Turning into a naughty school girl?

Yesterday, I was privileged enough to attend the ISA briefing at Regent's College, to help schools who are hoping to gain the International School Award understand how to compile their portfolios of evidence. This blogpost is not about that! So, why mention it now? Well, one of the speakers (whose name escapes me at the moment) had a quote "dead fish can only float down stream, live fish can swim upstream". I've no idea what it means but felt that it was quite apt fo me at this moment in time. I've recently been feeling like I was stood still and could go no further with my ventures into new technologies, in the situation that I'm in, upon thinking about this quote I felt like maybe there was something I could offer others after all and that maybe I could re-awake my enthusiasm.

Upon my arrival back at work today I had a look at what I was going to be doing...obviously using those well-prepared 3 part lesson plans that I create for every lesson that I teach...and it occured to me I could do a section of a lesson involving using the sound recorders on mobile phones (I'd been thinking about mobiles ever since watching Chris Fuller's presentation at the IOWconference about use of mobile phones in the classroom). At my school mobiles are banned, as such, but pupils shouldn't have them turned on in class. I fore-warned a couple of collegues at break who all said "go for it", so I did.

It was my Yr10 NVQ Spanish class...so anything to avoid me having to teach/speak Spanish is a blessing...and we were learning how to understand/make phone messages about dates and rooms booked in hotels. We looked at some models, researched some vocabulary and did a listening exercise then wrote our own messages. Then I asked who had a mobile with them (halting hands rose) and then I asked who had a voice recorder on their phones (again, all hands half-way up, as they started to worry about what I was going to ask them to do!), so, I asked them to get their phones out and record their messages. Of course there was hysteria "wouldn't dare", "can't do that" etc...but then a cool girl just got on and did it and played it back...and then of course they all did it, realising that no-one was going to criticise what they said. I then asked them to play their recording to someone near them for their friend to note what they'd said...and there we had a listening comprehesion created by them. They were clearly impressed and I could see the lights going on in some heads as they realised they could do this was all of their language work to improve their speaking and listening skills.

Of course we had the looking through photos, listening to music (someone said "can I set mine to music?"...of course you can!), comparing of phones (I was jealous of some of them!). It was only to be expected but that, of course will disappear with more regular use. Although, naturally the use of the phones will lose its appeal if they are used too often.

I was very pleased with the activity and am now planning my next venture into breaking the rules, don't know what it will be yet...maybe I'll not take my register folder up to registration...since it's done on the computer! As for the phones I'm trying to come up with something with a more able class that involves speaking for longer and bluetoothing it to me for me to do something with.

Training at Carmel

I was lucky enough to be invited to Carmel RC Technology College on Tuesday to speak to the MFL department about blogging and using Audcity. It was really nice to be asked by our PGCE student from last year who is have a very successful NQT year there now.

I always get very nervous before going to speak anywhere so it was really calming to be greeted by such a friendly team of teachers.

I spoke briefly about blogging and how it can be used with pupils to improve motivation, to show off their work, to communicate with them outside of school and even for that new "buzz" phrase of AfL. They all responded really positively and were keen to find out more.

We looked at several blogs that are used by MFL teachers with their classes such as:

Langwitch

Edgehill Spanish

Sans Problèmes

Moving on we then looked at some blogs written by Modern Linguists that give an insight into using technology in our teaching and generally give us motivation to be adventurous and creative with our classes. In particular we looked at:

this blog

Integrating ICT into the MFL Classroom (of course)

My Languages

Box of Tricks

Vámanos

Languages and Learning

I also pointed out to them that there are several other excellent blogs out there that they can read and get great ideas from.

We discussed how to set up a blog, including blogging platforms, what the purpose of a blog could be and how simple and straight forward it can be to set up a blog and create the contect. I pointed out that if I can do it, then anyone can!

We also spent a little time looking at how to create posts and how to embed a You Tube video into your blog...all this in 1hr!

Next we moved to their computers and learnt how to use Audacity and create Vokis and talked about how Vokis could be used to do speaking assessments and, following José Picardo's

example how they could be used in AfL, with pupils assessing one anothers' work via the comments in a blog.

By the end of the session, it was obvious that there was the usual "information over load" but also that many members of the department were keen to go away and consider how they could used a blog with their pupils and also how they can move into creating soundfiles with pupils and makeing Voki with them.

It was definitely time well spent and I felt that the session was a great success.

Here is the slideshow that I used:

A Beginners’ Guide To Using Ict Creatively

View more presentations or upload your own. (tags: cpd mfl)

New Year's Resolutions

Does anybody else find that New Year's Resolutions can be quite depressing by the middle of February whey they find that they've not managed to keep up their demanding list of Resolutions made on the 1st January? I think I remember last year hearing that some date in February is the most depressing day of the year for several reasons, one of which is that fact that by that date most people have usually given up on the New Year's Resolutions.

This time last year, I remember writing a blog post about my resolutions for 2008 and feeling really positive about the fact that, having them written down here it would make it easier to keep...ha, ha, ha.

What were they? I can't remember, something about weight no doubt, and something else about confidence, oh and a new job I believe. Well, I suppose I lost a bit of weight and gained a little more confidence and as for the job, well...let's just I have a "new perspective" now.

What about this year? Well, I decided that, in order to avoid being too disappointed in myself by February, I'm not having any this year. I'm just going to take each new challenge as is comes, which is currently being able to to see properly with both eyes.

Have you made any New Year's Resolutions? Where will you be at the end of 2009? (Hopefully I'll be lying on a beach somewhere not having to think about work, as I will have won the lottery...)

