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!

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Of Mice and Moodle

Test for Laura Jacob's Class.