Thursday, August 20, 2009
Welcome Podcast for French Students at McGuffey
Here I am posting another podcast for by EDU 595 webtools class. I created this one on Podbean and embedded it into my wiki. I am simply welcoming my students to class this year and telling them how excited I am to try new Web 2.0 tools with them.
EDU 595 Podcast Favorite Moments
In my webtools class, we were asked to subscribe to a podcast for a week and to post some comments regarding our favorite moments in the podcast. I selected "One Thing in a French Day" podcast. It is created by a French woman who talks about normal every day things that happen in her life in France. The podcast is in French with her dialogue written in French as well. This will be great for my students to see and hear French simultaneously and they will be also be able to compare everyday French and American life activities.
One of my favorite moments in the podcast was created on August 18, 2009. The entry was entitled "A La Piscine" and focused on a simple day at a local swimming pool. The woman talked about putting "swimmies" on her daughter's arms and the surprise of finding that the pool was filled with salt water. It was so very pleasant to read. . . just a normal summer day in the pool. Her style is easy to read and I think my students will feel success in understanding her. I plan to add her podcast to my wiki as well. This can serve as a weekly assignment for my upper level students!
One of my favorite moments in the podcast was created on August 18, 2009. The entry was entitled "A La Piscine" and focused on a simple day at a local swimming pool. The woman talked about putting "swimmies" on her daughter's arms and the surprise of finding that the pool was filled with salt water. It was so very pleasant to read. . . just a normal summer day in the pool. Her style is easy to read and I think my students will feel success in understanding her. I plan to add her podcast to my wiki as well. This can serve as a weekly assignment for my upper level students!
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Folksonomy (Social Bookmarking) for EDU 595
I really had fun with social bookmarking today. The tags are so useful. Previously I would add sites to my favorites list, but then would have to endlessly scroll later to find it (and sometimes NOT find it because I couldn't remember what I called it!). This will be helpful for my foreign language department - it is much easier to share this way than to send random e-mails with websites.
Photo Sharing EDU 595
This is a link to my Flickr account for my Webtools class. This is a fun way to share photos with friends and family!
Friday, August 7, 2009
Of Mice and Moodle Reflection
Today has been another wonderful day. Podcasting and vodcasting and screencasting are valuable. I have already podcasted with my students and will continue to do so. The Bean Pod website was useful for audio and video storage. I especially find the screencasting to be valuable, as I can use it to show students step-by-step instructions on how to use educational websites.
Open simulation is waaaaaay too cool. I changed the appearance of my avatar and traveled to Paris in Second Life. Finding myself in a rather seedy section made me aware that open sim can be a dangerous venue for students and needs to be monitored closely. I will be more comfortable having my students build in our school's virtual world.
Open simulation is waaaaaay too cool. I changed the appearance of my avatar and traveled to Paris in Second Life. Finding myself in a rather seedy section made me aware that open sim can be a dangerous venue for students and needs to be monitored closely. I will be more comfortable having my students build in our school's virtual world.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Of Mice and Moodle Reflection for Thursday, August 5, 2009
I am in love with Google Documents! I love being able to share and edit with others. This will be a phenomenal tool in my classroom and will be used in conjunction with my French 4 class with their novel. My students will be studying and writing summaries and reflections on various chapters and this is a perfect opportunity for them to work collaborate in real time. Creating surveys and questionnaires is also extremely useful to me. I always give a technology survey at the beginning of the year and was able to do it paperless and embed it in my wiki. Very cool.
I also learned about Moodle today. I don't think I will use this as a daily tool, as I really don't have time to type all the quizzes and tests into the system. This could be useful for placing assignments on line for absent students, but this is a function I already perform by simply uploading documents on Edline.
I also learned about Moodle today. I don't think I will use this as a daily tool, as I really don't have time to type all the quizzes and tests into the system. This could be useful for placing assignments on line for absent students, but this is a function I already perform by simply uploading documents on Edline.
