Creating digital exercises and integration within the Schools VLE with Steve Whittle

Steve Whittle is Assistant Head at the Hayes School in Kent. He is fortunate enough to have a dedicated language lab at his school which he and his team have worked very hard on to make a place where pupils not only practise their languages but where they learn languages too, using all 4 skill areas. The MFL department have put in years of hard work to create an enviable bank of resources to use within the language lab and now, also within the schools' VLE. While they use their digital resources in their dedicated language lab, it was easy to see how many of the activities could be done without the specialist sortware and equipment that they had, it would just need setting up in a slightly different way.
The most interesting thing for me was the fact that their language lab is provided by Sanako / Tandberg. We actually have that system in our "dedicated" language lab! Now this made the whole workshop a revelation to me...I've worked here for 6 years now, nearly and don't think it's ever been used properly!!! It meant that I was able to speak to a man who works for Sanako and discuss with him getting our stuff working properly again. It must be said that I don't think it's anyone's fault that this amazing (and expensive) equipment has gone (realtively) unused at our school, I think it has more to do with high turn-over of staff (up until about 4 years ago) which meant the people who knew how to work it moved on and also a bit of the "fear factor" from some colleagues. This workshop has, however given me the momentum to get this room working properly again and really help our pupils fulfull their true potential.
I really got a lot out of this workshop and I think that this session, in particular will be one that can transform the whole MFL department's use of ICT across the board!

Flashmeeting with John Warwick

My second session of the day was about using Flashmeeting with John Warwick (one of the eTwinning Ambassadors), Deputy Head teacher of a Special Needs school in Hertfordshire. He showed us how Flashmeeting, a free video-conferencing tool could be used with our classes both abroad and in our local neighbourhood.
Flashmeeting is an extremely useful tool because, not only is it free, it is also a secure form of working online with other schools, so therefore it is safe. All your partner school needs is an internet connection and you're away, basically! They don't even need a webcam (unless the really want to see you)...it can all be done using microphones or the "chat" facility, where you type what you want to say. Unfortunately the technology let us down and we were unable to have a Flashmeeting at that time, however, I was "fortunate" enough to be able to take part in another Flashmeeting later in the weekend but felt so self-conscious about others being able to see me, was over come with hysterical laughter (although, I don't think I was the only one!). You always have to be prepared for technology to let you down when trying new things and not let it get in the way of making further developments at a later date.
There were many excellent ideas for how Flashmeeting could be used, such as to teach a traditional song to pupils in another country, maybe discuss cultural differences, teach a short session on a particular theme...the key really seemed to be "be prepared" and don't just plan to do a Flashmeeting and stand / sit at different schools staring at one another. Other ideas included having a "hot seat" where individual pupils would take this position and do their "bit" then moving on to the next person, this gets rid of the need to keep moving the webcam.
We are planning to do some online collaboration with primary schools, initally in a couple of weeks time when our Spanish exchange come to visit and then working on transition with Yr 6 pupils from feeder Primary schools chatting with Yr 7 pupils who went to their school, discussion worries that they might have have about coming up to Secondary School. However, we won't be using Flashmeeting (not because we wouldn't be happy with it), because we are fortunate enough to be able to use Elluminate, another online collaboration tool that includes video-conferencing. This, unfortunately is not free but does still only require an internet connection. Luckily, our local CLC has "bought" 100 seats within Elluminate so we are able to use that at the moment.
However, for a tool that is free and that can bring schools closer together, Flashmeeting really is excellent. If your school is considering moving into video-conferencing on any level, I would thoroughly recommend it. As with anything to do with technology thought, it's important to be well-prepared (maybe practise with another member of staff to begin with), don't be put off it the technology lets you down (try, try and try again) and start small then get bigger.

Thinking outside the classroom box with Chris Fuller

My first workshop at the IOW Conference was "Thinking outside the classroom box" run by Chris Fuller. I must admit that I kind of gate-crashed this session, as I arrived much earlier than I expected having got on the Red Jet fast ferry rather than the slower car ferry. I got talking to someone who was going to his session and decided to tag along, not expecting to learn much new, as I blog myself. However, I went along to meet the man who left an amusing comment on here once and was certainly proved wrong about not expecting to learn anything new!
Chris runs the Edgehill College Spanish Blog and it's fab. He gave some great examples of how he has used the blog with pupils. I have already used my other blog with my pupils but nowhere near on the scale that Chris uses his. In particular, I loved the idea of getting the kids to write descriptions of themselves (without adding names), paste them into the blog and get the class to guess who was being described, adding their guesses via the comments...watch out for that idea being used when I get onto that topic with my Year 7s later this term! He also spoke about how he promoted the blog around school and made me think about how I could market mine a bit better around my school. I know that some pupils do visit and comment frequently but I'd like more to visit and get as many pupils as possible visiting and being enriched (can you say that?). So, although I sometimes struggle to talk myself up, I will be launching a huge advertising campaign around the school after half-term.
Chris also spoke about Podcasting and Moblogging using Gabcast and ShowZu both of which I'm hoping to try out with my pupils in the near future.
Next, he spoke about using mobile phones in language learning. I am really keen to get my pupils using their mobiles but have put of having the discussion with my Headteacher as I knew what the answer would be! It didn't help that a colleague, who saw Chris speak earlier in the year (I believe) went straight in to talk about pupils using them as soon as he got back to school and was (naturally) turned down. However, I'm considering the financial angle and thinking of going for the "look how much money we could save as a school if pupils used their phones instead of video recorders, voice recorders etc...". Money often talks louder than anthing else.
So, my first session of the conference was fascinating and I can thoroughly recommend going to hear Chris speak if you get the opportunity. He's really easy to listen too and has great examples of how he's using the technology he's talking about with his pupils...something that's worth it's weight in gold, in my opinion. Thank you, Chris!!!

