On the first day, we travelled to Saint Cast and today we stayed there for the morning. I bought a postcard, a basketball, Lego and a china jam pot. When we played in the park, Fraser and I made our lego and discussed how it had changed over the years.
Buying souvenirs in town.
Looking around St Cast.
In the afternoon. we travelled to Dinan and went to the Jardin Anglais where we had lunch.
At the patisserie, we practised our French and bought drinks.
We looked at the river. It was very hot and we moved quickly.
When we walked up the middle of the mediaeval road, we came across a souvenir shop where Robert bought a mug and I bought a jam jar.
At the last minute, Harry and I went to the ice cream parlour and had a delicious ice cream. We came back and had some free time. When i watched the original Italian Job with another Robert. At lights out, I was sleepy and fell asleep quickly.
Playing football on the beach.
Have a listen to Robert talking about our second day in France.
We have just arrived at our hotel, it's good to stretch our legs after a 3 hour coach ride. My room is good (eventhough it doesn't have a T.V) but the Brittany ferry from Portsmouth was nice and on it I went to the cinema to see Star Trek.
The town where we are staying is very nice. It has cool sandy beaches, nice shops and sunny weather. I can see now why Mr Dale has been doing this trip for so long. It is also very cool that we can play sports on the beach.
This is Ellis hitting a six!
Have a listen to Harry talking about our first day in France.
For this year's educational visit to Brittany I will be attempting to send voice messages live to my blog from my mobile phone or netbook using iPadio. This morning I chatted with Mark, CEO and founder of the free phlogging tool about the idea and he assured me it should work without a hitch.
This is great news and I look forward to trying to follow in the footsteps of other teachers who have inspired me in recent years with their smooth moblogging experiences and engaging use of technology outside of the classroom. Have a look at the Musselburgh Grammar S2 France trip blog for a great example and in particular the podcasts they made during the visit to see what I mean.
One of the organisers and CDT teacher at the school, Suzanne Watson told me in an email just how easy it was to post while away,
"There was nothing technical about our France blogs. We simply took away with us an ipod and a voice recorder plug in. Each day one pupil would record our events. I did had to convert the sound track to mp3 as it saved as an mp4 file on the ipod but I just used free software I downloaded from the internet.Once I had it as mp3 I simply uploaded each file the same way as I would upload a word file for example. The way its displayed on the website is just the way wordpress displays these types of files. Fortunately each of the hotels we stayed in had wifi so I was able to use my own laptop for the process."
To use iPadio all you have to do is register your mobile phone number on the site, then, ring the London number 02033842843, enter your 4 figure pin, record your message and press the hash key. Job done. If you want to use a different mobile phone, landline or Skype, simply ring the same number, enter your registered number and then proceed as before. Once you hang up, your phlog will be sent automatically to your account as an mp3 file and your RSS feed will be updated so your subscribers can download the latest episode.
Since Vodafone decided to abolish their roaming charges this summer, calling from France should cost the same as in the UK as long as you sign up to their passport scheme. But check the small print!
You can also add a player to your blog if you wish. Unfortunately there isn't a listen again option, so you need to be sure of what you want to stay. However, if you do make a mistake, you can just go to your account and delete the message from there.
For those who may be interested in listening to my future phlogs, here is my home page and RSS feed which I will be updating in a couple of weeks time when we set off. Wish me luck!
Oh, by the way, I'm sorry I coughed at the beginning of my message. I think I must have had a phlog in my throat ;)
This weekend, my blog and I reached 2 significant landmarks. Firstly my sitemeter clocked up 150,000 hits and I hit 40!
Thank you to everyone for your lovely multilingual tweets (see below) and thank you to my school colleagues and Lil Wight Lies fronted by rock legend Richard Peace for a great night out last night (see above). Rock on!
The Isle of Wight Conference 2008 was a celebration of technology, language learning and social networking. The communal buzz created by speakers and delegates at this year's event was phenomenal as was the face to face networking. For many attendees, the conference provided the opportunity for those who had been communicating online through blogs and Twitter to meet for the first time and share ideas collaboratively and informally in a warm environment.
This was of course what we'd planned and hoped for, but the fact that it worked so spectactularly was amazing. For example, to keep our sponsors happy, we made sure the sessions had staggered starts so that there was a constant drip feed to the exhibition and delegates could congregate and take part in informal round tables over lunch.
Twitter was a revelation for many at the conference thanks to Drew Buddie's session on Web 2.0 tools which inspired delegates to create their own account and start tweeting throughout the event. Having John Johnston's customised Twitter presenter page on two large TV screens in the main hall meant that everyone could keep up to date with the incredible learning going on around the school.
Mark Pentleton paid the conference a flying visit and presented a very popular sessions on one stop animation the results of which will be published soon.
Another hit of the weekend was the presentation and workshop delivered by pupils from Heathfield Technology College who showed us how to create enhanced podcast with Macs (pictures and audio). A real treat.