Of Mice and Moodle Reflection for Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Today I learned ActivInspire software for the Promethean Interactive Whiteboard. I find this software easier to use than the Notebook software for the SmartBoard. Fortunately I will be able to use ActivInspire on the Smartboard since I do not possess a Promethean Board. I especially enjoyed creating containers (useful for my art sub-unit to help students categorize Impressionism and Post Impressionism). I also enjoyed the hide and reveal concept for vocabulary review.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Mice and Moodle Reflection
Today I had an absolute blast with some new Web 2.0 tools. Some of my favorites were Animoto, Wordle and Voki. Animoto will be an excellent tool for creating videos from pictures and setting them to music. Wordle is wonderful for student reflections and creativity and Voki is very attention-getting with the use of an Avatar. I also liked Blabber for animated voice and face with audio.
I also liked the timeline sites Dipity and Timetoast. These will be useful with French history and art studies.
Cramberry is one of my favorites as well - digital flashcards for the foreign language classroom! Good-bye to expensive index cards that are forever misplaced or lost!
I can't wait to watch my students discover these tools.
I also liked the timeline sites Dipity and Timetoast. These will be useful with French history and art studies.
Cramberry is one of my favorites as well - digital flashcards for the foreign language classroom! Good-bye to expensive index cards that are forever misplaced or lost!
I can't wait to watch my students discover these tools.
Monday, August 3, 2009
Reflection on Blogs and Wikis for Laura Jacobs' Class
Today I had more fun with Wikis and Blogs and have decided to definitely use both applications in my classes this year.
With Wikis, I plan to have my French 4 students each create a Wiki in order to Jigsaw various chapters of a novel we are going to read. They'll each make various pages to cover topics such as vocabulary, plot development, characters and predictions for the next chapter. They will also create presentations on these topics and their presentation will be archived on their wiki. At the end of the book, I will post links to everyone's wiki on the class wiki for reference and study before the test.
With Blogs, I plan to have all of my classes post comments to pictures I will post while travelling in France at the end of October. I will also have them post their ideas and opinions about topics discussed in class. I will also have them showcase projects and complete webquests via weblogs.
With Wikis, I plan to have my French 4 students each create a Wiki in order to Jigsaw various chapters of a novel we are going to read. They'll each make various pages to cover topics such as vocabulary, plot development, characters and predictions for the next chapter. They will also create presentations on these topics and their presentation will be archived on their wiki. At the end of the book, I will post links to everyone's wiki on the class wiki for reference and study before the test.
With Blogs, I plan to have all of my classes post comments to pictures I will post while travelling in France at the end of October. I will also have them post their ideas and opinions about topics discussed in class. I will also have them showcase projects and complete webquests via weblogs.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Mme Naditz's French Wiki
Today I found an absolutely beautiful wiki page from a fellow French teacher (Mme Naditz - California). She has so many wonderful ideas on her site and I wrote to her on her blog (embedded with her wiki) about what an inspiration she is to me. She continues to try to find new ways to make her lessons more robust by engaging her students in technology. I complimented her on her style and content and told her that I could only hope that more teachers could be as forward-thinking as she is.
Thoughts about RSS
RSS . . . Really Simple Syndication. I find it amusing that I now have an aggregator for my RSS feeds, have created a blog and a wiki and various podcasts, but still have trouble operating my "really simple" TV, DVD and VCR at home without referring to the step-by-step instructions my 15-year-old typed for me regarding the operation of these "dinosaurs!"
