.

The article reminded me of the inspiring work of Kathleen Holton whose use of digital voice recorders, and Audacity has helped her pupils personalise their learning by routinely letting them transfer recordings of themselves to their mp3 players or mobile phones so they can revise when and where they want. By giving them access to downloadable transcripts via the school's Moddle site too, they can boost both their listening and reading comprehension at the same time.

For MFL teachers interested in persuing the possibilities of podcasting Headphones help pupils improve their reading provides a strong argument for recording your pupils in class and offering them distance learning opportunities via a VLE or podcatcher such as iTunes. More importantly perhaps, the above research is based on empirical not anecdotal evidence of the benefits of doing so.

This makes for good reading, no?

Podcast winners for TES Newsday 2007

Organisers of TES Newsday 2007 have announced the winners of this year's competition. Seventeen schools took part in the new podcast category all of whom received digital voice recorders and USB microphones for their efforts. Helston Community College were joint KS4 winners with Las empanadas en marcha, an ode to local delicacy, the Cornish Pasty, prepared completely in Spanish.

Students Create Spanish Podcast, an article which appeared in the school's publication The Helstonian reported that the Year 11 Spanish students had a great time working together with each other and individually as they composed, scripted, recorded and edited their entry. You can listen to the results of their hard work by clicking here. Well done Helston.

The other winners in the KS4 category were The Minster School in Nottinghamshire with their Spoken Learning project (SLAM) lead by Head of English Paula O'Rourke. In the following radio interview about the Minster podcasts, Paula and some of her pupils talk about the benefits of podcasting and how listening to revision notes or recording poems can help them to learn in a variety of ways.

"A lot of pupils and especially young people today, they listen all the time. That's how they learn. They hear and they listen all the time. So we thought it would be great, if they could use their iPods to logon and listen to the poems being read in a dramatic and meaningful way."

"I think it's the cool factor really, as Miss O'Rourke says. Especially for boys, they don't want to be seen reading soppy love poetry. If they've got their iPod and they can just pretend they are listening to rap music or something. So I think it promotes learning."

"We're much more aware that people learn in a different way. So we constantly look at ... all the different types. You've got visual learners, audio learners, kinaesthetic learners and what's great about this is that all three are involved because they've got something to look at. They've got something to listen to and they've got something to do because they could be highlighting their poems, manipulating it, making notes and annotating it at the same time. So it incorporates and encapsulates all three types. So it's a winner."

Have a listen to some of the KS4 English podcasts and hear what Paula and her pupils are talking about.

TES ICT Blog: Podcasting and language skills

03 July 2007 at 09.00

ICT in the classroom: Podcasting and language skills

MFL teacher Joe Dale explains how podcasting can be used across the curriculum.

More and more teachers are recognising the educational value of podcasting. For MFL teachers, podcasting is surely a no brainer for two reasons. Firstly, by making a podcast, we can give pupils a real and engaging reason for extending their speaking skills and help them to deepen their understanding through the process of editing their work. Secondly, by harnessing the power of the web, we can offer pupils the choice of revising material already covered in class on a mobile device or home computer at a time that suits them.

Getting started
You don't need much kit to get started, just a computer, microphone, sound editing software and a web connection. If you have a mobile phone or mp3 player that records audio, you can create podcasts wherever you want, such as on a school trip abroad. Having mastered the basics of digital voice recording, you could think about podcasting or vodcasting your pupils doing the following:

• chanting verbs or drilling vocabulary
• rehearsing dialogues 
• speaking with your foreign language assistant
• practising pronunciation
• explaining grammatical rules
• singing songs
• reciting GCSE model answers for the oral exam
• making a weekly weather forecast
• creating a tour guide of the local area or town
• reviewing a recent film
• producing a radio show or news report
• making a presentation for a partner school
• taking part in authentic conversations with native speakers on an educational visit
• explaining the cooking instructions for a recipe
• recording a weekly learning log
• summarising a unit of work in their own words

The next step would be to let your pupils subscribe to the podcasts from home using a free and readily available piece of software like iTunes, so they can then transfer them to their mobile devices and listen to them on the move.

Podomatic is a free hosting service which makes podcasting an easy and straightforward process. Having created an account, you can add your clips in two different ways, either by directly recording them with the site's inbuilt tool or by importing files you've already prepared using software such as Audacity or GarageBand for PC or Mac. The site also handles video and allows you to make a series of videocasts or vodcasts using MovieMaker or iMovie.

