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Online International Collaboration

Posted on April 2nd, 2010 Langwitch View Comments

The second CPD session that I ran for Links into Languages was about Online International Collaboration. Here is the presentation I gave for that session…

International Collaboration

View more presentations from Helena Butterfield.

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There’s a world outside my classroom…blogs and wikis in MFL

Posted on March 26th, 2010 Langwitch View Comments

When I was asked to run a workshop as a Links into Languages trainer it was the beginning of December and one song kept being played on the radio. I wonder if you can guess what it was by the title of this post?
Anyway, putting that to one side, March 18th came round rather more quickly than I had intended and all of a sudden I had my first ever workshop to run after school. Me being me, I didn’t advertise the event particularly well but nevertheless I had 5 willing participants all keen to learn about using and creating blogs and wikis.
The presentation is below with many links to useful MFL blogs and wikis. In addition I will add the links below the presentation later in the week but felt it important to get the presentation on here like I promised. I apololgise if I have missed out your blog or wiki, please tell me if I have any glaring omissions or you would like to have your blog or wiki linked to in this post as well.

Theres A World Outside My Classroom

View more presentations from Helena Butterfield.

Post script

Here’s a fantastic blog that’s been brought to my attention by Steve Smith. It’s the blog that he uses with his pupils and really shows how a teacher-pupil should work. It’s great! Blogalpha RGS You can of course also visit Steve’s blog French Teacher which I’ve now added to my blogroll and his fab website Frenchteacher.net from the French teachers at Ripon Grammar School.

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Training at Carmel

Posted on January 22nd, 2009 admin View Comments

I was lucky enough to be invited to Carmel RC Technology College on Tuesday to speak to the MFL department about blogging and using Audcity. It was really nice to be asked by our PGCE student from last year who is have a very successful NQT year there now.

I always get very nervous before going to speak anywhere so it was really calming to be greeted by such a friendly team of teachers.

I spoke briefly about blogging and how it can be used with pupils to improve motivation, to show off their work, to communicate with them outside of school and even for that new “buzz” phrase of AfL. They all responded really positively and were keen to find out more.

We looked at several blogs that are used by MFL teachers with their classes such as:

Langwitch

Edgehill Spanish

Sans Problèmes

Moving on we then looked at some blogs written by Modern Linguists that give an insight into using technology in our teaching and generally give us motivation to be adventurous and creative with our classes. In particular we looked at:

this blog

Integrating ICT into the MFL Classroom (of course)

My Languages

Box of Tricks

Vámanos

Languages and Learning

I also pointed out to them that there are several other excellent blogs out there that they can read and get great ideas from.

We discussed how to set up a blog, including blogging platforms, what the purpose of a blog could be and how simple and straight forward it can be to set up a blog and create the contect. I pointed out that if I can do it, then anyone can!

We also spent a little time looking at how to create posts and how to embed a You Tube video into your blog…all this in 1hr!

Next we moved to their computers and learnt how to use Audacity and create Vokis and talked about how Vokis could be used to do speaking assessments and, following José Picardo’s

example how they could be used in AfL, with pupils assessing one anothers’ work via the comments in a blog.

By the end of the session, it was obvious that there was the usual “information over load” but also that many members of the department were keen to go away and consider how they could used a blog with their pupils and also how they can move into creating soundfiles with pupils and makeing Voki with them.

It was definitely time well spent and I felt that the session was a great success.

Here is the slideshow that I used:

A Beginners’ Guide To Using Ict Creatively
View more presentations or upload your own. (tags: cpd mfl)

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The Isle of Wight Conference

Posted on October 27th, 2008 admin View Comments
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.
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A very busy week

Posted on October 27th, 2008 admin View Comments

I think the the next few days will be full of blog posts from me, as I seem to have done so much in a very short space of time. I’ve done so much, met so many people and had such a great time that I really don’t know where to begin. I think maybe, I’ll just go for it and apologise in advance for poor spelling and typing (no surprises there, then) and some rather mixed up time-lines. In no particular order I’m intending to blog about:
- my all new Ning that I set up last Wednesday and changed the name of yesterday
- the Isle of Wight Conference (of course)…hopefully individual posts about various aspects and how much I learnt etc..
- a chance encounter with a trainee life coach (aahhh…bet no-one expected that one – least of all me!)
- going to train MFL PGCE students at Durham University last week and the hazards that brought with it.
So, I’m now going to go and get busy…I even have emails to answer, somewhere!

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Final training (ha, ha)

Posted on June 20th, 2008 admin View Comments

Well tomorrow is my Race for Life at Ormsby Hall in Middlesbrough. I must get that final bit of training in this evening so that I’m in tip-top condition for the big race!
I am cross with myself that I will be walking this year – all due to laziness and not keeping up my training schedule (unless you call almost running round Köln last week training!). Never mind, it’s doing it that counts and my sponsorship must be at least upto £50! (I can be sponsored online by following the link in the sidebar!)
I just hope it doesn’t rain…

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