Wikispaces in the FL Classroom -- Part 1

I would have to say that Wikispaces has proven to be the most valuable Web 2.0 tool I use with my students.  I absolutely love its versatility.  Therefore, this post will be Part 1 in a series of posts about this tool.  I will apologize in advance for the seemingly random order of the posts.  I have a colleague coming to observe my use of social media, and this is the first thing I will be showing her, so please bear with me -- I will eventually cover other uses for Wikispaces (there are so many!)

One of the functions Wikispaces offers is a discussion feature.  I have set up a "Wiki Home Page" for each course that I teach.  When I need quick feedback from my students, I can have them post a response to a topic or question that I create on the Discussion tab.

For example, at the start of class I post the question "Qu'est-ce qu'elle prépare? (What is she preparing)?" as a new discussion thread.  I show a quick video clip, and students must post a response to the question based on what they see in the video.  

Students are logged in to their own Wikispaces accounts, so they are easily identified.  It literally takes me about two minutes to scroll through one class worth of responses, and *POOF*, informal assessment in a cultural context.

Feedback comes in the form of my response to the thread -- I restate the correct answer, and in some cases publicly acknowledge a different correct answer I hadn't thought of in advance (I love when my students teach me!)

The Wikispaces Discussion feature beats pen & paper ALL DAY LONG!

What do you think?

Goalbook

Goalbook is one of my new favorite sites -- not least of all because their customer service is OUTSTANDING!!  If you are a reader of my Changing My Realm of Control blog, then you may have already read my parallel post there (more theory, less techie).  You probably also know that I have gone from dabbling to diving headfirst into personalizing instruction for my eighth grade French students (and I'm having the time of my life!)

Here's how my journey began.  Faced with the highest percentage of students with special needs I have ever taught, I simply could not bring myself to "teach the curriculum" knowing that some, perhaps many, would be left in the dust while I moved forward with the students who learn at the prescribed pace.  I just couldn't do it again.  So without even consciously deciding to do it, although I had certainly mulled over different scenarios and strategies, I found my classes separating themselves into flexible groupings based on topics students were working on at the moment.  Believe it or not, it just sort of happened.  The kids responded VERY positively, and it was far more manageable (if you like chaos) than I had imagined it could be.

So the question became, as each class divided into more and more groups based on student pacing, how do I make sure each student knows what they are "supposed to be" doing during a given class period?  My initial solution was Evernote.  I created a note for each day of the week. Each day I would grade the assessments that came in (not too overwhelming at first, since there was never a full class set of assessments to grade at any one time, due to self-pacing, and assessments were very short, due to beginning language limitations), and then assign each student to review, progress, or assess in a list in that day's note.

Don't get me wrong, I love Evernote, and will dedicate a future post to it's glory, but I knew from the beginning that my system was flawed, and that students needed to take more of a role in planning for themselves.  I just didn't know where to begin.

I first encountered Goalbook via a blog called Beta Classroom.  I backburnered it, because I just had too many other pots on the stove.  I revisited it this week, and the magical CLICK happened.  Part of my hesitation was the thought of  adding yet another piece of daily-use tech to the kids plates (some of them are really resistant to new accounts, and have extreme difficulty remembering passwords), but the more I researched and let the idea percolate, the more sure I became that this was an essential piece that would reap benefits far outweighing the whines.

When I began setting up the account...Tuesday evening, a chatbox popped up and a tech support person offered their unsolicited help.  When I regained consciousness and came out of shock I thanked him...in French.  He responded....in French!  Although I correctly guessed Google Translator was involved (students, if you're reading this, yes, you will get caught!!) the effort was appreciated almost as much as his sense of humor when I called him on it.  How refreshing!

My initial thought was to have all of the students use my login information so they didn't have to remember new information of their own.  But within a couple of hours of students creating their initial goals yesterday (I kid you not) the happy chatbox reappeared offering to solve all my problems -- and the offer was sincere, because they adjusted my account to allow for students to create subaccounts under my domain before the end of the day yesterday. (Shortly after 4PM for the sake of accuracy).  Unbelievable!! 


Yes, we are still working through some very minor glitches (Suzy is unhappy with her green alien avatar and can't seem to change it to a purple sparkly unicorn) but when I say WE are working through it, I really feel that is true, and if that's not a 21st Century skill we are teaching -- to be able to give your customers that feeling -- then it should be.