Once uploaded, you can list your files as episodes in a series on your own customised page. More advanced features, allow you to add intros and outros to your podcasts to make them sound really professional and you can even create your own subscribable feed so your pupils can download any new episode via iTunes.

If you're interested in trying out the podcasting portal, why not run through this tutorial made by ESL teacher Valentina Dodge or this guide by The Florida Center for Instructional Technology, to get you started. It really is that simple.

To test out the podcast directory, I thought I'd upload the French Grammar podcasts I made recently with my Year 7 form class. Using the intuitive interface it was easy setting up my page and uploading the episodes in order. That done, I simply registered the feed with iTunes and waited a short time until it was approved.

This is what you do to register your feed:

1. Once you've logged in to Podomatic, click on My Podcast and then Manage my Podcast
2. Copy the code in the box labelled Your RSS Feed
3. Download iTunes and create an account
4. In the main interface, click on Music Store and then Podcasts
5. Scroll down until you seen the panel FOR PODCASTERS and click on Submit a Podcast
6. In the Podcast Feed URL box, paste the code from Step 1 and click Continue
7. You will then have to sign in to publish your podcast
8. In the next screen, you need to choose a category and subcategory for your podcast such as Education and Language Courses
9. Click Submit
10. You should then receive the message Thank you for submitting this podcast to the iTunes Store
11. Click Done

Your podcast series should then appear in the iTunes directory once it has been approved which can take a few days. Now that you've registered, your feed will automatically update itself whenever you create a new episode in Podomatic. Now, to allow your pupils to subscribe to your podcasts, this is what you do:

1. On the page you've created e.g. nodehillfrench.podomatic.com click on the RSS Feed link on the right hand side of the page.
2. Copy the code in the address bar towards the top of the screen which should look something like this: http://nodehillfrench.podomatic.com/rss2.xml
3. Open iTunes and click on the Advanced menu
4. Click Subscribe to Podcast ...
5. In the dialogue box that then appears, paste the code and click OK
6. A listing of your podcast series should then be highlighted in blue in the directory in front of you
7. Click on the arrow to the left of the title of your series to see all the current episodes appear
8. To download any of these episodes, click the GET button or simply double-click the episode
9. Once downloaded, double click the episode to play it
10. You can then transfer the recordings to a mobile device by synchronising it with iTunes or Windows Media Player

Creative language teachers like Stuart Gorse from Lancaster Royal Grammar School has been using Podomatic recently to help his pupils revise for their French and Spanish GCSE speaking exams by uploading personalised video clips of him and his ventriloquist dummy Hugo modelling typical questions and answers for the oral test.

Anne Peters from South Bromsgrove Community High School has also been using Podomatic to get her GCSE German pupils to create model answers for their speaking exam in the school's South News Pipe Line Podcast maintained by music teacher, Chris Cobon. Watch the Teachers TV programme Secondary ICT SOS - Internet Research and Podcasting to see how she does it.

Other language teachers in England and Scotland are also trying out Podomatic to support their students outside of the classroom. Samantha Dernley, German teacher from Egglescliffe School in Stockton-on-Tees has been encouraging her GCSE students to listen to her podcasts as a way of revising at home. Likewise, Volker Green, Programme Leader for Modern Languages at The City Academy in Bristol has been experimenting with a Spanish podcast to help his students learn how to say they are sick or injured.

Language teachers in Scotland have created ML Podcast to publish a range of primary and secondary podcasts from the region. These include revision guides, presentations, interviews and model speaking tests. Kay McMeekin who runs the blog East Ayrshire Modern Languages News posted recently about podcasts made at New Farm Primary School and Doon Academy respectively.  Erwan Ansquer, MFL teacher from Morgan Academy in Dundee has been videoing the department's Spanish and French language assistants and uploading the clips to the site. Check out the results here.

Have a look at this clip too created by languages lead tutor Rosi Gemmell for a MFL day in Bradford in February 2007. The video shows how Podomatic can be used to introduce vocabulary on simple topics such as the family in Spanish.

To find hear more examples of MFL teachers experimenting with podcasting in the iTunes Music Store, go to the education category of the podcast directory and look for the following:

• SHSG French Podcast
• Northgate High School
• EdgehillCast
• Elliott Podcast
• GCSE French Podcast - Stantonbury Campus
• GCSE Spanish - Shireland CLC

As more and more pupils choose to stop learning a foreign language at the end of KS3, we must as MFL teachers think about ways of encouraging them to continue with their studies. Podcasting could be one way to achieve this by giving our ICT savvy teenagers different ways of revising and expressing their creativity with the technology they like to use in their own time outside of school.

