This was the final session that I attended at the Isle of Wight Conference and unfortnately I actually had to leave a little early so missed some of it. Nevertheless I gained a real insight into what I should be doing when I go to teach my Primary Spanish lessons every fortnight.
This, inspiring session, was lead by Jo Rys-Jones and Lisa Stevens, both Primary MFL teachers.
They used as their basis how to teach the book “Dear Zoo” (those with small children will probably be familiar with this pop up book about a small child who writes to the zoo for them to send a pet and they send various unsuitable animals until the perfect one arrives).
To me it was a revelation, I’d never have thought about doing that and also, they didn’t even look at the book with pupils until well down the path of teaching animals, phonemes and having lots of cross-curricular links. The whole session made me re-evaluate what I am doing in my Primary school and also I felt sad that I am going to teach languages in Primary schools without knowing what being a Primary School teacher involves and therefore doesn’t it mean that I’m “selling my Primary pupils short” by going in and teaching like Secondary school teachers? I feel it’s a real shame that some Primary School pupils are being taught Languages by properly trained Primary teachers like Jo and Lisa while others are being taught by “any old” Secondary teacher (like me). It somehow doesn’t seem fair.
Anyway now, maybe at least my Primary pupils might have a flavour of what their language teaching should really be like…it’s also led me to attempt a brave move with my Yr 9 top set and use a topic on teaching household chores to work on the story of Cinderella..
You can find the slideshow and other resources on the Talkabout Primary MFL Ning here

When I saw that Drew Buddie, ICT Co-ordinator at the Royal Masonic School for Girls, was to give a workshop on how to use a VLE (particularly Moodle) I had to add it to my list of sessions to go to at the IoW Conference. This year we are due to get a Moodle VLE and, although I’ve added a podcast to a VLE at my husband’s school when I ran a podcasting session there last year and have been added as a creator of courses on the VLE of one of our partner schools, I actually had no idea of what really do with one. Therefore, it was with great excitement that I headed of to this, the penultimate workshop of my Isle of Wight Conference.
We learnt about setting up a VLE and getting pupils to visit and use it. It seems that the key is to make it seem that it’s not an extension of school and that the look should and be fun ((while at the same time getting pupils to do work on it that really helps them improve). It was really interesting to see a VLE like this one, as the other VLEs I’ve seen in action have all been very much fitting to the image of the school it belongs to. I suppose that it all depends on the requirements of each school…I know that my husband was asked to make their VLE specifically in keeping with the school colours and crest etc…
For me, the main part of this session was fantastic, as Drew showed us how to add content to a specific part of his school’s VLE. We were all designated as creators for a week and he talked us through how to create a course and then how to add files and links to that course and also how to create a quiz. It amazed me how versatile this Moodle VLE, which is FREE, can be. I hadn’t realised that one could have courses or activities that were available for a certain amount of time…ensuring that pupils hand their work in on time. In addition you can track who works on which activities (brilliant for parents at parents’ evening to show how much or how little work their child is doing). I also hadn’t realised that pupils only see the courses for which they are registered when they log onto a VLE (I know, common sense really). I was really interested to see also that there is a Hot Potatoes module available to add to the Moodle VLE, as that is something else that we are developing our use of. One of the other useful features of Moodle that Drew showed us was the chat module. This can also only be opened for specific times, for example, he gave us the example that he used this the night before an A Level exam so that pupils could ask any last minute questions. All of the chat is recorded which meant that pupils who couldn’t take part in the chat could still access it later on to see what had been discussed.

In the name of fairness, I should point out that there are several other VLEs available but this particular session focused on Moodle and was of particular interest to me because we are to use this type of VLE, ourselves.

