Thing 23

I definitely got some new ideas and I'm just sad that I can't have more computers in my classroom so I can actually implement them. With all the budget cuts, we probably won't see much expansion for computer labs and classroom computers for several years. Some of the things we learned about, like Voicethreads, would be great for activities and a real time-saver in class. I loved some of the alternatives to PowerPoint shows due to their versatility and simplicity. I'll definitely continue using the embed feature to access videos, songs, etc that I can use in the classroom. That's a great way to get around the website blocks that restrict us from accessing these materials. I can see myself using Google Reader to keep up with current events in the French-speaking world and also PageFlakes. I liked how the flakes could access local radio stations, post international times, show the weather, and other fun functions. I liked these things the best and I think they could easily be used in my classroom. Some others, like podcasting, might not work out well since there's no video to "see" what they're listening to or talking about. Beginner language students need more support with visuals so they know the context and can guess at vocabulary they don't immediately recognize. Still, there weren't really any other Things that I saw that wouldn't be useful in some way! This was a great course!!!!

Thing 22

I decided to check out Busuu and I think some of the features would be ok. For example, a student would be able to find an online chat pal there and listen to the language being spoken. A lot of the features are "premium" features and that costs money. There are free sites that are just as good or better, so I wouldn't recommend this to my students.

Bamzooki doesn't have anything to do with French, but I thought it might be fun to have students describe their robots and maybe write about who won, describe the fight, etc. I don't think we could use this because it requires a download and that needs special permission. I have to admit that I had trouble figuring out what to do since the tools don't have any tutorials with them. My first attempt was an embarassment, so I'm not sharing that :) I had legs coming out all over the robot bug. I think students would probably like it, but they have to be under 15 to make an account (or say they're under 15). Some of the other robot-building sites may be better since this one didn't tell you how to do anything.

Thing 5d

I don't always want to be slamming other people's ideas about getting students motivated, but a lot of what I see are time-wasters being promoted instead of actually getting the child to produce something. In the real world, the boss tells you to write a report/email/introduction of a new concept/product, etc., then you'd better sit right down and get to it! I think that a lot of students think of using technology as "fun," but then they're missing the point of proofreading for mistakes and all when Word will do some of that for them.

From Google Reader, I was looking at Lesson Plans to Promote Writing by Dawn Dodson. I liked the idea of writing a story featuring a younger child by interviewing and then creating a story around that child's life. Not everyone has a younger brother/sister and we can't really take a field trip to the elementary school, so I guess interviewers would have to get creative about meeting the child for the initial interview. Her next idea is collecting information about a classmate and making graphics and other nonsense for an oral presentation, actually avoiding much of writing. This is ok if you're doing some kind of journalism unit, though. She doesn't actually say it's for studying journalistic writing or for speeches, although she does emphasize giving a speech at the end.

The next lesson isn't one of hers and it appears to have more building opportunities to actually get the kids writing an essay. Basically, take a picture, talk to the students about writing a hook/lead to get the readers' attention, then share what they wrote. There is more discussion with the students reading an intro with the lead taken out and creating new leads. Then, this goes to developing their own introduction paragraphs. Seems like a good building activity to get them to understand the concept. Good practice and opportunities for discussion before they have to do it on their own.

The last one is about persuasive writing using climate changes and environmental concerns. This could be changed to political issues depending on the students, imo. Some students will obviously want to write about things they feel strongly about not related to the environment. The problem with this particular lesson plan is that the writer did not consider students preferences and instead lists a lot of background resources for the teacher to become familiar with climate issues and share with the class. Otherwise, good ideas, but maybe have the students do their own research and then write a response based on current events they actually care about.