The MFL Show and Tell on Saturday night proved to be another highlight of the weekend including 10 minute presentations from:
myself (Triggers and drag and drop in PowerPoint)
Isabelle Jones (Social bookmarking)
Adam Sutcliffe (Amazing etre)
Sam Downe (St Neots Podclub
Jo Rhys-Jones (VoiceThread)
José Picardo (Edmodo)
Andy Stanford-Clark (One Laptop Per Child)
Sarah Ferretti (LinguaRyde)
Drew Buddie (50 ways to tell a story)
Between presentations we sang the odd foreign language song and at the end I was presented with two birthday cakes (even though it's not my birthday until next month, but nevermind) Drew twittered throughout and described the evening as unconferencing at its best in one of his tweets. Thanks Drew!
Before leaving on Sunday, some of us took part in a Flashmeeting with colleagues around the world and gave our impressions of the conference.
Here is the audio version including background noise and laughter.
Leon Cych who took part in the videoconference was so impressed by how energised and engaged delegates seemed in the Flashmeeting that he interviewed Drew Buddie on his mobile phone to find out more.
You can listen to an edited version of the interview here:
In the EdTechRoundup Flashmeeting on Sunday night I did admit to feeling a little disappointed that we had ony been able to attract 60 delegates to this year's conference considering the quality of the programme and the amount it had been promoted. Preaching to the converted is great for those 'in the goldfish bowl', but we need to spread the word further a field and encourage those who are curious to find out more. Have a listen to the thoughts of a very tired language teacher by clicking on the link below.
Thank you to everyone who came to the Isle of Wight last weekend and made the event what it was. Let's keep spreading the word and encourage more colleagues to open their minds too and embrace the power of new technologies in the 21st century. It's all about community.
After months of deliberation, I've decided to take a leap of faith and go part time to 3 days a week from January 2009 which will give me more time to accept the various training and authoring opportunities I get offered around the country and sometimes further a field.
I already have a few definite projects in the pipeline to start off with, but if you would like me to come to your school and offer training on blogging, podcasting, web 2.0 tools, PowerPoint etc from the spring onwards, then just get in contact and I'll see what I can do.
If on the other hand, you would like to come and work with me for two days a week at Nodehill, please apply to the advert above which appeared in this morning's County Press!
Wednesday was Nodehill's Open Evening and as in 2006 and 2007, the French department created a special café and invited visitors to drop in and have 'un café au lait' or 'pain au chocolat' while making their way around the school. The Year 8 pupils enjoyed the responsibilty of being waiters and waitresses for the evening and asked customers what they would like to eat or drink in French with a crib sheet if they got stuck.
Having individual general knowledge quizzes about France and the French language out on the tables was a new idea we tried this year and this seemed to work well which was nice to see.
I'm delighted to say that by the end, everything was gone apart from a couple of baguettes and everyone had enjoyed themselves greatly.
Thanks to all those who made the café run smoothly, in particular Miss Peoples, Mrs Jennings, Mrs Pearson and Mrs Smith as well as Mrs Elmore who helped us set everything up in the afternoon.
Thanks also to members of my form class who volunteered to show parents and their children some of the French ICT activities we have on the network and how we use them to consolidate work covered in class. It was lovely to see some of the adults have a go themselves and to hear how many children are already learning French or Spanish at primary school before coming to us.
All in all, a very successful and positive evening. Well done to everyone involved.
"It is all part of the personalisation of the curriculum, making education accessible to each pupil in the best way for the individual child, from the most gifted to those who find learning more difficult".
Ventnor Blog who interviewed David in May about the use of technology at the school also blogged about the article with the post Nodehill pupils get connected which I heard about through Twitter. Next year, the plan is to kit out the new Year 7s with a laptop each too which will offer more possibilities for tailouring the new KS3 curriculum to meet individual needs and achieve personal outcomes.
Each Yr 7 pupil will be assigned their own laptop and class sets will be kept in their own caddy where they can be taken out during the day and charged at night. In time, pupils will be able to take the laptops home overnight which will allow them to use the portable devices for homework and extending their learning at their own pace at a time which suits them best. Exciting times indeed!
Today at Nodehill was European Day of Languages and as you can see from the pictures below we really celebrated with style. Pupils and staff dressed up in traditional costumes and as in 2007 and 2006 we gave everyone the opportunity to sample foods from all over Europe
Adding a personal touch, I also included an excerpt from an audio recording I made yesterday with one of my form class, Calum who speaks very good Spanish because of his positive language learning experience at primary school, going to Spain on holiday and living there for a year.
His message to the pupils of Nodehill was possibily the most effective as it gave a real life example of successful language learning from someone they could totally relate to. Well done Calum.
After assembly, I took a picture of those pupils who dressed up and here it is. How many nationalities can you spot?
Finally I'd like to thank my colleague Susan Peoples who helped doling out the food at lunchtime and for creating the wonderful display below. Happy European Day of Languages!
The news you've all been waiting for! Registration for the Isle of Wight Conference 2008 is finally underway. Thanks to everyone for your patience and support. As you will see from the brochure below, this year's event has greatly expanded and now offers two whole days of outstanding CPD delivered by top speakers from around the UK.
Be amazed by the range and quality of sessions and consider for a moment the networking opportunities of spending just a couple of days on the Isle of Wight in October for your future career.
Hope the brochure provides you with all the information you need and a special thank you must go to my wife for all her support in helping me put this and previous programmes together. I couldn't have done it without you, dear!
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