My final session of the day was a “hands on” workshop with Mark Pentleton of Radio Lingua fame learning how to do some stop motion animation. I have been longing to learn how to do this since watching Stuart Gorse’s Gorseville animations that he creates so excellently with his pupils. Here was my opportunity to gain some small insight into how I might use animation with some of my classes.
The workshop was fascinating, if not only because I got to work with the talented José Picardo and Sam Downe (who both seemed to know a great deal more about this kind of thing than I did). We used a programme that can be downloaded free of charge from the internet called Stop Motion Animator from Clay Animator. It was really simple to use. We just made out characters and grabbed the shots. Apparently 12 shots per second(?). Our film had to last 30 seconds, so lots of shots needed (although I think we cheated a bit!).
As Halloween was approaching, we decided to create a film with a ghostly theme: “El fantasmo, el blobbo y la palmera”. It was a spooky number that included a ghost who was lost and blob who knew the way and a palm tree. To create our characters we used plasticine (it’s more rigid, apparently!!!). We took the shots and then moved them into Windows Moviemaker to add sound and loops (look at me being all technical!). Since we only had 10 seconds of film we decided to add some spooky music and lengthy credits. I have to admit that the music bit was a bit lost on me as is involved transfering everything to José’s MacBook doing some magic, hocus, pocussy things and then transfering it back!!!! Anyway it looked and sounded great at the end!
How do I plan to use animation with my pupils?
I think that this kind of thing (for me, anyway) is best done as an enrichment activity in a club or as a day’s activity. I can see how I could maybe do this with G&T linguists for a day long project..planning the script, making the storyboard, creating the characters, learning how to use the software and then finally getting to grips with creating their animation. I think, that after lots of practise I might be able to think about doing this kind of thing in a class setting but again, it’s all about starting small and gaining confindence.

Steve Whittle is Assistant Head at the Hayes School in Kent. He is fortunate enough to have a dedicated language lab at his school which he and his team have worked very hard on to make a place where pupils not only practise their languages but where they learn languages too, using all 4 skill areas. The MFL department have put in years of hard work to create an enviable bank of resources to use within the language lab and now, also within the schools’ VLE. While they use their digital resources in their dedicated language lab, it was easy to see how many of the activities could be done without the specialist sortware and equipment that they had, it would just need setting up in a slightly different way.
The most interesting thing for me was the fact that their language lab is provided by Sanako / Tandberg. We actually have that system in our “dedicated” language lab! Now this made the whole workshop a revelation to me…I’ve worked here for 6 years now, nearly and don’t think it’s ever been used properly!!! It meant that I was able to speak to a man who works for Sanako and discuss with him getting our stuff working properly again. It must be said that I don’t think it’s anyone’s fault that this amazing (and expensive) equipment has gone (realtively) unused at our school, I think it has more to do with high turn-over of staff (up until about 4 years ago) which meant the people who knew how to work it moved on and also a bit of the “fear factor” from some colleagues. This workshop has, however given me the momentum to get this room working properly again and really help our pupils fulfull their true potential.
I really got a lot out of this workshop and I think that this session, in particular will be one that can transform the whole MFL department’s use of ICT across the board!

My second session of the day was about using Flashmeeting with John Warwick (one of the eTwinning Ambassadors), Deputy Head teacher of a Special Needs school in Hertfordshire. He showed us how Flashmeeting, a free video-conferencing tool could be used with our classes both abroad and in our local neighbourhood.
Flashmeeting is an extremely useful tool because, not only is it free, it is also a secure form of working online with other schools, so therefore it is safe. All your partner school needs is an internet connection and you’re away, basically! They don’t even need a webcam (unless the really want to see you)…it can all be done using microphones or the “chat” facility, where you type what you want to say. Unfortunately the technology let us down and we were unable to have a Flashmeeting at that time, however, I was “fortunate” enough to be able to take part in another Flashmeeting later in the weekend but felt so self-conscious about others being able to see me, was over come with hysterical laughter (although, I don’t think I was the only one!). You always have to be prepared for technology to let you down when trying new things and not let it get in the way of making further developments at a later date.
There were many excellent ideas for how Flashmeeting could be used, such as to teach a traditional song to pupils in another country, maybe discuss cultural differences, teach a short session on a particular theme…the key really seemed to be “be prepared” and don’t just plan to do a Flashmeeting and stand / sit at different schools staring at one another. Other ideas included having a “hot seat” where individual pupils would take this position and do their “bit” then moving on to the next person, this gets rid of the need to keep moving the webcam.
We are planning to do some online collaboration with primary schools, initally in a couple of weeks time when our Spanish exchange come to visit and then working on transition with Yr 6 pupils from feeder Primary schools chatting with Yr 7 pupils who went to their school, discussion worries that they might have have about coming up to Secondary School. However, we won’t be using Flashmeeting (not because we wouldn’t be happy with it), because we are fortunate enough to be able to use Elluminate, another online collaboration tool that includes video-conferencing. This, unfortunately is not free but does still only require an internet connection. Luckily, our local CLC has “bought” 100 seats within Elluminate so we are able to use that at the moment.
However, for a tool that is free and that can bring schools closer together, Flashmeeting really is excellent. If your school is considering moving into video-conferencing on any level, I would thoroughly recommend it. As with anything to do with technology thought, it’s important to be well-prepared (maybe practise with another member of staff to begin with), don’t be put off it the technology lets you down (try, try and try again) and start small then get bigger.

