Last Saturday, I had the exciting opportunity to fly up to Scotland and lead a national ICT event for Scottish CILT: Listen, Speak, Read, Write Web. at the Jordanhill Campus of Strathclyde University. The day concentrated on how technology can enhance creativity and raise standards in language learning and despite the heavy snow fall that morning delegates still travelled from all over the country to attend.
Based in a Mac suite, but booted in Windows mode, I was grateful to my twitter network to support with advice on keyboard shortcuts and the lovely David Muir who was on hand throughout and even popped out to pick up headphones at a moment's notice.
In the first session, we looked at ways of promoting listening and speaking skills using free tools Audacity, Cue Prompter, Levelator, Voki and VoiceThread and In the second, we focused on Wallwisher, Domo Animate, Wordle and Teacher's Pet for improving reading and writing.
Prompted by a tweet from John Johnston, David recorded an AudioBoo for the Edutalk website at the end of the hands-on workshop which included reflections by Alasdair Bauld, a modern languages teacher from the highlands of Scotland who had to get up at 4.30 to make it to Glasgow on time!
The rest of the delegates' evaluations can be read in the document below. Suffice it to say, I am delighted with them!
Thank you to Mandy Freeman-Clark and her team from SCILT for coordinating the training session and for Catriona Oates for getting the ball rolling in the first place.
Mr. Dale,
Hello, My name is Jordan Sellers and I am an EDM 310 student of Dr. John Strange at The University of South Alabama. I really enjoyed the Audioboo that you and David Muir put together, especially the part that Mr. Muir put on about the ways to help students prepare for a speech by having the computer talk them through it. I was a little confused on not wanting to use the Mac, Dr. Strange swears by them and says he wouldn't use a PC if given a choice between the two, so that made me feel a bit better because I still use a PC. Thank you for your blog and feel free to follow me at http://sellersjordanedm310.blogspot.com/ or our class blog at http://www.edm310.blogspot.com/
Posted by: Jordan Sellers | 28/03/2011 at 16:33
Thanks for your comment Jordan. I'm not anti-Mac. Far from it, but I'm sure you understand that when leading a workshop you want to feel confident about the tech you're using.
Best wishes
Joe
Posted by: Joe Dale | 30/03/2011 at 20:17
Hey Joe,
As you know I am a student with Dr Strange's EDM 310 class at the University of South Alabama. Congratulations on leading this workshop, what a fantastic opportunity. I'm sure being in Scotland didn't hurt either, it's on my bucket list! I am only familiar with a few of the programs you spoke about, but I am a learner for life so I will definitely have to play around with them! Enjoyed your blog.
Posted by: Hillaryrolin | 02/05/2011 at 03:39