Pay it forward

Whose job is it to teach the NETs and AASL standards to students?

According to Wikipedia, the expression "pay it forward" is used to describe the concept of asking that a good turn be repaid by having it done to others instead.[...]In sociology, this concept is called "generalized reciprocity" or "generalized exchange".
My interpretation is that if something good happens to you, then you should in turn do a good action for someone else. It seems simplistic, but I think it can work in the the context of our discussion about "whose job is it to teach the standards?".
Let me explain:
When my students come into my French class, they already know how to read a text and write sentences using appropriate punctuation and paragraph forms. Whose job was it to teach writing? Do students only learn to read and write in their English/humanities class? Although there is a clear emphasis on those skills in an English class, everyone expects students will become better writers because they get to practice in their other classes.
When I teach my students how to use a new computer application to use in my French class, I know that students will be able to apply this new skill for another class or for their personal use. In turn, I was pleasantly surprised when some students started on their French journal already knowing how to use their blogs. Whose turn was it to teach this tool?
Interdisciplinary teaching is expected in most classrooms. Familiarize yourself with the curriculum of other departments so you can integrate it into your own. In my classroom, we study math, science, humanities, art, physical education, etc in FRENCH.

Looking at some of the NETs standards, most of the colleagues around my table agreed that most of these standards are common to most discipline?

1. Creativity and Innovation
Students demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop innovative products and processes using technology.

2. Communication and Collaboration
Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others.

3. Research and Information Fluency
Students apply digital tools to gather, evaluate, and use information.

4. Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making
Students use critical thinking skills to plan and conduct research, manage projects, solve problems, and make informed decisions using appropriate digital tools and resources.

5. Digital Citizenship
Students understand human, cultural, and societal issues related to technology and practice legal and ethical behavior.

So, why couldn’t/shouldn’t we expect interdisciplinary teaching of technology skills, and therefore the standards?

Reflection on the final project

My final project for this class was a project for French A students to create a digital story using movie maker. We started a unit on countries around the world and climate to go along with the students’ humanities classes.
Later on in the same unit, students individually performed in class as a television “weather man”. In order to do well in their authentic performance, students needed to know the vocabulary. The videos were meant to help students learn and practice the new vocabulary on weather.

My goal was to kill two birds with one stone:
-students learn their new vocabulary in their project.
-Students learn to use new tools (creative commons + movie maker) that they can/will use later for other presentations in French class.

Based on the students’ self-reflection after the project, they were proud of the outcome of this project. They felt that they had learned to use the new vocabulary, and even though we had trouble with the technology, they enjoyed learning to use the movie maker program. Overall, students were proud to have created a video and posted them on their individual Blogs (portfolios). Students can use each others’ videos to review the vocabulary for the unit.

What can I do to improve this project next year?
1) There were too many new skills and tools to learn at once. Images + text + voice recording + video editing. Who has time to proofread their French?
Next time, I would teach students how to search for original images on creative commons beforehand and for a simpler project. They could learn the true value of finding good visuals and giving credit to authors. Once it is time to work on the video, they already know where to go find their images...

2) For the movie maker project, I also need to review the steps to follow.
The organization and writing of the project should be separate from the actual making of the video (movie maker). As a team, students should write and organize the story (board) away from the computers. That will give them time to discuss the project as a group, share tasks, peer edit their work and make changes if necessary. Because 3 or 4 students worked on one project as a team, it made for some logistical nightmare if one student did not have his/her part on time. Students work at different pace, so it is better for each student to be assigned a specific individual task. For example: each student should complete their video: fall, winter, spring, summer. Once we have all 4 videos, we can complete the group’s video by putting it all together.

I will continue to use movie maker as I believe that it is a powerful tool for teaching and learning a foreign language. It provides opportunities for students to practice all skills (reading, writing, speaking and listening) in the target language. With more opportunities to use movie maker, students will get better at using the tool and will improve on their use of the target language.

