Centre d'apprentissage Haut-Madawaska - Web 2.0 in practice

While copying and pasting RSS feeds from Ning discussion and forum posts into Google Reader earlier this week, I stumbled across a great video clip - Komment aise kon aprand a ékrir? produced by Roberto Gauvin, principal of the Centre d'apprentissage Haut-Madawaska (CAHM) in New Brunswick. Digging a little deeper, I discovered that Roberto is in fact a Web 2.0 evangelist and is doing amazing work with his pupils who are:

• writing blogs
• recording podcasts
• broadcasting their own TV channel and radio station from their own studio
• making short films and animations
• writing a weekly blog update called Les bijoux de la semaine
• collaborating on a wiki
• publishing a monthly bulletin
• using Flickr and del.icio.us
• learning how to use Audacity and MovieMaker

The clip Komment aise kon aprand a ékrir?, a phonetic transcription of the phrase 'Comment est-ce qu'on apprend à écrire' or 'How do you learn how to write?' seems to encapsulate Roberto's philosophy about the importance of weblogs or 'cybercarnets' for improving writing and reading based on his personal experience.

In November 2005, over a year after the Le projet des Cybercarnets du CAHM started, Roberto used his own reflective blog to describe his thoughts in more detail, suggesting that for pupils to learn how to write properly they need to follow three important rules:

1. Have appropriate explanation (expliquer)
2. Have plenty of opportunity to practise (pratiquer)
3. Be allowed to evaluate their work (évaluer)

Roberto explains in the post:

« On peut apprendre à conjuguer le verbe "aimer" à toutes les semaines pendant plusieurs années. Par contre, ce n'est que dans un contexte d'écriture que l’utilisation des mots prend tout son sens. C'est la même chose avec le vocabulaire, l'orthographe ou encore la grammaire. Pour développer l'art d'écrire; il faut… écrire…Notre projet de cybercarnet encourage les élèves à écrire et à lire pour mieux écrire… »

meaning ...

"You can learn how to conjugate the verb "to like" every week for several years. However, it is only in a written context that the use of the words make proper sense. It is the same thing with vocabulary, spelling or even grammar. In order to develop the art of writing, you need ... to write. Our blog project encourages pupils to write and to read to help them to write better."

In the video clip, Roberto supports his view further by saying that weblogs allow pupils to:

• network with others and receive immediate feedback
• share their experiences and make new discoveries
• reflect on and analyse their work and the work of others
• consider their prior learning
• create an electronic portfolio which can be accessed anywhere on the planet
• prepare themselves for the 21st Century

In May 2007, Robert and one of his pupils, Samuel Pelletier were chosen to present the findings of the weblog project at eLearning Africa 2007 in Nairobi, Kenya. Here is Roberto's blog post summarising his thoughts about the session and here is a podcast interview he recorded with Samuel about his.

Elsewhere in Roberto's personal blog, we discover how he was first inspired to podcast in October 2005 by listening to colleague Gilles Beauchamp make his first podcast using Audacity, podsafe music site Dogmazic and the dew audio player. Roberto's podcast describes the different Web 2.0 tools he has been encouraging his pupils to use as part of the weblog project as well as his reflections on the work so far

e.g.

• using Audacity to record audio
• taking advantage of the fact that many pupils have mp3 players
• being aware of the time constraints of vodcasting
• adding comments and notes to photos in Flickr which can be accessed outside of the classroom
• tagging links in del.icio.us
• mindmapping with Inspiration, Excel, Paint and The Gimp
• using Picasa, the wiki, PowerPoint and Blogpoll for online surveys

To hear more of Roberto's ideas, you can listen to the following two presentations he gave in 2006. The first is to ICT coordinators from New Brunswick and the second is taken from Aptica 2006. Also worth checking out is the guided video tour of the new CAHM website hosted by Canadian company Opossum and the clip of the pupils receiving their own laptops for the first time. What joy!

When I first discovered the video clip Komment aise kon aprand a ékrir? from the EduBloggerWorld Ning network, I had no idea of the riches I would discover by finding out more about its author. Researching the work of Roberto Gauvin has been fascinating. I've learnt new words such as cybercarnet (weblog), billet (post) and vidéocarnet (videoblog), but most importantly, I've seen probably the best example of Web 2.0 in action so far.

I hope you enjoy exploring these links as much as I have had finding them. I hope too that I have explained clearly enough the weblog project at CAHM, that you now have the opportunity to practise some of the ideas in your own context and that you can evaluate the success of your use of Web 2.0 tools with your own pupils. Don't forget:

• expliquer
• pratiquer
• évaluer

That's the key. Thanks again Robert for your inspiration.

Comments

[Roberto Gauvin]

Hi Joe, Thanks for your good words. I just find out about your presentation at BETT 2008. I was surprised and honoured to be cited in it.

Just to let you know that a couple of articles about our school, were published this week in "Journal La Presse". Here is the link ; http://cahm.elg.ca/archives/2008/02/le_cahm_dans_la_1.html

Take care !!!

[Joe Dale]

Hi Roberto,

Thanks for your comment. I've mentioned your great work in a few presentations this year.

Thanks for the link. I've found the two articles in questions:

http://tinyurl.com/3bt76f
http://tinyurl.com/2krutr

Very impressive, particularly the suggestion that your school is 'la plus avant-gardiste au Canada'. Brilliant.

Cheers for the mention on your blog too:
http://carnets.opossum.ca/roberto/2008/02/presentation_de_joe_dale.html