Podcasting is not a panacea, but we would be stupid to completely ignore its potential.

TES ICT Blog: Sound ideas for PowerPoint

   

MFL teacher Joe Dale explains how sound can be added to PowerPoint presentations to engage pupils, reinforce pronunciation and help personalise learning

Inserting audio files into PowerPoint can transform a presentation into something more engaging and meaningful. For a MFL teacher, this could mean the voice of a native speaker, a song in the target language, an aural prompt or a sound indicating a right or wrong answer. Using free software such as Audacity and an inexpensive microphone, it is easy to record sound and export it for use in the classroom.

In my experience, pupils are always intrigued when they see a loudspeaker icon on the interactive whiteboard and want to hear what sound it may emit when clicked. Sounds can bring a presentation to life and catch the attention of the more reluctant learner.

There are various ways of inserting sounds into a PowerPoint presentation depending on the type of audio file you have and the effect you want to create. Two common formats are wav and mp3. The former can be embedded in a presentation, but is larger in size as opposed to the latter which may be smaller, but can only be linked, meaning it must be stored in the same folder as the presentation, but cannot be integrated within it. For more explanation of the differences of embedding and linking files in PowerPoint, click here

CDex is a free program which allows the user to change the mp3 file extension or 'riff' of an audio clip to wav and retain its file size at the same time. The process known as riff-ing is useful because it means that smaller files can therefore be embedded into a presentation and do not need to be linked to separately.

To riff an mp3 file, launch CDex and click on the Convert menu. Select Add RIFF-WAV(s) header to MP2 or MP3 file(s). In the next window, click on the three dots top right to browse for the folder where your mp3 files are stored. Select it and click OK. You should then be able to see the available mp3 files in that folder. Hold down the Shift key and select the ones you want to convert. Click Convert. If you now go back to the folder where the original files are, you will see that they have been duplicated and have wav extensions. You can check by right clicking the new files and selecting Properties. Type of file will say Wave sound, but the file size will not have changed.

Being able to embed mp3 files with wav extensions is a neat little trick because it means that you can create standalone presentations with self-contained audio which are considerably smaller in size than their wav equivalents.

So what different ways are there for inserting audio files into PowerPoint to create different effects? Here are some ideas:

Narration

Adding narration to individual slides can be used to personalise and reinforce vocabulary presentations, create talking big books or photo-stories and help GCSE students revise for their coursework. To do this, click on Insert Movies and Sound and then Sound from File. Select the converted mp3 file you want to embed and click OK. You will then be asked how you want the sound to start in the slide show either automatically or when clicked. Having made your choice, a loudspeaker icon will appear in the centre of your slide and you can choose whether you want to position it on or off the slide.

Playing Sounds Across Slides

To add a narration which plays over a number of slides, go to the slide where you want your audio to begin and click on the Slide Show menu and then Slide Transition. Click on the dropdown menu next to Sound, then scroll down and select Other Sound ... Find your audio file as before and click OK. Next, tick the box which says Loop until next sound and go to the slide where you want the narration to stop. Follow the same procedures to bring up the Slide Transition dialogue box and instead of selecting Other Sound ..., click Stop Previous Sound.

Action Settings and Action Buttons

As well as directly inserting sound files into a slide, you can also attach audio files to an image or text box as a sound effect or auditory prompt. Just right-click any object and select Action Settings ... Make sure the Play sound box is ticked and then click on the dropdown menu underneath and select Other Sound ... Browse as before and click OK. In addition, you can choose whether to play the sound by clicking on it or by hovering over with the mouse by selecting the appropriate tab at the top of the Action Settings dialogue box.

You can also use an Action Button to launch your audio. To do this, go to the Slide Show menu again and hover the cursor over Action Buttons. Twelve different types of Action Button will then appear and you will probably want to choose the one with a loudspeaker on it although you can attach a sound to any one of them. Upon clicking on your chosen button, your cursor will turn into a black cross. Hold down your left-click and create the size of button you want by dragging accordingly. When you release the mouse the Action Settings dialogue box will then appear and you follow the same instructions as above for attaching a sound to it.

Custom Animation

Another way of adding sound is through Custom Animation. Not only can you make objects and text appear and disappear or move them around the screen to reinforce a grammar point such as er verb endings, you can also play a sound file at the same time for emphasis and to grab attention. Here, you have to right click the item you want to animate and select Custom Animation. Click Add Effect and choose an appropriate animation. Then click on the dropdown menu by the selected item and click Effect Options. Click on the next dropdown menu next to Sound. Scroll down to Other Sound ... Browse as before and click OK.

