Reading 9: Comments

Powerpointless: I love this saying. I have had to sit through so many awful powerpoints throughout university and at conferences, but I have also seen some great presentations. I think that powerpoint is a good tool for students to use in class but they do need to be given a set of rules, or examples of what to do an what not to do in their presentation. I thought the author gave a good overview of what most people already know about presentations, and he made some good points about how to help students to create effective powerpoints. In class there is often a time when you want students to present their ideas to the class, and in a language class presentations can be a part of oral practice. It is important that you give students options on how they can present their projects, some students might feel more comfortable using a poster board, others might want to use powerpoint, or prezi or other online tools for presenting information. I like the idea of showing students new ways to present their projects and allowing them the opportunity to test out presentation tools. It is also important that the focus of the presentation be on the actual learned material and not the presentation tools exclusively. It may be important to have a class on how to best use the presentation tools before giving the students the time to create their own presentations.

Day 9: Group Work

I love google docs. I don't think I would have managed to get through all of the group work that we needed to do in the teaching program without google docs. I know that group work in school is often difficult with students who have different schedules, maybe sports after school etc and who have difficulty getting together with their groups. Using google docs allows students to do work more easily with each other without having to get together in real life to exchange ideas. 

I've also used google slideshow many times for projects where we need to present something. Having google slideshow means that the roles can be distributed more evenly, you don't need to have one person creating the powerpoint, everyone can contribute to the slideshow their own material. This allows for everyone to do a part of the actual learning. 

I've never used google forms but I can see it being a really great tool to communicate with students and parents. It might be great to use for teacher-teacher relationships and for Pro-D communication. 

Google Docs




Google Slideshow




Google Form

Reading 8: Comments

This authors Blog post was very interesting if maybe a little scattered. I know from my own experience as a student and also from my practicum that there is real value to doing group work but a lot of the time they are more trouble than doing something on your own. I love the idea of using technology to make group work better. Using things like wikipages etc to create a forum where students can communicate with their group members at their own times and in their own space. I thought it was interesting that the author talked about using hyperlink, I can remember using hyperlink when I was in elementary school. I don't really see the application of hyperlink to group work but I think it's interesting that the author has been thinking about how to use technology in the classroom for so long. He must have some great ideas. I would like to read more of his blog posts and try to integrate some of his ideas on group work into projects I create in the future.

Day 8: Curating Content

I created a scoop it account with the Topic of French as a Second Language. I selected a couple of pages from the web that I liked. I know that it would take more time to create a really interesting scoop it page and I hope that I will get some suggestions from the scoop it site for my topic. I can see creating a scoop it with good resources for the classroom for students or for other teachers. I think if used properly delicious can be a great way to share resources among teachers. I haven't really researched the livebinder site but if you can upload word documents to the livebinder as well as webpages it think it would be a great site to create an online resource for teachers to share their content.

Reading 7: Comments

Innovations in Education

The reading for today comes out of left field for me, I didn't really know that curating content was a thing. However as I understand it it is the process of collecting materials from online sources and thinking about them critically, having a purpose in mind and creating a forum for them to be viewed by others. I wonder at the purpose of curating content or why you might want to ask students to curate content. I guess having students learn how to get content, and understand it is valuable but I don't really get curating. Maybe it will be explained in detail and with context in class and I will see the value of "curating content" but as it stands it is somewhat a foreign concept to me with no real life application.

Day 7: Podcasting

Here is episode 1 of Ensemble!! I love the idea of creating podcasts, once you get the hang of using garage band it it amazingly easy to make podcasts that sound kind of professional. I think students would love a project like this. Also if I had the time and motivation it would be fantastic to create your own mini lessons to go along with your in class material, kind of like the idea of flipping the classroom. I love being able to embed the file in the blog, I am very much in love with technology!! I can see the practical application of podcasting in the classroom. I will be looking at other language podcasts to see if there is anything that might be good to follow and listen to in the french classroom.<br />

listen to ‘Ensemble Episode 1’ on Audioboo

Reading 6: Comments

I love when teachers use new technology to create excitement in their classroom while teaching skills that have been important for decades. Oral communication is not new to the classroom, teachers have been asking students to give oral presentations in front of the class for a long time, but giving it a twist by asking students to create podcasts might bring a new sense of excitement. I really like the author's point about creating an authentic purpose for learning- creating your own content rather than just consuming it. Giving the students the goal of creating this podcast that potentially people from around the world could listen to.

I was thinking of some applications of podcasting and Concour d'art oratoire came to mind right away. As most french immersion and francophone students will remember presenting concour d'art oratoire was a yearly struggle. Having the students create a podcast of their concour would allow them to listen to themselves, share their concour and maybe alleviate some of the fear of presenting in front of the class (I would still want students to practice speaking in front of the class but they would have the podcast that they created that was perfect and edited to feel confident about) I would also love to listen to some of the concours that I have heard in the past but which have been lost to memory.

Another great thing about podcasting is that it is giving students a skill: story telling. A real life applicable skill that might follow students their whole lives, maybe students will have an interest in broadcasting, in entertainment, politics etc because of their experience creating podcasts. Being confident in oral presentations is a fantastic skill to pick up as a young student. I also really love that it is a project that parents can really engage with, they can listen to their child's podcast and feel like they are engaged in their child's learning. Anytime you can get parents more involved in their child's learning it is a great thing.