Thing 21

I liked Pageflakes and I can see how useful this would be as a one-stop resource for some of the lessons we cover. I added on a weather widget to show some places and that would correspond to our weather lesson, etc. I really liked the radio options once I got those working. We use things like the currency converter often because the students don't always remember the exchange rates. I found some links for real estate so the kids could look at French houses. It's really not much different than giving them websites to look at, but the convenience is that they're all on one page. I see there's an option to make that the homepage, so that might be a nice feature for the classroom computer. The French Word-a-Day flake is fun!

here is my page here

Thing 19

I've heard a lot about using podcasting, but I'd never really explored it since I don't have an Ipod. I know that one of our Spanish teachers uses Ipods for a music project. I wasn't too sure about having the kids just go out and download music because most of them were talking about illegal download services they knew about :)

So, having seen some of what was offered in the Grazr, I can see there is a large variety. I was concerned about using some of the audio-only programs, though, because literature firmly supports using pictures and simulations for foreign languages. From personal experience, I understand how easy it is to point to something and name it. Talking on a phone, for example, is difficult if the person strays into unfamiliar vocabulary. They can't just show you what they're talking about. So, I have to say that for beginner students, I was not impressed with Coffee Break French. I think that it might work with upper level students, but the grammar they were introducing was for beginners. Maybe this would work for the college crowd better, but I really can't see how this would be good for anyone really. I studied Japanese in a language lab like this and my experience was that I was constantly thinking "What are they talking about???" In the show, they were introducing "ce matin" and if the kids don't know what "matin" is, there is no support for them.

So, moving on to the History folder, I listened to HP01- The Only Atomic Bomb Ever Dropped on America. Well, this was like watching a history video without the music, interviews, and background scenes. Basically, it was a lecture. And we all know how often kids respond to lectures. Again, this wasn't a good choice in my opinion.

Ok, so maybe podcasts can be used in moderation with the kids making dialogues or their own newscasts or something, but it's not an impressive tool for introducing a lesson, expanding, etc. This seems like the best educational applications would be the kids making something and presenting.

Thing 17

• What was your first impression of Classroom 2.0?

I liked how the site seemed very active. I looked at a post by a Foreign Language teacher who asked about doing more vocabulary activities. I was a bit disappointed that the people who responded linked websites. My school doesn't have a lot of labs available, so I would rather have things to do in class. I saw some of the responses offered games they created through PowerPoint, so I'll have to check those out. I did like one of the sites that showed a LOT of short videos in different languages.

• Was it what you expected? How did it differ from your expectations?

I've been to other pages before where people would actually share lesson plans or activities by writing them out. This wasn't really answering the question about vocabulary activities. Some of the links were useful and others weren't. I was hoping to actually see people posting about favorite games, etc.

• Did you find any discussions or resources of value?

I bookmarked some of the suggested links and maybe can use them. That depends on how often I can reserve the computer lab.

• Would you benefit from participating in a Ning related to your professional practices?

I would go there if I wanted to find links to resources on the web. If I'm looking for different games in class, I might have to talk to teachers or buy books about games. The people posting were just linking sites and I didn't find that useful to answer the question about new activities to do with vocabulary.

• How could participating in a social network such as a Ning improve your instructional practices?

If I needed to find expert advice in the form of links, this was useful. As far as people posting and actually giving information, I think they weren't doing that enough. It seemed "lazy" and I've seen better sites.

• For those of you who teach older students (middle school and above), would you consider creating a Ning for your classroom? Do you have any ideas for how you could use it?

Think I liked wikis better. I didn't see how this was an advantage.

Microblogging

• What is your past experience with microblogging and sites like Twitter and Plurk?

Never used them before.

• Given the testimonials above from others who use microblogs as a part of their PLN, could you identify with any of their reasons?

Not really in a foreign language class. My emphasis is on getting kids to produce spoken language. You're not going to another country and writing to people. You're asking for directions, how much things cost, etc. orally. I didn't really see a use for Plurk.

• For those of you who teach older students (middle school and above), would you consider using a private microblog community such as Shout'emor Edmodo in your classroom? How could you use it?

Not really. There's better options out there, imo.

Thing 16

I've used Facebook a few times, but not often. My mother and sister wanted to share photos. My mother also wanted to keep up with extended family (her cousins, her aunts, etc.) My brother uses Facebook to talk to his friends and there are some games online associated with Facebook. So, I've never used this site professionally, but I can see how this would be used. You can invite as many people as you want to share information and connect to their sites.

