Tuesday 24 February 2009

PGCE Presentation

Today I had the privilege of doing a presentation about blogging and social networking, with some extras such as the MFL Resources forum and diigo, to a group of MFL PGCE students. It doesn't seem like all that long ago that I was in the very same room and about to go out on my second placement, although it also seems like a lifetime ago, when I stop and think about all that I have experienced since then. Not only in terms of the wonderful schools that I have taught in, but also re how much my teaching has evolved over the years. I look back and wonder at all that I do now compared to what I did then. And yet at the time, you were still forward-thinking and innovative.
In particular, my teaching and the pupils' learning has moved on rapidly in this academic year. Yes, there is still room for 'chalk and talk' and getting back to basics, but it is the combination of that with the web 2.0 tools that I adore that makes it such a pleasure to be a teacher.

Tuesday 10 February 2009

PODCASTING AT DIFFERENT LEVELS

We had a staff training day today, and I came away with two definite visions of how we are going to take podcasting forward in our department.
Firstly we are going to use podcasting with Form 2 (aged 12-13) to create role plays with a partner 'En el café'. With the new reporting coming in at Key Stage 3, pupils be assessed on Communication, Maths and ICT spread over a variety of subjects. Spanish is being used to assess Form 2 (Year 9 in Northern Ireland) in ICT. To that end, we are keen to introduce a variety of Common Assessment Tasks (CATs)over the course of Second Year Spanish, including Goanimate and podcasting.
Secondly, a meeting today with outside agents sees us signed up to an initiative in MFL and ICT, whereby we do tasks with pupils, reflecting on each stage, and evaluate at the end. Again, podcasting is the area I have chosen to focus on. I had already set my Lower 6 the task of creating revision podcasts, each taking a different grammatical point. They can also work in pairs, but must then cover two topics. I now intend to get them to also create podcasts for KS3 and KS4, in terms of vocabulary, grammar and study skills.
Let's see how we get on..

Tuesday 3 February 2009

Animoto

First play!