French.ie workshop 2008

For the second time in the space of a week I was back in Ireland on Saturday to deliver some more training on using ICT to enhance the teaching and learning of modern foreign languages. On this occasion, I was in Maynooth for a repeat of the French.ie course I gave exactly a year ago to the day.

In essence, the material I covered was the same as before (PowerPoint for whole class teaching, Teachers Pet and free utilities such as Spellmaster, Toolkit for Teachers and Turbo Mots) although this time I did also show include a session on podcasting.

Colleagues who heard about the course through the French.ie forum came from all over the country. They were a lovely bunch, very enthusiastic and particularly liked having a comprehensive booklet and CDrom to take away with them so they could practice at home.

In light of the positive feedback of last year's event, The National Centre for Technology in Education decided to commission Julianne and Ruth from Tailored films to video key points of the workshop and produce a ten minute clip to appear on French.ie in the coming weeks. Watch this space for more details.

Like last year, at the end of the course I passed round my iRiver and asked colleagues to record their thoughts of the day. Click on the link below to hear what they said.

Download Feedback_from_NUI_Maynooth_workshop_2008.mp3

See also this flattering feedback written by course organiser Angela Rickard and this link which explains how French.ie has been nominated for a 2008 eGovernment Award. Well done French.ie!

Comments

[Angela Rickard]

Thanks for this Joe and thanks again for coming over - we've had great feedback from loads of those who attended and I have to say a few rather disgruntled colleagues who contacted me upset that they had not got a place on the course... Looks like we'll be inviting you again un de ces quatre! Talk to you soon.
Angela

[Fred Boss]

Hello Joe,

Thanks for the day. It was a great experience for me to see a bunch of tools that I never knew about. You had put them together on the CD in such a way as they could be up and running and in use very quickly.

Personally - I enjoyed the explanation of Audacity - never got the hang of it and Podcasting (I used an Apple, so it was integrated). RSS Feeds also stumped me until I used the Mac, but would be interested in giving them a go.
Looking forward to meeting you again in the future.

Fred Boss

P.S. - enjoyed the photos too.