There are other ways of incorporating sound into PowerPoint too such as by recording narration directly into a slide with Windows Sound Recorder or by playing a CD track through a presentation. However, both have their drawbacks. The former will produce a wav recording which potentially could be very large in size and the latter requires you to keep the original CD containing the track in the drive during playback. If you own the copyright of the recording, you can rip it using readily available software such as Windows Media Player and then embed it afterwards as described above.

However, if you are looking for music sites which do let you legally use their audio files to enhance your presentations, you can choose from the list I've compiled in my Del.icio.us account under podsafe which is covered by the Creative Commons licence. To make life easier, I've included it as a tagroll in the left hand sidebar of my blog.

My favourite site from the list is Flashkit which has a large selection of loops which you can download and freely use as long as you acknowledge the author. These short clips last on average between five and twenty seconds and are therefore ideal for presentations or podcasts. For sound effects, FindSounds is a great site to explore. Read about their copyright policy here.

The digital age has arrived and as some high street stores decide to reject old technology and no longer stock audio cassettes despite examining boards still insisting that oral exams are recorded upon them, we find ourselves in the fortunate position of being able to be far more creative and flexible with how we choose to use audio in the 21st century.

Making mp3 files is straightforward and can help to personalise learning. Listening is an important skill, particularly in languages where it can be used to improve pronunciation and reinforce meaning. Now that we have the technology in our schools, let's not allow our pupils to power down in class, but use these tools to enhance our lessons and bring PowerPoint back to life. Sounds interesting? Let's embed the idea.

TES ICT Blog: eTwinning - using technology to bring schools closer together

28 February 2007 at 10.30

eTwinning - using technology to bring schools closer together

MFL teacher Joe Dale visits the eTwinning conference and finds out how technology can help bring nations closer together.

When the British Council invited me to attend the eTwinning conference in Brussels in February, I felt a bit of a fraud to be honest. Admittedly, I had blogged quite a lot about eTwinning projects in the last year, but had not actually taken part in one myself. That said, my snail mail links with a school in Brittany and Chibougamau, Quebec have been coming on nicely and of course there is always the potential of using technology in the future to make them stronger and more established.

The three day celebration of informal European union was an inspiring prospect as was the luxury of being able to catch the Eurostar instead of having to plump for my usual Flybe option from Southampton. The two hour hop from Waterloo brought me conveniently into the centre of the Belgian capital meaning I was only a short taxi trip away from the lavish Crowne Plaza where the conference was taking place.

After a good night’s sleep and hearty breakfast, I was delighted to spy Ewan McIntosh exchanging some YouTube gems with Christelle Roubelat, an English teacher from Montélimar in the south of France. Then teaming up with John Mason, technician at Queen Anne High School in Dunfermline, Fife, we sauntered off to a practical and inspiring session by Oscar Stringer about creating simple one stop animations using a webcam, a few static objects and a colourful backdrop.

Oscar’s opening message was "keep things simple and have fun" and showed us his own creation How to make a mummy by way of example. Taking us through a step by step guide, we learnt how easy it can be to bring everyday items such as a pair of shoes or a plasticene figure to life by shooting a sequence of frames and making small incremental adjustments to the subject to create the illusion of movement.

Here are Oscar's top tips to anyone wanting to get started with animation in the classroom:

• create simple characters with big features which can easily convey straightforward ideas
• get your pupils to think visually
• draw on film conventions such as a heart indicating a character is in love
• choose commercial software such as Stop Motion Pro (PC) I can animate (Mac) or free open source equivalents SM Animator or Monkey Jam
• make sure your webcam is plugged in before you launch your animation software
• keep to the '12 frames per second rule' and include half second pauses to slow down the action and emphasise what happens next
• use onion skinning to allow you to see two or more frames at once
• make your plasticene characters wink by removing their eyes for three shots and then put them back again and take another six shots
• put your students into groups of four or five so they can collaborate and learn from each other
• delete individual frames which contain handshots
• add title screens to anchor meaning
• use simple transitions like fade-in instead of more fancy ones which can be distracting
• add video effects such as lightening or rain
• add sound effects to create mood
• render your finished film in iMovie or MovieMaker and save it in different formats for playback on the web, a computer, CDRom, pen drive or mobile phone
• use linseed oil-based plasticene which will retain its shape and not dry out
• aim for advert length stories with simple ideas
• break action into visual bullet points
• restrict the number of characters to two or three

The next session was equally thought-provoking, not only for its varied presentations on different web publishing tools such as Skill2Skill, Wideboard, Magazine Factory and Flashmeeting but also for the opportunity to see Ewan blog everything live. He listened, typed in his thoughts, surfed the web, took pictures with his SLR digital camera, transferred them to his Mac with a USB lead and uploaded them to his Flickr account where they were automatically posted to his Typepad blog. A brilliant lesson in itself!

