Southampton City-Wide Inset Day

Yesterday, I was delighted to run some more podcasting training over the water at Woolston School Language College in Southampton as part of the city-wide inset day organised by The Southampton Secondary Schools and Colleges Partnership who are responsible for developing the city's 14-19 strategy. This is the second year that the programme has taken place and the idea is that secondary schools can choose to close for the day so that their staff may attend subject-specific sessions in different locations around the city. Woolston was the host for The MFL workshops which included such titles as:

• Speak and Achieve
• Asset Languages and the Languages Ladder
• Alternatives to GCSE at KS4
• Making the Most of New Technologies: Exploring the Learning Portal and Online CPD
• AS Taster

I shared the 'Speak and Achieve' slot with Simon Waterson, Head of MFL at Redbridge Community School who I first met back in November at my Keynote course in London. We had thirty minutes each to present different practical ideas of promoting speech in the target language. Simon had lots of great kinaesthetic activities such as 'back to back pairwork', 'verb tennis', 'blindfold blind date' and 'guess my age apache?' which he brilliantly demonstrated with his charming Redbridge assistant Mrs Dalilah Amara.

My 'mobile learning' session was far more sedentary in tone and had more to do with the potential of podcasts than the power of the post-it note! As the workshop was repeated I decided to record both sessions with my iRiver so I could edit each 'take' separately and then compile the 'best bits' in the final mix. You can hear the results below.

With my SSAT LP hat on, I was very pleased to have the opportunity to make contact with more new local MFL colleagues and invite them over to the Isle of Wight for a possible repeat of last year's Integrating ICT into the MFL conference in Autumn 2007 (DfES funding permitting).

It was also nice to meet up with Francine Macguire too, Head of MFL at Woolston School Language College and Mary Higgins, one of the secondary inspectors who helped to organise the event who I had previously known from the Talk Project, a few years earlier. I was also grateful to Erica, the Spanish assistant at Woolston who came to our last session, as she agreed to be interviewed about her thoughts on technology and language learning with particular reference to how podcasting could enhance her pupils' conversation classes. Listen below to hear what she had to say.

For more information about The Southampton Secondary Schools and Colleges Partnership, and the new city wide learning portal which is currently being developed for schools to share resources safely with each other via the internet contact Kit Heasman, the project coordinator.

For a summary of my Podcasting session, see below:

• the terms blogging and podcasting and their definitions
• subscribing to a podcast
• finding authentic foreign language podcasts in iTunes
• their potential for mobile learning
• reasons to podcast
• the three golden rules: script, record, edit
• Assignment: Podcast tutorials
• Bernard Clark interview
• podcasting at the Isle of Wight conference
• podsafe music and the Creative Commons licence
• three podcast snippets
• what you can put on your blog
• the philosophy of two stars and a wish
• setting up blogs for colleagues at Nodehill
• the power of leaving comments and using tools that pupils are already using at home
• giving pupils access to authentic language and real communication
• blogging is assessment for learning
• keeping pupils safe
• tagging and social bookmarking with del.icio.us
• MFL blog roll
• articles on podcasting and blogging
• ALL Kent session
• a few final thoughts
• a practical example of using Audacity

Download Southampton_City_Wide_Inset_Day.mp3

Download interview_with_Erica_Cerda_Fuentes.mp3

Download Southampton-Wide_Inset.ppt

Comments

[Ann]

I find you blog a mine of info and have cited it on my blog. Thanks.

[Dalila Amara]

Dear Joe,
thank you for sending me your valuable info about podcasting. I found the inset day very interesting and I wish you success in your entreprise
Dalila

[Joe Dale]

Hi Dalila,

Thank you for your kind sentiments. It was lovely meeting you on Friday and thank you for being such a willing volunteer. Who knows how many people will now hear your dulcet tones at the end of the session podcast!