Raising language awareness with camera phones

 

Using camera phones in the languages classroom is a post written by Silvia Tolisano, elementary Spanish teacher from Florida on her excellent langwitches blog. The post is about a project she is setting up with her 5th and 6th graders to raise local hispanic awareness with their mobile phones. The idea is for her pupils to take photos of any flags they can find from Spanish speaking countries in their home town and then email the photos to their teacher or straight to a Flickr account along with a short description of where they found them.

When I was training to be a teacher, I can remember we were asked to go into our local town and note down examples of different foreign language texts or symbols we could find. It was surprising how many we came across in packaging, shop signs and car stickers etc. We didn't take photos, but I think it would have made the task more memorable if we had done.

I am sure Silvia's pupils will enjoy carrying out their project. However, I wonder what their parents will think about having to pay the costs of the phone calls or supervising them while they look for suitable subjects. No doubt Silvia will flag up any issues raised.

Comments

[Alex Blagona]

Hi Joe,

Thanks for your comment about both the blog and the podcast. We got the music from www.freeplaymusic.com, and used a minidisc player with mic and, of all things a PDA to record the sound, and mixed it all together with Audacity. The idea was given to us by Ewan McIntosh, who I saw at Language World in Manchester. We're trying to up the ante in terms of using new technology here in Suffolk, and any comments and ideas are welcome - I'll be in Liverpool in October, and if you have time, would like to pick your brains on a few things!
We're trying also to find a way to 'digitally celebrate' the cultural diversity of our students, and I'd like to find a digital map that would allow students to log on and pinpoint where they come from...any thoughts?

[Joe Dale]

Hi Alex,

Did you read the terms of use for the freeplaymusic site?

It says 'Personal Non-Commercial Use (Non-revenue generating or associated) Personal use does not include any broadcast use - web, blog, podcast or other.

Educational, Non-Commercial use (limited to student use on school grounds for in classroom projects-non broadcast.

There are many podsafe sites out there though. Here are the ones I've found:

http://del.icio.us/joedale/podsafe

As for a 'digital map celebration', you could try http://www.frappr.com. I've not used it myself, but I think it would allow you to achieve what you're suggesting.

I look forward to meeting you in Liverpool. Do you have plans to come to the conference on the Isle of Wight on 20th October? Ewan is the keynote.

[Alex Blagona]

Oh. Well I guess I'll have to take it down then. Thanks for the other advice!

[thebizofknowledge]

I heartily agree with you that Silvia's students will enjoy the project assigned to them. I also think it will greatly increase their awareness and appreciation of Hispanic culture. What a great way to use technology as a teaching medium!