I can see how PLNs can be enormous time-wasters, but they can also be good sources of information. I liked the idea of posting questions and inviting people to answer. I've seen sites before like that where people could post grammar questions, etc. and get answers from native speakers. As for time-wasters, there are surveys that are offered on Facebook like "What kind of wiper are you?" (questions about how you use toilet paper) Funny, but not something that I want to know about my students or my family members.

I'm not sure that I would really need "my own" PLN. As I mentioned, I found a site where people answer grammar questions, talk about culture, etc. I don't see that making a duplicate site would be beneficial. I think other sites are better for different applications. Some of these sites are "too social" and not professional in nature. They post advertisements. They post silly surveys and things that I would not want to share with my co-workers.

Thing 15

I took an after-school class about Google Docs, so I knew a little about it. I liked how you could be typing something and have other people collaborate. This might not work well for class assignments without a lot of caution. I'd be afraid of kids not saving work or erasing something someone else said. How do you give credit for something that's been erased? Our instructor gave examples in an English class setting where students could make comments and edit what someone wrote. The editing part is what made me worried about erasing. Since I teach French, I'd have to get all the kids cheat sheets for making the special accents. Typing in French is pretty easy, but the kids keeping up with them is a problem. The biggest concern over these is getting enough lab time. It's a great idea, but it seems easier to just do the activities in class on paper and use highlighters for editing. I'd rather use my lab time for projects and cultural instruction than word processing, etc.

I think it would be fun to use for something like organizing club activities and creating a scrapbook. You could show pictures with the slideshow, take surveys of what the students want to do during the month/year, and have places for them to write about their activities in the club. It's easy to use, so that wouldn't require much instruction to get the kids up and running.

Thing 5c

Free Technology for Teachers offered some ideas on Google Earth Flight Simulator. I've seen students using this before when I wanted them to check out city information or look at geography in the computer lab. What is neat is that you can be exact and check out a specific street or address. This makes the lesson come alive more than just talking about a typical French restaurant. They can actually see the restaurant and what it looks like in the neighborhood. The downside to the Google Earth site is that it's not updated very frequently. The pictures of my house are over a year old. So, this could be used in current events for the "before" pictures of disaster areas, for example.

Thing 14 YouTube

I've been to YouTube before, but since it was blocked at school, I didn't think I would be able to use the videos at school. One thing we don't get to examine much is the Tour de France since that ends before the students return to class. Getting these short videos would be a cool way to review the different stages of the race. I'm definitely a fan of embedding! I could make a wiki page to put these videos and have students check it out without having to visit YouTube.

Ok, I don't teach Spanish, but this is a must-see! There are some examples for French, but none are as well-done or as funny!!






I can learn how to change my oil filter! Of course this is easier learned in person or better yet, find someone to do it for you. So, YouTube might not be the best source of information for everything...



And here is something funny :)

Thing 13

Using VoiceThread was very easy and I like how it can replace boring dialogue presentations in class. I want to give my students lots of speaking opportunities, but omg, they just don't do a good job in front of an audience! Last year I had two students who absolutely would not present in front of the class. We had to go to the hallway for every single presentation. Others enjoyed presenting, but their peers often would still be working and ignoring the conversations. I tried lots of different things like having them grade the presenters, listen for errors for extra credit, etc. and nothing really worked. The majority refused to participate as an audience. They would usually spend a lot of time practicing, so I knew they were getting good experience, but they didn't want to share with others. I think this would be a great way to avoid the presentation anxiety by having them use a slideshow I pre-made or they could do their own with comments.

I could absolutely use this for testing options by having students doing storytelling, making presentations, comic dialogues, and other speaking opportunities. This is much much easier than using a hand-held recorder and rewinding (often over someone else's dialogue!)

Thing 12

I decided to check out Quizlet first. I made an example ESOL lesson that could be used with beginners. What I liked best about this is that there is voice recognition capability with some of the activities. There are better websites for making practice games, but I haven't found ones with good voice recognition. This way students who have to work on their speech will have to practice until the computer recognizes what they're saying. I tried mispronouncing words and the computer is very forgiving, unfortunately. Still, if their speech is super difficult, this might help. One downside to this is that there is no modeling for the kids. You can't click, hear the word, and try it yourself. Still, this is a decent site as you're practicing the vocabulary you need where on other sites, they may have voice recognition for words that don't relate to your vocab of the week.

