A brilliant resource for English teachers

English learning area students had the privilege of hearing from Sylvia Guidara earlier this year. She spoke to us about the digital revolution, the way in which it impacts upon our students, and how we need to adapt our teaching in response to all of this. Her positivism about the affordances of digital technology was quite inspiring. Her site, Digimuve, contains slides, notes, and resources from other presentations she has given for teacher audiences. Her slideshow on "engaging students with digital writing" is a great resource for English teachers. Check it out: http://www.slideshare.net/guidars/engaging-students-with-digital-writing
This is especially relevant given a National Commission for Writing survey reveals teens believe school writing instruction could be improved.
Digital writing could change the way students approach writing tasks in our classroom - when they are aware that their work will be published for a significant audience, commented upon, and worked on collaboratively, the task becomes much more meaningful and engaging.

Telling tales with Storybird

As part of our final English assignment this year, we were required to present our work multimodally. This was a great opportunity to explore some of the platforms available on the web to present work and ideas. I explored Storybird - a community which provides visual prompts (artwork) to stimulate creative writing. It's an excellent site and one which I would definitely use for creative writing tasks in French or English classes. I did, however, feel constrained by having to use their artwork.
The other fantastic aspect of Storybird is that you can read already created stories. Check some out: http://storybird.com/books/
This could be really engaging for reluctant readers. Students can also participate in Storybird challenges and potentially take home the glory of being ranked a semi-finalist or finalist. This is more than just creative writing: it's community writing and that is much more powerful for the student than the audience of one: the teacher.

As I already had a narrative in mind and the images did not correspond with my ideas, I ditched Storybird in favour of another platform. As a teacher I find I have a preference for media which serves solely to communicate or illustrate ideas in an engaging way - I think this is a reason teachers so often resort to Power Point presentations.

When I think about those first anxious weeks with a new class (next year, hopefully) I sense in myself a reluctance to try and use anything a bit "unpredictable" in the classroom. What if the interactive whiteboard stops working? What if the Internet fails and all my activities are "wasted." Under stress, it's easy to play it safe. With this self-knowledge, however, I've made a few decisions about next year:
1. I will go to any PD available on ICT.
2. I am going to make friends with the ICT department.
3. I am not going to panic if the technology fails me.
4. I will draw on student knowledge to resolve a situation.
5. I will talk to students about what technologies they use, what they enjoy, and see if I can incorporate them into my classroom practice.
6. I will try new things!

Cybersafety

This morning we saw an excellent presentation on Cyber safety in our ICT tutorial. Cyber safety is not an issue I have consciously addressed with any of my classes but one I believe needs to be discussed in depth with students. At my previous placement school, a police officer spoke to the student cohort about the laws regarding 'sexting' and cyber bullying. This was definitely useful but needed to be followed up and explored. Students may change their behaviour in light of the law but they probably doubt they will be caught. Given the powerful nature of peer influences, a discussion of cyber bullying in light of its broader social consequences would also be helpful.

What I appreciated about this morning's presentation was the gamut of resources suggested to help students and teachers explore the issues. I expect that the short films on cyber bullying would be particularly effective with students as they are engaging, feature people of their own age, and explore the emotional and social repercussions of cyber bullying.

Reflections of First Year Grads

In our LOTE lecture several weeks ago we heard from two recent graduates who are both teaching French at schools in Melbourne. Both use ICT extensively in their classes, and they passed on some excellent resources. One of the students is in a "tablet school" where students can write on their tablets (so that handwriting skills are not lost) Lessons are almost exclusively ICT-delivered. It was interesting to hear about the challenges present in this context, and how the graduate teacher had gone about addressing these challenges. A program called DyKnow allows the teacher to see all the tablets in her class at once on her computer by linking them in together. This allows for collaboration, and permits students to communicate directly with the teacher if they're too embarassed to do so in front of their peers. It also ensures that students remain 'on-task' and don't take a wander around cyberspace because their teacher will see if they do!
This software looks fantastic - here's a link to a YouTube clip about one of its functions http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CWMJHE1tzM&feature=related

With all of these technologies, however, we need to think about what is being privileged as we use them, and what is potentially being lost. Developing confidence in front of your peers is a skill essential for later life and if developing this skill is neglected or delayed (because technologies such as DyKnow have allowed the student to communicate otherwise) this will be to the student's detriment. Of course, it's all about a balanced use of these technologies for educative purposes in the classroom. Where we are reflecting on the benefits and disadvantages of each new app, program or digital tool for our students, they are likely to receive a healthy mix of interesting and varied instructional tools. So we will use collaborative digital editing tools in the classroom but we will also run editing workshops without these tools so that students will learn the importance of turn-taking in discussion and reflecting on the contribution of others before making your opinion heard.

Glogster in Year 7 French

On Friday I introduced Glogster to my Year 7 French class. They have been researching French festivals and were to present their materials using Glogster (a site that allows you to create interactive posters). Only one of the students had used Glogster before (in primary school) and the rest were enthusiastic about giving it a go.
Overall I found Glogster to be highly successful with this age group. They cottoned on to how to use it in about two minutes and set about creating some beautiful posters. It's an intuitive site and allows you to link your poster to other websites and to add audio and video of yourself and other people. The next step will be to get students to audio-record themselves speaking some of the French content onto the poster. This will allow me to examine several different macroskills at once i.e. both writing and speaking.
The students really enjoyed using Glogster and it helped with engagement which can be sometimes difficult in obligatory language classes. I find that I am more likely to achieve high quality work when it is published online. With ICT in French care must be taken that navigating sites or new programs and teaching students how to use them does not detract from time spent in the language. With Glogster, however, students were quick to become comfortable working in the program.
One disadvantage of the site is that French accents and punctuation marks don't appear on the poster. Another potential drawback is that students are less keen to work collaboratively. They each want to create their own Glog according to their own tastes and so the potential for productive group work is minimised.

Japanese and Chinese characters can be selected so it would work well for teachers working in these language domains.
I will be viewing students completed Glogs this coming week so will keep you posted on their progress!

ICT & VELS

1. ICT provides a rich and flexible learner-centred environment in which students can experiment and take risks when developing new understanding.

I have certainly found this statement to be true in relation to my current placement where I am teaching French. I use ICT prolifically in the French classroom. Some of its advantages include: visual prompts which aid student comprehension, introducing other French voices into the classroom through online listening and viewing activities, highly interactive activities, and online activities where students cannot progress until they have produced a correct response.

In respect to online activities such as those offered on Languages Online, they allow for a flexible learner-centred environment in that students can advance at their own pace, unhindered by classroom dynamics. More advanced students can run ahead, leaving the teacher to assist students encountering difficulties. Online programs provide instant feedback to students, allowing them to correct their errors and then to move on.
The computer is an impartial and disembodied critic and so students will feel less anxious about taking risks in the language.

ICT puts French culture and communities at the fingertips of students. They can access French radio, film and television, Skype French classes overseas, and check the weather in French cities. These are opportunities which were previously limited for students, or availably only to students with the means to travel to France. In this way ICT works as an equalizer among the student population. As a resource, ICT technologies are much richer than any textbook. A wealth of information is at their fingertips and it's up to us, as teachers, to point them in helpful directions.

ICT is also advantageous to students in that it permits them more diverse means of communicating. They are not limited to the spoken or written word. If, for assignments, they can make films or PowerPoint presentations or Prezis or interactive posters then their capacity to communicate increases as they can use symbols and music and animations to get their message across. This is fantastic for students who feel frustrated by their developing (and not yet developed) language skills.

Central to language teaching is the idea of communicative competence. Social networking tools can launch students' learning as they have the relational motivation to communicate; to write and to speak. In this way they are a gift to language teachers!

Powerpoint

I used Powerpoint extensively last semester when teaching English. I found it really helpful in organising my thoughts and structuring the lesson. I used it to articulate lesson objectives and tasks for the lesson, and demonstrate essay planning models and tables organising quotes from the novel under study. Arguably it was more helpful for me than for the students!