But back to RSS - I truly am amazed by this sort of reverse "push" of information to me that Web 2.0 offers. Now I don't have to randomly search for information on the Internet - I can create favorite sites to send the information to me whenever there are updates. At first I thought this was going to cause me to feel overwhelmed with even more things to keep track of; this turns out to not be the case. I can simply skim and delete. Or I can "star" it and come back to it later - a simple flagging tool like e-mail. However, RSS is nothing like opening e-mail and seeing 150 unread messages. As I get my RSS feet wet, I see that I do need to create some folders so that I can look at topics in an organized way, but that is really easy. I am trying to train myself to read my feeds each day after I check my e-mail. I think this skimming and scanning task is a valuable concept to teach students as well, what with everyone looking for ways to improve PSSA scores these days in our neck of the woods.
What I also like about RSS is the ability to use it as a classroom management tool with regard to student weblogs. I plan to have students create blogs in my French 4 class this year when we read our novel (Le Comte de Monte Christo - Ugh! Hoping to be able to change that reading selection within the curriculum soon). I can collect the students' weblogs in my aggregator using their RSS feeds and can scan through the entire class content in one place rather than traveling to their individual sites. I also love the automatic date-stamping of their posts within their blogs - assignments are either completed on time or they're not!
Regarding student safety, I do believe it will be wise to get free membership to Technorati.com for indexing weblog content with their "Watchlists." Inappropriate content can be stumbled upon too easily.
I am also including a few links to some great feeds that I will use for my classes, including French newspapers, French Word-A-Day, and learning French by Podcast.
But back to RSS - I truly am amazed by this sort of reverse "push" of information to me that Web 2.0 offers. Now I don't have to randomly search for information on the Internet - I can create favorite sites to send the information to me whenever there are updates. At first I thought this was going to cause me to feel overwhelmed with even more things to keep track of; this turns out to not be the case. I can simply skim and delete. Or I can "star" it and come back to it later - a simple flagging tool like e-mail. However, RSS is nothing like opening e-mail and seeing 150 unread messages. As I get my RSS feet wet, I see that I do need to create some folders so that I can look at topics in an organized way, but that is really easy. I am trying to train myself to read my feeds each day after I check my e-mail. I think this skimming and scanning task is a valuable concept to teach students as well, what with everyone looking for ways to improve PSSA scores these days in our neck of the woods.
What I also like about RSS is the ability to use it as a classroom management tool with regard to student weblogs. I plan to have students create blogs in my French 4 class this year when we read our novel (Le Comte de Monte Christo - Ugh! Hoping to be able to change that reading selection within the curriculum soon). I can collect the students' weblogs in my aggregator using their RSS feeds and can scan through the entire class content in one place rather than traveling to their individual sites. I also love the automatic date-stamping of their posts within their blogs - assignments are either completed on time or they're not!
Regarding student safety, I do believe it will be wise to get free membership to Technorati.com for indexing weblog content with their "Watchlists." Inappropriate content can be stumbled upon too easily.
I am also including a few links to some great feeds that I will use for my classes, including French newspapers, French Word-A-Day, and learning French by Podcast.
Week 4 Audio Podcast Assignment
I had a great sample podcast that 2 of my French students created when I was asked to demonstrate podcasting during a "Flip the Switch" event for our Classrooms for the Future launch, and I recently learned how to post an audio podcast to my blog. I used Box.net to host my audio file, since blogger doesn't seem to be able to do this for me. It was pretty easy to then enable this link within blogger.
This podcast is the recitation of the American "Pledge of Allegiance" translated into French. French students were required to memorize and recite via podcast in the 2008-2009 school year. Many thanks to "Brigitte-Georgette" and "Alice" for their great work!
This podcast is the recitation of the American "Pledge of Allegiance" translated into French. French students were required to memorize and recite via podcast in the 2008-2009 school year. Many thanks to "Brigitte-Georgette" and "Alice" for their great work!
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Information Overload!
Web 2.0, Wikis, blogs, podcasts, RSS . . . YIKES! While completely fascinated, I am definitely techno-stressed. The best remedy, I have been finding, is to simply play around with each new tool so that I feel comfortable. Truly, it is my desire to teach with tools that my students will enjoy using, so I need to go through this suffering part first in order to reach that goal!
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