I could use this for French, too, but the production would have to be in English. The program doesn't recognize spoken foreign words. Still, I could have students reading French and responding in English for initial practice to learn the vocab.

For social apects of Quizlet... you could have online chat or subscribe to a community. For example, you could set up a series of quizzes under Ms. Bathurst's French I. The kids would subscribe and be able to look at all the quizzes available. Now, say that Jimmy and Sean are on at the same time. They can use an instant messaging (IM) on the site and write to each other while they are logged in.

For my second tool, I decided to check out Timetoast. This site was ok if you have specific dates. I noticed that there is no option for a range of years and the site will plug in a day and month even if you don't want it to. For example, you want to say something happened throughout a certain year, it won't post just the year. Or there was an event from February to March, you can't have non-specific dates or show the range. I liked how you could upload pictures quickly and easily. You could label the pictures and be able to click for more information. One of the timeline examples was bilingual, so you could read in English, then click for more information in Spanish. So, you can add whatever description you want. You could also add links to the information on your timeline. You could link to articles, for example. The only real problem I saw with the site was the dates.

For social aspects, you could leave comments for the creaters. If there is a question or you want to point out errors or just say this looks great, you're able to do that.

One of the big projects I do with my French 2 classes is a timeline using past tense. Below is an example with Johnny Depp. Students have to choose one person and write out what the person did using passé composé. We tried doing this before with PowerPoints, but not everyone knew how to use the program or they turned out weird because the students tried to do too much with graphics, sounds, etc. This is nice, clean, and simple to use. From the description and examples, Dipity does more, but Timetoast would be great for those kids who aren't tech savvy. Offering both options would be a great way to accommodate for different types of learner abilities.

Thing 5b

Writing Lesson Plans... That Don't Rush the Writing by Debra Karr

Ok, this may not be a new idea, but I liked the different criteria she has listed here. I know my students don't always take group activities seriously, so the more structure (checklists) they have, the better. The more presenting/discussing, the better. I liked the enforced time limit idea. I don't understand why someone wouldn't want to take the time to make sure their friend's work doesn't have silly mistakes, but most of the time I see they're not really motivated. This makes me wonder about the people they call "friends." :) "Sure, man, I can look at your paper... for a whole 10 seconds... " When I taught English in Gwinnett, we had copies of Anchor papers. I'm not sure if Barrow uses these (or even calls them by the same name), but they're example papers that have comments and a score level (A, B, C, F) on them. I could see adapting that idea to French and working with Debra Karr's ideas in the hope that this next group of students will do better. Usually I don't ask my kids to do more than proofread, but I liked how they need to justify why they think this one is a good work sample, etc.

Thing 12

Whew, that was more difficult than I thought it would be. Actually, putting together the slideshow was the easy part. Embedding wasn't too bad either. Going back and checking the links to my pictures was the worst part. I found out that sometimes the http:// wasn't being dropped from the links on the sandbox page. I had to go back and manually delete the extra http://http:// a couple times. Hope that helps anyone else whose links aren't working right!

I admit I didn't check out the other two sites since the slideshows didn't look appealing. I liked the idea of pictures with music, so I had to visit RockYou!

Thing 11

Photo Sources:

1. Bedouin in Ivory Coast http://www.flickr.com/photos/ferdinandreus/485342170/
2. Ivory Coast http://www.flickr.com/photos/34865159@N06/3235461580/
3. Ivory Coast Dan Mask http://www.flickr.com/photos/32357038@N08/3167484523/
4. Abidjan, Ivory Coast http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaysha/3401588675/
5. Abidjan Plateau Panorama http://www.flickr.com/photos/slenelle/3169943229/

Thing 10

I found several neat pictures that I could use in a presentation about Africa. My French text highlights France this and France that throughout the book. There are a few mentions about Canada and other countries, but the majority is centered on France. The students get a warped view of the Francophone world and they don't appreciate just how diverse the speakers are. Since our text does not offer supplements to address culture outside of France, that is left up to the teacher. I got this picture from A Glimpse of the World at Flickr.

