Communicate.07

Communicate.07 the ground-breaking conference organised by Scottish CILT and LT Scotland on teaching languages with ICT took place on 17th March at Stirling University and included such hot topics as:

• using mobile phones in the languages classroom
• blogging and podcasting
• the interactive whiteboard
• GLOW - the Scottish Schools Digital Network
• videoconferencing

Places are restricted and only language teachers in Scottish schools can apply. So Google Blog Search had to come to the rescue and tell me what was going on. It would seem therefore that ...

Ewan McIntosh decided to deliver his keynote speech via Google Video (see above) as he was speaking at Congrés Frans 2007 a languages conference in Noordwijkerhout, Holland at the time and couldn't be in two places at once. I found his video clip inspiring and it gave me lots of food for thought. I particularly liked the way he described new technolgies and language learning being a 'dream' for each other. I agree!

Lynne Horn, Principle Teacher of Languages Faculty at Tobermory High School and Sharon Tonner of the High School of Dundee looked at how mobile phones can be used as an aid to learning languages in their session Positively Mobile. Lynne's PowerPoint Mobile Phones in the Languages Classroom brilliantly summarises the potential of mobile phones for language learning as well as other ideas on using new technologies. The presentation can be downloaded from here.

Scottish educator, Mark Pentleton, whose session was entitled The Podcast Factory introduced language teachers to the idea of podcasting and put together his own Communicate.07 podcast website which includes a podcast and interviews made on the day along with some accompanying photos. To download Mark's handouts from his session, click here. You may also wish to check out his blog Podcasting CPD which includes a podcast made at The Ashcombe School, in Dorking Surrey during a languages lead practitioner seminar Creative use of digital technology organised by Helen Myers

Adam Sutcliffe, blogger extraordinaire from The Gordon Schools in Huntly Aberdeenshire in his session Try it and you will learn (or how I was inspired by Communicate.06) describes how he has embraced new technologies such as blogging, podcasting and digital video work and used them to enhance his pupils' learning. Unfortunately, Adam forgot to record his session as planned. Nevermind. To hear Adam talking about his wonderful work, check out the interview we did recently here.

Other sessions included Stewart Hay from Anderson High School describing his experiences with videoconferencing in Shetland, Yamina Sadek from Dunblane High School on the Interactive Whiteboard and Nick Morgan from LTScotland on GLOW, the Scottish Schools Digital Network. Read this summary from the Highland Modern Languages Subject Support Blog.

All in all, I can see why Professor Stephen Heppell recently said that Scotland is at the cutting edge of new developments in the area of ICT and learning in the latest copy of Connected from LTScotland.The magazine also includes articles by Ewan McIntosh and Derek Robertson amongst others and an explanation of GLOW on the free DVD-rom. What more could you ask for?

Comments

[Adam Sutcliffe]

One could almost believe you were there...This is the beauty of web 2.0 in action.
Cheers.
Adam

[Joe Dale]

Maybe next year ... or am I just dreaming?

[Ewan McIntosh]

Thanks for the great school report. We will be debriefing on where the conference could do better next time. This year was certainly tricky given logistics of the various staff who would normally make sure it 'beat' last year's.

I hope that we can start to open things out, but it will always be a fairly intimate conference so that sessions are small enough for hands on where appropriate.