Integrating ICT into the MFL classroom:

Gregory Hill on storytelling, giving student feedback and improving writing with Jing

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Last night, I recorded a Skype conversation with Gregory Hill, a Spanish teacher from Confluence Academy in St Louis, Missouri about how he uses free screencasting tool Jing to give his students personalised, visual and aural feedback on their written work.

A must listen for anyone interested in exploring alternative methods of formative assessment, Gregory explains in the 30 minute discussion how he first employs TPRS techniques to help his students write stories in Spanish and then gets them to send him their first drafts via the free educational social networking site Edmodo before capturing his spoken and written comments on screen and sending them back for their perusal. Finally students produce their final draft which they are encouraged to transfer into a Voki, Pixton, ToonDoo or other appropriate Web 2.0 tool and publish to a real audience.

Gregory who has only been teaching Spanish for two years first got into recording his computer screen as a way of creating short how to guides for his colleagues to help them learn how to use different software packages they needed in school. Then in March of this year, he read about the inspiring work of Andrew B Watts and Shelly Blake-Plock and realised Jing had a whole new potential which fitted in well with his desire to create a paperless classroom where every child has access to their own laptop.

His experiment so far certainly seems to be working and according to Gregory, the reaction from his students has been very positive and their work has significantly improved as a result. I particularly like this quote which reinforces his feelings about the value of screencasting and how it has changed the way he teaches now.

"I don’t think I’d ever go back to giving feedback on paper again because it’s lacking to me because they’re not listening to it and they’re not actually seeing the process grow on their screen because when they watch the video and they see their first, second, third draft, they see this new story. They can see their story growing and they can see the entire writing process as a process and not as something that you just stamp on a piece of paper and then get a different piece of paper later on."

I appreciate Gregory's honesty in clarifying how long a class set of screencasts takes to record and for admitting the mistakes he has made along the way. I also liked the way his students got on board immediately and found the non-traditional approach less threatening, more like an ongoing conversation than a critique.

Gregory has also now started making mini-lessons as screencasts which offer further distance learning opportuities for his students and posting them on his class site.

He is also looking at ways of annotating over the top of his screencast and would appreciate any suggestions on how to do this most effectively.

I know Russell Stannard who has done a lot of research in this area recommends using MS Word when giving student feedback and that could be a good starting point for Gregory too. Check out this excellent seven part interview where Russell explains in detail how he uses video feedback.

In the future, Gregory would like to encourage his students to use Jing to make their own screencasts of mindmaps, Prezi presentations and other multimedia applications. I look forward to seeing how this project develops. As always, your feedback is most welcome!

 

 

 

 

Celebrating eTwinning's 5th birthday

eTwinning is now in its fifth year and this short animation commissioned by The British Council celebrates this milestone and gives a flavour of how the Europe wide project has grown since 2005. This second animation from European Schoolnet is designed to demonstrate how forging international links using ICT can connect classrooms across Europe and enhance learning as a result.

Last month I was lucky enough to be invited to the eTwinning UK Conference 2010 at the NCSL in Nottingham and take part in a quick Flip clip to catch some of my reflections.

Here are some images from the two day event.

For some ideas on how to give your teaching an international dimension, have a look at this great presentation by Helena Butterfield which she gave as part of some Links into Languages training recently

or check out Lisa Steven's slidecast at the CILT Primary Languages Show where she asks the question what eTwinning can do for you?

Lisa in full flow at PLS10!

You can also have a listen to this podcast from Teachnet.ie which features Ann Gilleran, Pedagogical Manager for the eTwinning Central Support Service of European Schoolnet and Kay O’Regan, National eTwinning Coordinator at Leargás, the National Support Service for eTwinning in Ireland.

To finish off with, here is a lovely message from the UK N.S.S team in Belfast epitomising beautifully what eTwinning is all about!

Wordle in the MFL Classroom

Last month, Samantha Lunn, HoD of MFL at Arnold School gave a short presentation about the power of Wordle in the languages classroom at TeachMeet Blackpool . If you are not familiar with the free tool, this is a great introduction. Well done Sam!

Twitter for teachers

In the last couple of weeks, I've come across a couple of presentations that do a great job in explaining why Twitter is such an awesome CPD tool for teachers. The first is Twitter for Teachers – a professional development tool by Paul Hill.

So, What About This Twitter Thing

View more presentations from Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano.

The second presentation is by Silvia Tolisano and last but not least there is this one by Liz Davis and Lisa Thumann.