Dinner for One

I didn't blog much about Christmas this year so I decided I'd add this little post about a German New Year tradition instead.
Each year on New Year's Eve (Silvester) in Germany there is a rather odd (in my opinion) of showing a very old English film called "Dinner for One". It's about an old lady, Miss Sophie, who, each year on her birthday, invites all of her friends for dinner. James, the butler, is to serve them and do the same as he does every year..."the same procedure as last year?". The sad thing is though, as Miss Sophie has got older her friends have all died off. James, not wanting to upset his mistress pretends that they are all still there (she's a bit batty, so doesn't realise) and as the evening wears on he drinks more and more as he must eat and drink all of the guests' meals. All of this has "hilarious" consquences...anyway have a watch and see how it ends up...

How Les Choristes saves my end of term every time

Each year as the end of the Autumn and Summer Terms approach, we are reminded to keep the pupils working until the last day of term and are "discouraged" from showing "recreational" DVDs. We in the MFL Department, however have a cunning ruse, showing films in the target language (not necessarily originally in that language) with subtitles to aid listening skills and pronunciation, thus making them "educational".
My friend and colleague, Pauline, discovered "Les Choristes" a few years ago and it never fails to captivate the imagination of even the most unenthusiastic French-learner.
For anyone who doesn't know the story, it's the tale of Clément Mathieu, a failed musician who goes to work at a school for naughty boys. It follows his time there as he he discovers that, through music he can reach the boys and begins to turn them around.
Although rather tame in comparison to the high drama of many Hollywood films it still manages to "pull in the audiences" every time. This term I even had my boisterous Yr9s request "Les Choristes" over "A Night at the Museum" how amazing is that? And one of the boys even admitting to the film being "mint" plus others saying how they cry at the end when Pépinot leaves with Mathieu. I don't know what it is about the film that captivates them too much, maybe it the fact they're gaining tips on how to be naughty, maybe it's the rude words that seem so much ruder than normal because they're written down in the subtitles rather then just heard as they normally are. However, I like to pretend that it's actually hearing the French spoken properly and that it is in some small way helping them on their journeys to become better language learners. (The music's pretty fab too)
Here's a flavour of the film I found on YouTube..

Blocked, blacklisted, access denied!

I appreciate and understand the need for filters on school computers, I really, really do BUT it still proves to be one of the most frustrating things about my job and winds me up no end. It's not so much actual filters that bother me, it's the "wise person" who, somewhere (probably in an office), has taken it upon themselves to decide what is acceptable and what isn't acceptable for me to use with my pupils and also the, apparent randomness with which this is done.
I'm writing this after a number of weeks discovering how randomly our blacklisted and none blacklisted seem to have been set. After the Isle of Wight Conference, I decided to rediscover my love of Voicethread. As I blogged about in a previous post, I used it earlier this year with a groups of Gifted and Talented pupils as an experiment, and I thought that after Jo Rhys-Jones' session at the Show and Tell I'd have another go at it. WRONG! Suddenly, with no warning, this site has been blacklisted! Why? How? Why is it so evil that it's going to corrupt the minds of my pupils? (After is didn't, previously!) It also seems that it's been put on that list that the technicians seem unable to unblock (that's the one labelled "numpty nonentity wants unblocking so unimportant", in case anyone was unsure), as I've requested that it be unblocked several times to no avail :o(
It therefore seems unbelievable to me that Facebook is available (but then a member of SLT wanted that unblocking, so that went onto a different list entitled "important person wants unblocking so must do it immediately").
In addition to this, the blocking seems to be done in such a haphazard way! Thinking about venturing more into video, I signed up for a 12 second TV and wondered about investigating Seesmic. Of course, I naturally pressumed that they too would be blacklisted (as they are in other schools I know of) but decided to try it out, just the same. Imagine my surprise when they weren't!!! I just don't get it!
Next I discovered the BBC Learning Zone Broadband Class Clips...great resource, ideal for use in a computer suite. Put the kids on, get them to watch and listen and answer questions, using it for Listening but a bit more interesting. Great idea but...WRONG. Kids could get onto the page where the video was BUT couldn't view the evil, malicious video about a German day at school...heaven forbid that pupils learning MFL could do something that might stir up some enthusiasm for the subject.
How do "they" decided what is to be blacklisted and what isn't? Why aren't those awful translation websites blocked that they all go on and think will be their ticket to perfect French / German / Spanish etc...? Why can they still get onto music sites / game sites etc, etc...but I can't let them use websites that are of real educational value?
As I said at the beginning of this post, I understand the need for filters, I really do but what I don't understand is the haphazard way that websites are filtered. Is this a local phenomenan or is it more widespread? All I want to know is either that it's going to be blocked because it's a certain type of site or it's not going to be blocked. I don't want to feel that I'm playing some kind of guessing game trying to work out what to put my energy into investigating at home on an evening, before going into to work to try it and find I've wasted my time (with 44 teaching hrs out of 50 a fortnight, I don't really ave the time to "play" at work). It's the kind of thing which is beginning to sap my enthusiasm at the moment...but heyho, it's nearly Christmas and maybe Santa will bring me a whole load of unblocked websites for Christmas this year.

Blogaversary

Thinking back over the year today, I realised that this blog had just had it's first blogaversary. I felt it warrented a mention. I have really enjoyed my year of blogging on this blog (although I don't think my husband has). It's really nice to write and have people comment on what I've written. I learnt a lot on my journey over the last year and hope to learn even more in the years to come.
Thank you to those of you who read, you've helped to make this blog what it is today :o)