Thing 9

• Have you noticed the CC logo on any websites you visit? Did you wonder what it meant?

That logo is not something I was actually looking for, so I wasn't aware of it before now. Usually I check to see when the site was updated or when someone added a new post.

• Do you think CC will impact the way students learn and create projects? How?

I think that teachers will need to share this information before it has ANY impact on the kids. They typically think they can copy and paste with no repercussions. I tell my students to add works cited pages on their projects and they don't do it. They don't tell where they got direct quotes from. I don't think they understand how unfair it is for them to be using other people's works without permission. In their minds, it's so easy to copy, why should they do anything beyond that?

• Do you use digital images, audio or video clips from the web in your teaching (or professional practice)?

I use images (like the Eiffel Tower or other cultural images), but not audio or video clips. I do have some lesson plans including animal noises, but we listened to those directly from the original website.

• Do you ever share content on the web?

I've never had a website or blog, so no.

• Who owns your teaching materials?

The materials that I buy all say that they're for my personal classroom use and can be reproduced as many times as I would like. I'm just not supposed to share with other teachers and their classes. I check to make sure there are no other restrictions before I buy them. As for our textbooks, I'm sure the county paid licensing fees for our software so we have a site license for use at school. We have CDs for tutoring and copies of the text which are not licensed, but cannot be copied. We have permission to lend one to each student for use at home. The other materials say they are copyrighted and cannot be reproduced in whole or in part. So, the original authors and publishing company reserve those rights.

• What are some potential negatives for using CC?

I can see overuse by students. Instead of having good content, I think my students would load their projects with tons of pictures. I'm sure they would waste class time searching for the "perfect" music.

Thing 8

I just finished putting up my own wiki space on the Sandbox. It's pretty easy to use and fun to do, but I see there aren't many options for changing how it looks. I'm glad to see how to embed links now. I didn't know how to do that and my previous Blog posts looked bad because of that. Embedding really does make things look nicer than writing out the whole address. Easier on readers, too as they can just click and go instead of open a new tab, copy, and paste. On another note, I really had fun with the image generators. I was looking at what was available and had to go with the Lego people. I embedded the link with the picture, so you click on the pic and it takes you there. I didn't see anything about copyrighted images, so didn't know if I needed to add something there or not.

Thing 7

As I'm looking through Brittany's space I notice that the organization is not very good and that someone would have to be familiar with the specific classroom to be able to follow her information. Vicki Davis' student could have organized this better. Some of the tabs seem to go to vocabulary definitions while others comment about different things (symbols, people, events) from the story. Some of the definitions and comments are not clear. The students did not use page numbers. They had listed a range of chapters like 1-5. I think this would be very difficult to use as a study guide. How could you look up what they're talking about? There is a definite lack of good grammar. As an English teacher, I find that disturbing in an English class project...

From her link on the website about a virtual study hall, I see this lists the current homework and other assignments due. Cute idea, but this obviously does not list all the classes for all students. Maybe these were the only classes her group of students had, so it's not intended as a whole-school reference site? I clicked on biology to see what kinds of information the students posted and was extremely underwhelmed. There were a few definitions, but they were compiled of run-on sentences. Reading these was like reading gibberish! So, I looked at the Spanish tab to see if that was any better. These looked like my students' notes- useless. There was a list of verb endings, but no explanation to show how to apply those endings or when to use the verb forms (situations). I can see that teachers and parents would be excited about the "collaboration" factor, but bad notetaking is still useless and a waste of time to someone who really needs help. To make it better, the kids should be told they can't just copy definitions, but they must explain in their own words and/or give a real example.

When I think of struggling students looking for help on a website, I think back to my experiences with Algebra. Yes, I could do the equations, but they made no sense to me in real life. Then, my mother went back to school and had to take Algebra. Her text was about applying Algebra to real life! An entire text with real examples of how and when to apply all those equations! I would love to see student websites set up with that goal.