BLC10 - Using Twitter to Establish your Personal Learning Network

View more presentations from Lisa Thumann from the CMSCE, Rutgers University.

I hope you find them as interesting as I have. For a good explanation of how to re-tweet, favourite and delete tweets on Twitter, this clip does a great job.

Have a look too at the inspiring video clip and VoiceThread from this post on Steve Anderson's blog about what personal learning networks mean to a whole host of educators from around the world. Don't forget to check out the great comments too.

Thanks to Ken Royal for the heads up about Steve's work. Another great connection!

Mimi Jones on phlogging a trip to England, France and Spain with iPadio and Facebook

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This week I recorded a Skype chat with Mimi Jones, a French teacher from Cameron High School in Missouri about her use of free phonecasting tool iPadio during her recent transatlantic trip to London, Paris and Barcelona. Throughout the ten day tour, the young people she was escorting regularly used her mobile phone to send instant podcasts known as 'phlogs' to the same online account allowing their parents and friends to share in the experience.

 

I heard about Mimi's experiment thanks to this post by Sam Culshaw-Robinson, an ICT TA at Nottingham High School and was impressed that it had featured on the iPadio blog no less! Having phlogged myself on last year's Nodehill educational visit to Brittany, I was interested to find out more and so contacted Mimi who I follow on Twitter to request we record a conversation which I could subsequently publish here. I was delighted when she accepted my offer and you can hear the results above.

With Mimi's permission, I am also publishing a compilation of all the phlogs she and her students sent during the trip as well as the pictures they took while they were away.

Download Phlog_compilation.mp3

It was fantastic to be able to find out from Mimi herself how she used technology to enhance her students' experience, allow them to express themselves and keep parents in the loop at the same time. It was also lovely to hear how influential the MFL Twitterati has been on Mimi's practice in the last year! Take a bow @josepicardo and @icpjones!

Listening back to the phlogs, it is clear that her students thoroughly enjoyed travelling across Europe and reflecting on many cultural differences they found interesting along the way. I hope you enjoy hearing their accounts too. You could also have a look at the latest newsletter from the Foreign Language Association of Missouri which includes a report of the trip too and this interview. 

As I mentioned to Mimi in our interview, it seems to me that to take this type of moblogging to the next level, it would be a good idea to combine the power of iPadio with Twitter and a Posterous blog. This would allow you to cross-post any phlogs or tweets to the same place automatically as well as give you the option of uploading video or images via email if you could get access to free wifi en route or have a suitable data package set up.

Check out iPadio's YouTube channel for some useful guides on how to do this as well as overviews of Posterous such as this one or this one. Posterous has recently introduced comment moderation on their blogs too making the service arguably ideal for educational moblogging. You can also moderate your phlogs as well if you wish before publishing them live on the internet.

Watch this great presentation by Kevin McLaughlin from TeachMeet Milton Keynes to see how he used Posterous for a week with his primary class.

For more ideas on how to get started with moblogging, have a look at this presentation by Chris Fuller which should get you quickly on the road!

Moblogging in 10 minutes

View more presentations from Chris Fuller.

Other language teachers have recently been moblogging too. Valerie McIntyre used Posterous for her trip to Strasbourg this month and Rachel Hawkes created one for her visit to Spain in April. For further examples of MFL moblogs have a look at this post about the hows and whys of podcasting which you should find interesting. Finally, Suzi Bewell has been pioneering the use of iPadio in promoting speaking skills and improving pronunciation in the classroom. Go Suzi!

I hope this post has given you some ideas on how you could use iPadio and phlogging in and out of your own classroom and why this would be a worthwhile thing to do. Happy phlogging guys!

Keeping up with the Twitter Times

For the last couple of months, I've been checking out a couple of free Twitter mash ups which automatically generate a daily online newspaper culled from the tweets of your followers and organised into different themes.

The Twitter Tim.es has an RSS feed attached to it and so I can star interesting links in my Google Reader account and see who has retweeted the post too.

e.g http://twittertim.es/joedale/rss.xml

Paper.li works in a slightly different way and notifies you of the latest issue via email. Clicking on the link provided takes you to your own personalised newspaper with stories, live links, video clips and images organised in different themed sections ... like a real newspaper!

Always an interesting read, I find it an ideal way of catching up with some of the main headlines from my Twitter stream for that day. The site lets you subscribe to others' papers too. Mine can be found at http://paper.li/joedale if you fancy a look.  

