eTwinning workshop at Stockton CLC

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Today, I was privileged to be invited to our local CLC to speak to Stockton's GTP (Graduate Trainee Programme) trainee teachers about our school's eTwinning experiences.  It was nice to work with Jenny Compton of the British Council and Val Brooks, Deputy of the Stockton CLC and fellow eTwinning Ambassador as well as to meet some of the new talent coming through from our local LEA Graduate Trainee Programme.

I promised that I'd upload my presentation onto this blog for the participants to look at in more detail at their own leisure and thought it would also be good to put down some of the areas that I ellaborated more on, as I spoke.

I covered how I got involved in eTwinning initially, as a part-time teacher to give me some focus and how now it has become an integral part of my teaching life.  I think it's important to stress, particularly for Secondary teachers who don't seem as widely involved in eTwinning across the UK as they are in the rest of Europe, that it is quite easy to mould your eTwinning projects into the curriculum without it being onerous and without it impacting negatively on exam results.  Infact, I firmly believe that eTwinning can enhance exam results as well as enhancing enjoyments of subjects.  It is also something that is ideal when thinking about ways of delivering the new KS3 curriculum and it can be cross-curricular and be something where pupils really can try out their creativity and love of the internet and all things computer-based.

I think that the presentation probably speaks for itself.  There are links to our highly successful prject from last year, Je blogue, tu blogues...let's blog! as well as various projects that our pupils did whilst involved in the project.  In addition there are links to one of our current projects that involved no MFL at all "How green is your world?" .

I think it's really important to remember that, whilst ideal for the MFL teacher as a way of stimulating real contact with native speakers of a similar age, eTwinning can be used in many creative ways using English as the means of communication (just about everyone wants to got their pupils practising English if at all possible).   One of our most successful international projects is one with a school in the Netherlands that covers Victorian England and the First World War through our History department and doesn't involve the use of Languages at all.   Also, a little idea I have in my head for cross-curricular links...to work with a department in school on a project from that curriculum area but work in French or German or Spanish (maybe with schools from across Europe, whose language learning is on the same level as our pupils).  That's just my sneaky way of getting pupils to use the language they learn without even knowing that their doing it!

Here is the presentation...

Ian Ramsey’s eTwinning Experience

View more presentations from Langwitch.

I have also add this presentation to my Langwitch Wiki  and you can find it here.

New Key Stage 3 Curriculum

We had an LEA CPD Day today, part of which was dedicated to introducing us to the new KS3 Curriculum for September. I'd hear whisperings about it - generally negative, it must be said! However, having had it presented properly I must say that I'm buzzing with excitement. How great to be able to do topic-based, cross-curricular projects, without the constraints of a prescriptive Programme of Study! It's what I've wanted to be able to do most of my career, I think :o)
My friend and I couldn't stop with our ideas of topic based projects that could have cross-curricular links. Just one of ideas was a topic of (say) lifestyles...on a basic level this could include stuff aobut houses etc... but then Daily Routine could involve links with Geography to talk about the routine of a child in the 3rd World (also, in our school's case link in with our Lesotho Link that we have) and then to work in that past tense it could also be linked with History to discuss lifestyles of the Victorians (for example). They could have a "portfolio" of work..something written, something spoken etc... and Assessment opportunities built in, together with usual AfL and Thinking Skills activities...but how much more motivating for out pupils, instead of working through the text book!!!
I must admit that I'm a little concerned that other colleagues might not be as enthusiastic but I really feel that this is an amazing opportunity and we need to be sure that we don't let it slip away from us or be watered down in someway!My goodness, the ideas keep flowing but I'm going to keep them to myself (don't want to give away all my good ideas...only joking)...I don't want to get carried away and then be disappointed!
Oh, I also hear that there was a wonderful workshop on eTwinning given by someone called Helena Butterfield...can't imagine it myself somehow (she sounds rubbish to me!). All information and links on my Langwitch Wiki in the Teacher's Corner :o)

Year 9 creating Vokis

We made Vokis during our lesson in the computer room with Year 9 this week.
As we're working on the topic of school, I dedided that we would write a paragraph about school and make a Voki from that.
First, as a class we wrote what we would say (a safer option, I felt, as this particular class could have taken weeks to produce the same piece of work on their own!).
I then took a lesson to explain to the task to them, in order to make sure they know what to do (cough very loudly!).
Then on on Friday we actually completed the task.
We recorded our paragraphs using Audacity...unfortunately we had to do that in 2 shifts due to lack of working microphones! Then we went on to the Voki.com website and logged into the account that I had created for them and created our Vokis, adding our soundfiles in the "give your Voki a voice" section and then saved what we had done.
A few pupils got their's completely finished some will complete them next time.
I do find these things take a long tome to complete, but it's worth it in the long run when they can see what they created on the web and show their parents. A great advantage is that, although when doing this with a class of 30 it can feel like you've taught 5 lessons in the space of one, it does mean that they don't have time to faff on trying to listen to their music stations or go onto games as they're too busy being fascinated by what they're doing...and of course it give much needed practice at speaking!
Some of the completed work can be viewed here at my Langwitch blog. More will follow sa they get finished :o)
I put instruction on how to do all of the work on my Langwitch Wiki. Just a quick request though,if you want to use these intructions with your own classes, please set up your own account with Voki :o)