My first workshop at the IOW Conference was “Thinking outside the classroom box” run by Chris Fuller. I must admit that I kind of gate-crashed this session, as I arrived much earlier than I expected having got on the Red Jet fast ferry rather than the slower car ferry. I got talking to someone who was going to his session and decided to tag along, not expecting to learn much new, as I blog myself. However, I went along to meet the man who left an amusing comment on here once and was certainly proved wrong about not expecting to learn anything new!
Chris runs the Edgehill College Spanish Blog and it’s fab. He gave some great examples of how he has used the blog with pupils. I have already used my other blog with my pupils but nowhere near on the scale that Chris uses his. In particular, I loved the idea of getting the kids to write descriptions of themselves (without adding names), paste them into the blog and get the class to guess who was being described, adding their guesses via the comments…watch out for that idea being used when I get onto that topic with my Year 7s later this term! He also spoke about how he promoted the blog around school and made me think about how I could market mine a bit better around my school. I know that some pupils do visit and comment frequently but I’d like more to visit and get as many pupils as possible visiting and being enriched (can you say that?). So, although I sometimes struggle to talk myself up, I will be launching a huge advertising campaign around the school after half-term.
Chris also spoke about Podcasting and Moblogging using Gabcast and ShowZu both of which I’m hoping to try out with my pupils in the near future.
Next, he spoke about using mobile phones in language learning. I am really keen to get my pupils using their mobiles but have put of having the discussion with my Headteacher as I knew what the answer would be! It didn’t help that a colleague, who saw Chris speak earlier in the year (I believe) went straight in to talk about pupils using them as soon as he got back to school and was (naturally) turned down. However, I’m considering the financial angle and thinking of going for the “look how much money we could save as a school if pupils used their phones instead of video recorders, voice recorders etc…”. Money often talks louder than anthing else.
So, my first session of the conference was fascinating and I can thoroughly recommend going to hear Chris speak if you get the opportunity. He’s really easy to listen too and has great examples of how he’s using the technology he’s talking about with his pupils…something that’s worth it’s weight in gold, in my opinion. Thank you, Chris!!!

I think that I’ll start with the main event then. Like many other people from around the country, I spent the weekend with a group of lovely people at Joe Dale’s wonderful Isle of Wight Conference.
I had wanted to attend this event last year and was unable to, so this year I was determined to get there. For me it wasn’t just the opportunity for some great CPD, it was also the chance to meet lots of people who I felt I already knew quite well, despite never having met them in person until Saturday morning.
The weekend certainly lived up to expectations. I learnt absolutely loads and was also reminded of lots of things that I knew about already but had forgotten. The weekend was organised superbly and I only wish I could have arrived on Friday evening, rather than on Saturday morning and got to know people a little sooner.
I attended sessions by:

• Chris Fuller on Blogging, Podcasting and Moblogging
• Steve Whittle on using Digital Resources within a Language Lab and a VLE
• John Warwick on Flashmeetings
• Mark Pentleton on Animation
• The Show and Tell where I preferred to be “told” rather and doing any “showing” myself
• Lesley Welsh on Finding as many “freebies” in the hall as possible – I got a cool USB bracelet and feely very proud!
• Drew Buddie on using Moodle VLEs
• Jo Rys-Jones and Lisa Stevens on Fun and Progression in Primary Languages

I was also involved in a very bizarre Flashmeeting even at lunchtime on Sunday with severalvpeople from around the world…but I think the less said about that the better
So, as you can see, I kept myself very busy and, unfortunately didn’t get to see much of the Isle of Wight…specially not of the “lovely clear blue water” that my Grandma keeps going on about every time I mention it.
I intend to blog about most of the sessions that I went to in separate posts through out the week, so that people can find the bits that they might not have gone to more easily.