I was thinking also that the MFL Twitterati could create their own foreign language newspaper full of authentic resources for use in lessons by following a dedicated Twitter account MFLTimes and tweeting in French, German, Spanish etc about the topics they are currently covering. They may prefer to create a new account for this experiment to ensure a consistent approach and avoid the inclusion of their normal tweets which may be off-topic.

On the other hand, languages teachers could just follow @MFLTimes with their normal account and generate an MFL related newspaper based on their tweets instead. It would seem if they use the hashtag #MFLTimes, their tweets are more likely to be included in the final copy.

Please note I've protected the tweets on MFLTimes to avoid spam follows and the potential of inappropriate content featuring! As a result though, a dialogue box asking for login details will appear when you first visit paper.li/MFLTimes so just remember to click Cancel and you'll be fine.

Worth a try? Follow MFLTimes and we'll see what happens!

Hello World! Hello Missouri!

Download_Hello_World_Hello_Missouri.mp3

At the end of March, Twitter chum and MFL Flashmeeting mate, Drew McAllister asked me to give a Skype presentation to a group of world languages teachers from Missouri about different types of technology I would recommend for use in the classroom for enhancing language learning and engaging pupils. A subject close to my heart, I was delighted to take part and share my experiences from across the pond, particularly as we’d agreed to record the conversation and podcast the outcome to the world!

Using the recent TES article Flash Forward as a springboard for discussion, I began by talking about Audacity, VoiceThread, Wallwisher, wikis and Xtranormal and referred to ideas I had crowdsourced from the MFL Twitterati on how they were being used practically in class. I then went on to mention other tools such as Podomatic, Podbean, Posterous, Glogster, Animoto, Go!Animate, Bubbl.us, Voki, Taskmagic, Hot Potatoes,  Quizlet, StudyStack and Quia and suggested how they could be helpful too.

As my virtual delegates had laptops in front of them, they were able to check out each link as it came up and explore the tools for themselves first hand. I think this was an effective use of their time and made them feel more actively involved in the session which was great to see.

To finish, I tried to field their various questions as best I could and be as helpful as possible in my answers.

I captured the Skype call with Pretty May, recording my end and Drew’s end as separate tracks which I then edited in Audacity. Following advice from the latest Podcaster’s Emporium, before starting I clicked on Tools/Options and Audio Settings in Skype and disabled the feature which automatically adjusts the speaker settings. I also exported my track as a wav file (Export Selection As WAV) and levelated it before starting to edit as an experiment as I’ve found in the past that the volume of the person who receives the call tends to be quieter than the person who makes it.

In my interview with Katie Titler I levelated both tracks separately, importing them back into Audacity and editing them from there. This seemed to produce the best results although my breathing was amplified on my track and so I highlighted the sections when I wasn't talking, clicked Generate and then Silence to remove the issue. Sometimes I started this process just after Katie began to talk as I found it could produce quite an abrupt effect if placed immediately after I finished speaking. To remove the occasional unwanted noise on Katie's track, I copied a given section where she wasn't talking and then pasted it over the equivalent interval so it sounded seamless.

Editing Drew’s end was quite time–consuming as there were gaps between phrases which had to be deleted to avoid a staccato effect. This happened in my VoIP conversation with Dr John Strange’s class in the autumn term too and is due to how Skype sends information from one user to another in packets and the bandwidth that that can demand. If the connection speed is variable, it can produce this effect which can be rectified with careful editing, but this is a laborious task and not for the faint-hearted! Having audio only conversations requires less bandwidth and will produce better results, but is no doubt a less satisfying experience for both users.

I hope you find both the quality of the audio and our conversation acceptable and that it gives you food for thought for ways in which you can use technology in the classroom for enhancing pupil outcomes too. That’s the idea!

New growth from the grassroots

Like many others, I was delighted when the long-awaited article Flash Forward finally appeared in the TES magazine last month after weeks of speculation on Twitter of its potential content, direction and style! A refreshing and positive read from start to finish, the four page spread celebrates the experiences of a growing grassroots network of language teachers from the UK who are passionate about the potential of using Web 2.0 tools and sharing their ideas with others.

Included are many individual quotes from leading practitioners enthusing about the power of blogs, podcasts, Twitter and MFL Flashmeetings for developing their own professional development and giving them practical ideas for use in the classroom. These were taken from comprehensive telephone interviews with author Yojana Sharma who I understand was given the brief to concentrate on new technologies in MFL and arguably provide a response to the earlier TES article Social networking shunned as aid to language teaching based on a recent EU report.

