Category: lisibo

Today I was part of an ICT and Creativity in MFL day run by Links into Languages West Midlands at Aston University.

Below is my presentation about free tools that can be used to enhance language teaching and learning.

Here is the Slidecast of my second presentation from Brighton.

Apologies for the audio cutting out before the end – no idea what happened there!  Perhaps the iRiver overheated!

Apologies to @wizenedcrone for forgetting her real name – it’s Fiona Joyce!!!

And the German site I mentioned was called GenkiGerman.

Two weeks after the event I’ve finally got around to editing and synching the audio of my presentations from the Linguascope Conference in Brighton.

Here’s the first one – You and Youtube about the use of Youtube and other online video / slideshow sites in the language classroom.

I normally make Slideshares of my presentations and add the audio for Slidecasts.

However, the lovely @eyebeams was UStreaming the MFL Show and Tell from Nottingham today so I’m able to embed the video of my presentation!

Hope you find it useful.  Although my pupils are primary aged and some of the ideas are very ‘primary centric’, I think that there are many things that secondary colleagues can take and adapt to their situations.  teh fun doesn’t have to stop at the end of KS2, you know ;o)

Thanks to @joedale, I picked up the news yesterday that Voki has a new service.  I’ve never made any secret of my passion for these talking avatars and their uses for a variety of purposes, especially in the classroom.

The good news – classroom friendly, ad-free Voki

The bad news – you have to pay ‘ a small license fee’ per year

On balance, I’m not convinced of the benefits of paying $199 (which seems rather a lot to me) when I can use it perfectly adequately now for free.

However, I will await further details!

However, this news was accompanied by the realisation  that there is a ‘featured Voki educator’ section on the Voki home page.  And guess who features a the moment?

Oh yes – it’s me! If you want to see me in action, click here!
Very flattered! And wandering if they need a Voki poster girl…..? ;o)

Second of my upcoming ‘gigs’ is in Enfield, London, at London ATI.

Another of my ‘hats’ is as an Apple Distinguished Educator, and it’s in this capacity that I’m taking part in the Apple Teacher Institute (ATI) at Enfield CLC on June 16th-18th.

As the blurb says –

Over three days you will have many opportunities to explore and discuss with Apple Distinguished Educators how digital media and Apple technologies can be used to engage and motivate students. The aim is to promote teacher confidence and develop capacity in a relaxed and friendly manner for everyone, regardless of experience.

There will be workshops on iMovie, animation, podcasting, iWeb, music in Garageband, iPod Touches in the classroom and also a couple of more advanced workshops on Final Cut and Logic.

A great way to start off using a Mac:  you choose several workshops over the first two days then, on the third day,  work with a group of delegates to complete a project of your own devising, using the skills you have learnt – and quite possibly a few more you discover as you go along!

If you want more details you can download the following PDF giving details of how to register – London ATI

And if London is inconvenient for you, there are other ATIs around the country too – Doncaster, Liverpool and Stockton all host an ATI  in June / July.  If you want to know more, send me a message below or  via the contact form.

First conference in which I am taking part is the Linguascope Conference in Brighton at the end of June.

Entitled Inspiration for Motivation, the two day conference taking place at the Thistle Hotel in Brighton promises to run at a more relaxed pace than the usual frenetic conference with one hour sessions punctuated by  30 minute breaks to allow brains to take in what they’ve heard before being filled with ideas once more.  It also allows time for viewing the exhibition and for networking.

You can find out more by accessing the conference site and downloading the PDF.

My sessions are entitled Using Youtube in the classroom and Tips to motivate in the Primary Language Classroom.

Very much looking forward to this conference, not least for the seaside, the conference dinner (which promises to be spectacular) amd meetiong up with friends

Bricklaying for beginners – Building firm foundations

It seems months ago that I spoke at Language world and I apologise for my tardiness in delivering this post!  Sadly, although i posted my presentation to Slideshare some time ago, i’ve been unable to get at it for a couple of weeks as the site is being rather glitchy.  Added to that the fact that i have used up my free bandwidth on Podomatic and also my new website, there are been ‘issues’ with getting everything together.

Still not worked it all out but until I do, here’s my presentation in PDF form for you.  Audio will follow asap!

BETT seems ages ago – but it’s only a month.

When I checked my counter this morning, it read 29,927. That set me wondering if I could possibly reach 30,000 by midnight to end the year off on a ’round number’!

and then again (after prompting for a URL!) at 2 o’clock by which time I’d had another 30 hits!

I then went out to play in the park with my kids – resulting in ‘más morados en el culo’ – and was alerted by @wizenedcrone to my achievement :

But joking aside, as the year draws to a close, I want to thank you for travelling with me through 2009 which has been quite a year – exciting, scary, inspiring, stressful, successful and unforgettable.