As for the 'official' presentations, for me the best of the bunch was Flashmeeting created by the Knowledge Media Institute (KMI, part of the Open University) and promoted by education ICT consultant Jeff Howson on behalf of  the East of England Broadband Network (E2BN) and KMI, and presented by John Warwick in a glorious ten minute whistle-stop burst. Flashmeeting is a free and easy videoconferencing solution for schools wanting to connect with each other safely and securely anywhere in the world. To get started, all you need is a webcam and the latest version of the free Macromedia Flash player installed on your computer. Just contact Jeff or John to set up an account.

Once registered, you can book a meeting for a specific time for a set number of participants or guests. Flashmeeting then generates a unique web address which you can send to all those wishing to take part. Up to twenty five guests can attend any one Flashmeeting and the beauty is that you can choose to record and archive everything (video, audio, text chat). This can then be accessed later on the web or downloaded as a zip file and edited.

At the end of John's presentation, I cheekily asked whether I could borrow his laptop as mine was sulking and take part in a pre-arranged Flashmeeting on Podcasting and Language Learning. He kindly agreed and within seconds the remaining audience had the opportunity to see Jeff highlighting the main features of Flashmeeting to a collection of EFL teachers from around the world. You can watch a replay of the whole discussion here or just jump to the part when Jeff appears on screen by clicking on the list tab in the main window and select 28:15 Joe

To hear more about Flashmeeting, listen to the following interview I recorded with Jeff in Brussels where he describes in more detail how the free videoconferencing service can be used in MFL lessons to engage pupils and give them real contact with native speakers in their own classrooms. You can also see this example of pupils from China and England singing songs, playing music and showing their artwork to each other in a heart-warming 'show and tell' session.

You can also listen to the conversation, Ewan, Christelle and myself had in a nearby brasserie (complete with authentic background atmos) at the end of the conference where we chat about our impressions of the event and what we found most interesting.

I agreed with Ewan that keeping things simple, a recurring theme from the conference was an important and powerful message. This was exemplified by Marc Durando in his closing speech where he referred to the following SIMPLE acronym as a way of encouraging more teachers to launch and maintain eTwinning projects in the future:

Share
Innovate
Motivate
Participate
Learn
Exchange

These may be only buzzwords, but they are useful reminders nonetheless on how technology can motivate us and keep us connected in the 21st century. We now have the powerful and versatile tools we need for sharing video, audio, images and text easily and safely with each other. We no longer have to be restricted to the four walls of our classrooms and can reach out across countries and continents via the world wide web. By highlighting our differences and similarities, we can also help to break down cultural barriers, produce mutually beneficial learning outcomes and give our pupils a real reason for communicating in a foreign language.

eTwinning cannot solve the world's problems overnight, but it can help to bring nations closer together and let us learn more about each other. Exciting stuff indeed.