As host of the MFL forum, I was asked to suggest some top tools for enhancing language learning in the classroom by TES Magazine editor Jo Faragher. So I crowdsourced my Twitter network for their opinions on Audacity, wikis, VoiceThread, Wallwisher and Xtranormal and then condensed their responses into a couple of hundred words. No easy feat!

 
  
I also said the following on this thread on the TES MFL forum once the article was published:

"It was great to see such an encouraging story about the great work of a group of enthusiastic language teachers working so well together, collaborating and inspiring each other with resources and helpful links in an informal supportive environment."

and did a Wordle to see what the most common themes were. Interesting!

So if you feel like shunning the detractors, bucking the trend and joining the MFL Twitterati in the grassroots, you know where to find us. Just get in touch and we'll give you all the support you'll need!

 

Katie Titler on mobile phones, Voki, Poll Everywhere, Gabcast, iPadio and Glogster

Download_interview_with_katie_titler.mp3

Last weekend, I had the pleasure of talking to award winning Spanish teacher Katie Titler from Pulaski High School in Wisconsin about her innovative use of mobile phones in and out of the classroom. An ICT enthusiast and dedicated languages teacher, Katie first came to my attention when she appeared on Liz Kolb’s Cell Phones in Learning Show back in 2009

and then more recently in this Fox11 clip which showcases examples of her inspirational work.

In our thirty minute chat recorded over Skype and edited in Audacity, Katie describes how she initially became interested in the idea of using mobile phones as an educational tool and then the lengths she went to to ensure she had the backing of both parents and her school before allowing her students to use them in class.

With the go ahead she needed, Katie began by getting her pupils to record their speaking assessments on Voki.com and filming each other saying phrases in Spanish. She is quoted as saying:

“Specifically for a foreign language, it’s a great way to both formally and informally access speaking abilities, which is really hard to do on a regular basis because of class sizes and lack of time.”

Buoyed by this success, Katie then chose to use the tool Poll Everywhere to help them practise their writing skills through text messaging and displaying the results on the interactive whiteboard. As she points out in our interview, this means that pupils can answer anonymously and therefore not feel singled out or embarrassed if they make a mistake. Katie intends to create multiple choice with Poll Everywhere too replicating a kind of classroom response system where she can immediately assess her students’ understanding and see what they need to work on.

Unsurprisingly, the student reaction to using their mobiles in class has been very positive. 

"Being able to text in class is just something new and in a way rejuvenates us because it is not the usual 'take notes, then do homework,' like we do in the rest of our classes," 16-year-old Pulaski student Kevin Dunford said. "It's a new flavor."

Not content with simply exploring the potential of mobile phones in lesson time, Katie has been creating distance learning resources for her students to access in their own time outside of the school day. For example, Señora Titler has uploaded her own grammar PowerPoints to VoiceThread and added a voiceover recorded from her mobile.

Likewise, she has produced personalised vocabulary podcasts using the phonecasting tool Gabcast which she has made available on her class website and on iTunes. She is now trying out Glogster and iPadio and likes the idea of creating phlogs or phone blogs with her students in the future.

Please note that the phone numbers Katie uses for Voki and VoiceThread are US numbers and so for those who don't live in the States, I would suggest you record with a microphone instead or upload mp3 files you've already created. However, don't despair as Poll Everywhere and Gabcast do have a range of international numbers you can ring, if you fancy trying out some of the ideas presented here! Gabcast has also recently received new sponsorship and is again free to use which is great news for fans of the phonecasting tool.

Thanks to Katie for sharing her experiences so generously and for sending the photos included in this post. If you would like to know more or see some of Pulaski students’ outcomes in Spanish, get in touch with Katie on Twitter or give her a call. I’m sure she would be delighted to hear from you.

A personal learning network in 5 easy steps

In this short presentation, Elena Elliniadou from Greece gives some great tips on how to build your own personal learning network to connect and collaborate with like-minded teachers around the world and receive professional and personal support for free.

Her five point PLN plan proposes:

• Step 1 - Set up a blog
• Step 2 - Pick 5 blogs and start reading them on your blog roll
• Step 3 - Set up an iGoogle account and subscribe to blogs in Google Reader
• Step 4 - Comment
• Step 5 - Join a professional social network

Prepared to be inspired!

Have a look too at Chris Fuller's presentation from last week's TeachMeet North East on how to keep your PLN in rude health!

Of course, the desire for humans to collaborate with each other on the internet is nothing new. Have a look at this fascinating report from the early days of the web to see what I mean. Thanks to Larry Ferlazzo and Shell Terrell for the heads up. Plus ça change!