The Isle of Wight Conference

I think that I'll start with the main event then. Like many other people from around the country, I spent the weekend with a group of lovely people at Joe Dale's wonderful Isle of Wight Conference.
I had wanted to attend this event last year and was unable to, so this year I was determined to get there. For me it wasn't just the opportunity for some great CPD, it was also the chance to meet lots of people who I felt I already knew quite well, despite never having met them in person until Saturday morning.
The weekend certainly lived up to expectations. I learnt absolutely loads and was also reminded of lots of things that I knew about already but had forgotten. The weekend was organised superbly and I only wish I could have arrived on Friday evening, rather than on Saturday morning and got to know people a little sooner.
I attended sessions by:

• Chris Fuller on Blogging, Podcasting and Moblogging
• Steve Whittle on using Digital Resources within a Language Lab and a VLE
• John Warwick on Flashmeetings
• Mark Pentleton on Animation
• The Show and Tell where I preferred to be "told" rather and doing any "showing" myself
• Lesley Welsh on Finding as many "freebies" in the hall as possible - I got a cool USB bracelet and feely very proud!
• Drew Buddie on using Moodle VLEs
• Jo Rys-Jones and Lisa Stevens on Fun and Progression in Primary Languages

I was also involved in a very bizarre Flashmeeting even at lunchtime on Sunday with severalvpeople from around the world...but I think the less said about that the better
So, as you can see, I kept myself very busy and, unfortunately didn't get to see much of the Isle of Wight...specially not of the "lovely clear blue water" that my Grandma keeps going on about every time I mention it.
I intend to blog about most of the sessions that I went to in separate posts through out the week, so that people can find the bits that they might not have gone to more easily.

A very busy week

I think the the next few days will be full of blog posts from me, as I seem to have done so much in a very short space of time. I've done so much, met so many people and had such a great time that I really don't know where to begin. I think maybe, I'll just go for it and apologise in advance for poor spelling and typing (no surprises there, then) and some rather mixed up time-lines. In no particular order I'm intending to blog about:

• my all new Ning that I set up last Wednesday and changed the name of yesterday
• the Isle of Wight Conference (of course)...hopefully individual posts about various aspects and how much I learnt etc..
• a chance encounter with a trainee life coach (aahhh...bet no-one expected that one - least of all me!)
• going to train MFL PGCE students at Durham University last week and the hazards that brought with it.

So, I'm now going to go and get busy...I even have emails to answer, somewhere!

We're back!

We had a long, tiring week but I'm happy to say that we all made it back safely from Terneuzen without too many disasters on the way. I'm always fascinated to visit schools in other countries and see how much of a "better deal" they seem to get in comparison to those of us who teach in England. I find it interesting that teachers abroad are treated as professionals whose judgements and abilities are trusted by everyone and they are just able to do what they actually love doing - which is teach!
We began out visit with a trip to Brugges. I'd never been before so jumped at the idea of taking up the bus transfer from Zeebrugge that P&O put on for ferry passangers (at quite a resonable cost). What was even more wonderful was that our host school in Terneuzen has a link with a school in Brugges and their pupils were allowed out of lessons for the afternoon to give our pupils personalised tours of this beautiful city - an ideal opportunity for them to practice their English (I can't imagine that happening in many places in England). We had the odd drama, a lost jacket, I almost lost my passport by leaving it, along with other important stuff of mine in the station at Brugges (happily the lovely people at the station had found it and kept it for when I realised that I'd left it!) and striking public workers in Belgium but, eventually we made it to Terneuzen. We visited out partner school and went into some lessons and did a treasure hunt around the town. We also had our day trip to Ypres which tired us all out and of course our pupils worked together with their partners on a newspaper about life during the First World War.
We thoroughly enjoyed the whole trip and even began to learn some Dutch...the pupils, of course can now all say lots of rude words, meanwhile the teachers are well versed in understanding menus and fine Belgian beers. I have to say the we teachers were very well fed throughout the whole visit and have probably gained a fair few pounds!!!!!
Naturally, I will be blogging for the pupils about the trip once I have the photos available...we had our own official photographer with us in the shape of my colleague who is a fab photographer. There are great photos of kids and great "arty" ones of things like sunset from the Pride of Bruges as we began our journey home from Zeebrugge. Our History project blog is here (although currently there is only stuff about the Victorian leg of the project).

It's here

Well, here we are...our Netherlands project has finally arrived. As I have blogged about previously, we are working, for the first time, with a school in Terneuzen in the Netherlands on a joint History project. In April, they came over to us to work on a project about Victorians etc... and it proved a great success. I can't believe it, but here we are in October and we are to go to Terneuzen for the return visit. On Sunday we head off to the Netherlands. Whilst looking forward to actually being there, I am concerned about leaving my husband with 2 small children for 6 days whilst I take care of 15 other children!
We are to take the ferry from Hull to Zeebrugge on Sunday evening. I think that is probably my biggest concern...12 hours on the North Sea in October, hmmmm! At least we have cabins - bed time at 10.30 pm. The preparations haven't been without hitches, mainly that one girl dropped out last week, which was a shame and then yesterday, another girl fractured her foot so that means that she can't come either. Oh well, at least it means there are less children to lose! It must be said, that with 15 of the most delightful children one could imagine (without them being your own), I don't think that looking after them will be the most onerous task!
So, Sunday is D-day and I'll be haveing a week off-line (as I got a BIG shock when I got my mobile phone bill after our summer holidays). I don't know whether I'll survive!