TES ICT Blog: Making the best use of the web in MFL lessons

05 February 2007 at 09.15

Making the best use of the web in MFL lessons

The BETT show was a huge source of classroom inspiration for language teachers. Here MFL teacher Joe Dale rounds up some of the best Having four MFL seminars on the same day at BETT this year proved to be not only excellent planning on behalf of the organisers, but also gave language teachers like myself the opportunity to catch up on all the latest developments. Lesley Welsh, AST in MFL, lead practitioner for The Specialist Schools and Academies Trust and classroom ICT star presented some bright ideas brought to life in her lively session Wicked Websites, Funky Flipcharts and Interesting Interactivity in MFL which looked at: By running through a range of French websites designed for native speakers, Lesley convincingly reinforced the importance of using authentic resources to make lessons real to pupils. Some of the sites mentioned were: www.agency-dynamite.fr - personal descriptions such as hair and eye colour (Don't forget to click on the French flag bottom right so the site appears in French). www.meteofrance.com - real forecasts which can be particularly useful for practising tenses. e.g. Il a plu hier (It rained yesterday). Il pleut aujourd'hui (It is raining today). Il va pleuvoir demain (It will rain tomorrow). www.unpeudamour.com - generator of creative love poems. http://vendre.visitenet.com - French Canadian site which includes descriptions of houses with slideshows. Avis de recherche de la Police Nationale - includes authentic descriptions of French missing persons. mtv.fr - multimedia French music site. TV5 - Real French video clips with accompanying teaching tips. Paroles de clips particularly recommended for Saturday morning viewing. Pubstv.com - downloadable authentic video clips of adverts from around the world. Funky Flipcharts Having wowed us with the potential of using real French sites in the classroom, Lesley went on to offer us some advice on using ACTIVStudio, the software which comes with the Promethean whiteboard. These tips included: using the Spotlight Tool to reveal elements of a picture and asking pupils what or who they can see. playing games you would have previously done on an OHP such as 'Qui n'est pas là' where pupils have to remember which piece of clipart on a flipchart has been removed. using the Reveal Tool to let pupils guess what is coming next placing rectangles over cells in a grid so pupils have to guess what vocabulary item may hide underneath. rubbing out annotations over a text to reveal words or phrases to test reading comprehension. reordering parts of a sentence with drag and drop in a given time using the built-in stopwatch labelling images with text boxes layering images one on top of each other and removing them one at a time using the dice feature to practise verbs or subject pronouns where each dice face refers to a different form. Using wikis in lessons For the next MFL session, Wikimania, Peter Morris, senior teacher and languages AST from Gordano School, in Bristol described how he has been using wikis (webpages that can be added to and edited by a group of users) to promote creative writing in German and French. Originally set up as a CILT/ALL Action Research project to encourage pupils to produce extended spontaneous speech, Peter has found wikis to be useful for: developing collaborative writing as changes can be viewed and tips or guidance added assessment for learning purposes as pupils are able to see each other's work and correct each other's mistakes encouraging freer and more spontaneous writing independent work as pupils can access pages away from school linking to other resources such as advice on how to insert accents, Hot Potatoes grammar exercises or downloadable help sheets To see examples of the wikis that have been created as part of the Wikimania project, click on the links below: http://unserewebseite2006.pbwiki.com http://gordonocool.pbwiki.com http://goodbyelenin.pbwiki.com http://germanvocabrevision.pbwiki.com http://bonjour2007.pbwiki.com To download the full report from the Action Research project, click here Getting the most from free resources Living Languages - Using ICT to Promote the Productive Skills in MFL was presented by Chris Harte, recently appointed head of department at Cramlington Community High School. His session was full of practical and creative ideas on how to exploit mainly free and readily available resources in the languages classroom to engage and motivate pupils. These included: Photo Story 3 - slideshows and montages MovieMaker - video-editing Audacity - audio-editing Thinking Worlds - 3D game maker Chris made the following suggestions: Photo Story 3 pupils take action shots or background images to signify the language they are learning with digital cameras or mobile phones they import these images into Photo Story 3 via a shared folder, USB lead or bluetooth dongle using the software, they can then add subtitles, record narration with a microphone, add self-generated background music and save the results in a number of different formats suitable for any computer, mobile phone or iPod. MovieMaker subtitle video clips in the target language with keywords make titles or credits add animations to subtitles using clips from sites such as Espace Francophone Audacity to help pupils revise for GCSE oral presentations, the teacher can record sets of questions with suitable pauses as a single track pupils can listen to the questions and record their answers underneath as a second track the teacher can then listen back to the recorded answers and offer feedback, asking pupils to re-record if necessary both tracks can be mixed together and exported as a mp3 file which can then be played on a mp3 player, mobile phone, computer or burned on to disc. Thinking Worlds Thinking Worlds is a commercial service which allows users to create and edit their own virtual realities made up of customisable scenes, characters and biographies. Designed with an educational market in mind, the site already hosts games from a variety of subject areas including history and English. To date, MFL is not included, but Chris feels there is huge potential to use the game-making engine to create engaging and attractive resources. To download Chris' presentation plus other resources click here And finally, me... For my own session, ICT… so what? - Using technology to enhance learning outcomes across all four language skills, I decided to show how listening, speaking, reading and writing activities could be enhanced with the use of software for pupils of different ages and abilities. As with other recent presentations, I captured proceedings with my iRiver and uploaded the audio recording to my blog along with my PowerPoint file, video tutorials and supporting links. You can check it all out here.