Read my parallel post if you want to know more about how I feel about setting goals with students, but if you're ready to jump in and give it a try, Goalbook is a great place to start.

What do you think?

Music and Learning in the FL Classroom -- Part 1: Audacity

Disclaimer 1:  I am a Mac girl from way back.  My true preference of tool for this purpose is GarageBand, but my district moved from the Mac platform a number of years ago, so I adapt....until I get home.  Also, Audacity is free, therefore that is what I will blog about.

Disclaimer 2:  Audacity breaks the second of my rules about tools I blog about -- it requires a download.  I am making this exception because I rarely use Audacity with students, but more as a tool for myself to prepare lesson materials for them.

***UPDATE**


3/1/12 -- I just found a way to run a web-based version Audacity.  Sadly it is only available for Windows machines, but one step at a time!!



With that out of the way, I don't remember the first time I used music with my students, but it was about three years ago that I really kicked it into high gear and began researching, collecting (special thanks to Deb Blaz), writing, and enlisting students to write songs to help my students learn vocabulary and grammar concepts.  The majority of the songs I use are under a minute long, some under thirty seconds.  The tunes are familiar -- almost all children's songs -- so the melody and rhythm do not have to be taught.  Many of the songs are just plain corny.  My students frequently tell me they get "stuck in their heads", to which I respond with a victory dance.  The songs are rarely forgotten.  When students ask questions during the writing process, I break into song, rather than offering a dry grammar explanation.  Does it work for all students?  Of course not, but what does?  It gets to the point where if I introduce an irregular verb, they ask for a song, and get all over my case if I don't happen to have one.

So....from pedagogy to technology.  I found most of the background music I use by doing Google searches for midi files of children's songs.  I import these into Audacity, and then record the vocal track with a headset mic.  Audacity allows you to export the completed product in a variety of formats, although I usually use mp3 files.  I make the songs and lyrics available to students via our school website, and (believe it or not) some students have been known to put the songs on their ipods.

As an example, I'm posting my favorite original -- The Passé Composé Song (obviously I didn't spend any time coming up with the song titles).

What do you think?

Overstream

Ok, so I had planned to do the next challenge -- Edmodo.  I even have the beginnings of a post saved to drafts.  The bottom line for me is that much of Edmodo is redundant, because my district has adopted schooltool to move most student data online.

That said, in my twavels this weekend, I discovered overstream.com.  It's a free online tool that allows you to create subtitles for existing youtube videos.

I started googling for something to accomplish this, after seeing this video by EF:



(the video was posted on #langchat, but I can't remember who originally posted it, because I tabbed it while doing something else, not having any idea it would become a blog post!)

My thought after watching it, was that there were some really great scenes, just enough vocab interspersed in the EF titles, and no dialogue, so students could write their own.  I tried it out myself (very quickly) and came up with this:



I found it to be quite user friendly.  This activity could easily be adapted to multiple levels by changing the number of titles required and/or specifying structures you want the students to be practicing.  What do you think?

Bitstrips in the FL Classroom

So it's May 19, and I'm still on Free Tools Challenge #3 lol.  When I saw this challenge, I knew I'd fall behind, because I needed to find the right objective, and that's not always easy at this time of year.  In fact, I'm still thinking maybe I didn't choose the right one, but I did get to try a new tool, and my kids are having a blast.
So I'm using it (present tense because we're finishing up in the lab tomorrow) with a level 1 French class to get them writing about leisure activities.  Their task is to create a 10 frame comic strip about a weekend (theirs, or the character(s) they create) and the activities taking place.
The tool was a fantastic success. The students are taking to it like ducks to water, needing very little guidance, although none of them had been on the site prior to this morning.  They were easily able to create characters, find premade characters that interested them, change scenes from frame to frame, add props, control the positions of characters, etc.  Adding text with thought bubbles is very easy, although the drawback as a foreign language teacher, is that students need to know keyboard shortcuts for diacritical marks, or they cannot put them in the text.
The drawback for me, is that students for the most part seem to be spending more time creating their "artwork" than using the language.  This is not altogether surprising, and I'm pretty sure I won't use this tool again for this particular assignment, but I will definitely keep it in my arsenal for future use, perhaps in a level 2 or 3 class.
What do you all think?

Addendum to this post:  here are a couple of student work samples: