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.
Saturday, 22 October 2011
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!
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!
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