So, leaving CoolCatTeacher and not feeling very good about wikis, I decided to check out the Holocaust I only checked out one student post and was pretty impressed by that. The project is told as a story where students provide some background information with maps, pictures, etc. You see where the events were happening, read about your main character and his/her family. The report references facts but in a storytelling setting (the one I read was about a Jewish family living in Poland). Then, the reader is involved by choosing what the character should do. For example, stay or try to leave the country as the Nazis approach? When you choose, you get some results of what happened (you get arrested by the Nazis, etc). This was very cute and creative! Students had to know the background facts, but they were highly creative with what they presented at a more personalized level (what the experience might have been like for real people).

Feeling better about wikis, I decided to look at this website about storywriting. Showcasing student works is a great idea! I read through several stories and was pretty impressed with the variety and quality (and it's not just one school). These are not works in progress nor are they mediocre. This seems like a place to post the best available student works. I know we're encouraged to post in our classrooms and often we don't want to leave anyone out. I'm guilty of putting some of "those papers" up on the wall, too. While examining bad papers is a learning experience, there is a reason for posting good papers- they show the goals for which students should be aiming! The best part about this is that the works are available to a wider audience than just the students who enter the classroom or pass along that hallway.

The projects shown on the chemistry website seem to mostly be an alternative to PowerPoint presentations. What is nice here is that they projects can be reviewed again and again or shared with different classes easily. I had a little more trouble accessing this site because I would pull up instructions for the project and not know where to find the students' finished works, for example. More organization is needed and I liked the first sites use of tabs.

Thing 6

http://www.diigo.com/dashboard/cerika66 Here is my Diigo information or here is the quicklink.

I can see that this would be an easy resource for sending information to my students. Instead of having them copy out a web address and then going to the computer lab, I can have them log on to my Diigo page and then click from there. From personal experience, I know the kids don't always pay attention when they're typing and they're not likely to figure out they missed the _ or whatever character. This takes time away from instruction and exploration when they have to retype the web address 5x and then call me over to see what they missed.

I must admit that I didn't see adding tags as being very useful. I thought the description was a much more informative feature. Descriptions take up more space, but when I want a level 1 student to practice listening skills, I don't want to type in "listening" and send him to the advanced page by mistake. I would need to look at the description to see "beginner activities." Maybe tags are more useful if I had links to hundreds of websites, but at this point, it's not a problem to scroll through 10 or so looking for the exact one I want.

Thing 5a

I didn't have anything specific I wanted to research at the moment, but I always like checking out generic lesson plans. I started by looking for foreign language and geography plans, but didn't see anything too interesting. Some of the blogs that pulled up showed they didn't have many weekly updates so that seemed to me that they would be rather static.

Since I wanted to incorporate more art into French 2, I thought I would try "Les Impressionists." What pulled up wasn't even remotely related to the artists or the art movement; however, I did end up finding what I was looking for in the first place! This has links to generic lesson plans for cross-curricular ideas. When I started clicking on some links, I found this gem on African languages.

This lesson plan is about looking at African languages and the problems associated with having lots of local dialects. This would give students time to explore why this is a problem and why having a common language (French for example) would make life easier for people. While it's a good thing to preserve customs, history, and languages that make people unique, there is still an absolute need to be able to work with a common language.

The problem is that Reader came up with a website, not an actual blog, so I don't know how often this site would be updated. Anyway, the site is www.lessonplanet.com So, I learned a bit more about Reader: it doesn't necessarily look for a specific TYPE of article such as a blog. It pulls up all kinds of related or semi-related articles/blogs/websites/online newspapers, etc.

Thing 3

http://www.snagfilms.com/films/

My reader pulled up this website and I thought it looked interesting. Since I'm a French teacher, I want to emphasize to my students that MANY countries speak French. I haven't been able to check out everything related to France, French history, other French-speaking countries, etc. here, but the site looks promising. With limited funding and educational resources being soooo overpriced, I rely on the Internet often to address current events and culture. At this site, I should be able to pull up videos on historical figures, events, travel guides, etc. to supplement what we discuss in the classroom.

I like the idea of Reader. I think this is a convenient tool for keeping up to date and seeing what has changed on blogs or webpages without having to actually go flipping from site to site. It seems very easy to use, too.