Using Video in the Language Classroom

How has the explosion of web based video changed the teaching and learning landscape?

• Introduction to a new unit: Starting a new lesson, I often use a piece of realia: an object, an image…How about a video to start the unit?
  

• Language Lab: In Bangkok, my students’ exposure to French is very limited. The classroom is often the only place where they will be able to listen (and speak) French.I can provide students more opportunities to be exposed to the target language through videos. Asking a student to watch TV5 in French may not be very exciting (although it has its benefits), but inviting them to watch a video on YouTube might be more appealing to my students.

• Self Assessment /Reflection: In a language classroom, we aim for all students to practice their oral skills as much as possible.Students are guided to produce orally in the target language through various performance assessments (interpersonal communication, presentations, etc).However, once the students have performed, they may receive teacher feedback, but they have little opportunity to reflect on their completed oral performance.Videotaping students performing orally is nothing new. Yet, being able to upload the student’s video on the web, and on their personal (or the class) blog, may give students a chance to watch/listen to their performance and self-assess.(Delivery, pronunciation, etc). Watching themselves communicate in a foreign language also gives students a sense of pride and ownership. Students are encouraged to post their performance video on their blog as part of their portfolio.
  
  

Screencasts: How to Add Accents on a Glogster.com Poster Project.

How could screen casts be used in your classroom/department?

Screencasts can be used to help teach different computer skills to both students and teachers.
Here is an example of how I have used screencasts for my class.

Screen cast can be used to help teach different computer skills to both students and teachers.
Here is an example of how I have used screencast for my class. French intro students were creating a poster on glogster.com at the beginning of the year. They were required to use the program to present themselves and the first few French words they had learned. Accents being important in French, it was important for them to ensure they typed the correct spelling (with accents) on their poster.

Before screencast: I demonstrated one time on the smartboard to the class how to use accents in their glogster poster. However, I had to go around the classroom and repeat the set of instructions several other times to individual students who had forgotten or not heard it the first time.

After Screencast: I now have created a short video demonstrating how to add accents on a Glogster poster.
I have posted it on my class blog (or Panthernet), and invite students to go watch it as many times as they need. Hopefully, the screen cast will be sufficient in helping them.

Screencasts can be also used to share best practice with other teachers. For example, in response to this blog entry, many teachers from our Coetail class created a sample screencast. There are now many screencasts that we can search within our small network of teachers to learn new skills that will help our students as well as us teachers/learners.

Digital Story Telling

(Assignment sept 28-Oct 4)

This project was completed by French Level A students.
I posted images in voicethread and invited students to make comments using their new vocabulary & previous knowledge of French.

upgrades

(Assignment sept. 21-27)

Three years ago, I created a video model for a project on weather description. I used the images that I had from books, cliparts and low quality photos.



Last year, students started to use creative common images for this same project. We encouraged students to find images that represented the weather and activities in that season.
Here is the new version of our project.



I no longer use my video as the model for the project, but use some of the students' to show how to find relevant, interesting images, and give credit for their sources.

Visual Literacy (course 3-blog 2)

A picture is worth a thousand word.

Using images to illustrate new vocabulary is not something new to modern language educators. We use visuals to catch students' attention and the image help them construct meaning.

However, finding relevant and interesting images to get a message across in the target language is much more powerful. Until recently, and before I knew any better, I have always been a fervent user of clip-arts (top left image) to help support a lesson presented in the target language.

Today, the web 2.0 is giving us access to unlimited resources of images with tools like creative commons. We can now use richer images, but we must not forget to give credit for those who took the pictures. Wondering how to use creative commons? Check out the cc help form I created for my class. (I would welcome your feedback)

This year, my goal is for myself and students to find more relevant pictures to use in the context of French classes. I used this picture to record descriptions of the weather in a French A project on voicethread. The image doesn't limit itself to weather expressions "il pleut" ou " il y a de la pluie".
Students can get much more creative with their description of the image.

Photo: : http://www.flickr.com/photos/nhussein/3564634131/