Category: ning

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.

Following a request this afternoon at the meeting of the Birmingham Primary Language Coaches for a forum on which they could meet, discuss and share, a new NING has been born!

Birmingham Primary Languages, as the blurb suggests, is a place for those involved in – or soon to be involved in – teaching languages in Primary schools to discuss, share ideas and resources, offer and receive help and advice, and generally keep in contact with what’s going on across the city.

Over the next week or so, I’ll be explaining what’s what on the site but I’ve started off the forum with an easy question to get the ball rolling.

So, if you’re involved in Primary Languages in the Birmingham area, please join and start sharing and asking questions. If you want to make any suggestions, you can leave me a message on my page on the site (click my icon) or a private message by clicking the envelope below my name on my page. or you can always leave me a comment here.

Don’t forget, if you’re involved in Primary Languages anywhere in the country, Talkabout Primary MFL is a must-join-NING! ;o)

This weekend really is turning into ‘catch-up’ time as I blog things that I really should have mentioned over the last few weeks when they were ‘hot off the press’ but didn’t due to time etc etc!

Talkabout Primary MFL, as I’ve told you before, is a Ning network started by Jo Rhys-Jones as ‘an interactive network for those teaching (or considering teaching) foreign languages in Primary school; a place to share your worries/successes with supportive colleagues.’
When I joined in June last year, there were 10 members – now there are 203 and counting! I’m so pleased that word is out that it’s the place to be for ideas, support and discussion. I certainly make sure that I tell everyone about it when I speak – in fact, joining Talkabout is one of my Top Tips!

Well, now Talkabout has gained a Wikispace! A wikispace is like a word processing document to which lots of people can contribute and share. There are so many people contributing great ideas, writing blog posts, sharing resources and experience, offering advice and support, that things could easily be missed. As Jo explains in her post that announces the arrival of the wikispace,

I’m hoping it will help organise the blog posts as this network grows bigger, and although documents can be uploaded directly, just adding a hyperlink saves space. I am also hoping that any members, particularly those who are members of groups, might like to add/edit their own group pages, simply by ‘joining’ the space. You do NOT have to join the wiki to view it – so to see what I’m trying to describe, click the link below. I’ve only just started adding things – so the more people who volunteer to ‘join’ and add things themselves, the jollier! This space is for YOU to use.

So why not pop along and check it out! And contribute! The more the merrier!

Note to self – that includes you!

After a conversation with a few of us in Nottingham at the UK National eTwinning Conference yesterday, and a crash course in NING building from NING queen Jo Rhys Jones, Oscar Stringer has created a NING network called Animation for Education for those wanting to discover more about animation in education.

As Oscar explains in the site’s blurb, he aims for it to be –
A place to share ideas, thoughts and examples of work. With the aim to help you develop confidence in using animation in the classroom.

So, why not do as Isabelle Jones and SpookingDorf did after reading my tweet about it and join? You’ve got nothing to lose and lots to gain :o)

As you know if you read a previous post, I am strangely fascinated by the Eurovision Song Contest. It’s mainly to do with Terry Wogan’s irreverent commentary and the hilarious subtitle bloopers that occur on Ceefax when they instant-translate the hosts speaking rather than the singing which is often dire.

This year, I’ll be away in Spain and will probably let the whole thing pass me by as the two reasons I watch are inaccessible and, more importantly, I’ll have better things to do ;o)

However, I can’t let the occasion pass with out celebration so I was really pleased when Jo Rhys-Jones began a new NING network – The Alternative Eurovision Contest for Schools.
As Jo explains in a post on Talkabout Primary MFL,

‘Have just created a new ning – The Alternative Eurovision Song Contest for Schools – it will incorporate many of the ideas above (Geography, citizenship, ICT, Literacy as well as language links), with set tasks for your class to complete beginning with labelling their chosen country on a Frappr map like the one on this main page and building to our own contest so we can vote on each other’s contributions. I hope it will be in the style of Sharon Tonner’s VOTW with lots of support and help on the ICT side and plenty of flexibility on which tasks you choose to complete and how/when you do them. Then classes should be able to view/listen to each other’s work as the project gradually builds.’

Whitehouse Common have chosen to represent … you’ve guessed it … Spain!
We’ve completed the first task – placing our flag on the Frappr map and are now working on task 2 – a promotional video showing the best of Spain. Plenty of images from which to choose there!

Jo has made a Slideshare full of ideas to help you use the event in your classroom, but why not join the fun on the NING? And it is meant to be fun, I keep reminding myself as I wind up Chris Fuller who has also chosen to represent Spain- may the best entry win… as long as it’s ours ;o)

| View | Upload your own

Following an email exchange initiated by Chris Fuller today about making posts from our blogs appear on Talkabout Primary MFL, Jo Rhys Jones (creator of this NING network) sent Chris and I off to http://www.widgetbox.com/widgit/rssscroller to acquire a widgit that could be put on our personal pages of the network. Thus, anyone popping by to say ‘hello’ will see what we have blogged recently. Worked a treat as you can see here

This got me thinking as one of the attractions of blogging to me (shallow as I am!) is what Leanne Simmonds calls ‘the bling’ – that is, the bits and bobs that make your blog look attractive. As you may have noticed, I have a few bits and bobs in the right hand column. Looking at it, there’s a mixture of things for the reader (like my Box of Goodies and my del.icio.us tabs) and things for me (such as the visitor counter) and the odd thing that serves no purpose but to amuse (like Bart’s blackboard hidden at the bottom.)

Having added my widgit to my page, I decided to have a nose around Widgitbox to see what I could find. I discovered that Jo has made a Talkabout Primary MFL widgit which I have now installed on the right, as has Natalia Garcia at Nodehill Middle School – Joe is not the only clever MFL teacher there obviously! ;o) – for the Spanish Club she runs. In fact, if you go to the Spanish Club blog, there are a wide variety of widgits belonging to the other Nodehill blogs in the left hand column. So, not to outdone, I’ve made one for Vámonos
– in fact, it’s a Blidgit (a blog widgit) and you can subscribe to it, or add it to your blog through the My Blidgit button on the right.

Whilst I was there, I also added Las portadas de hoy which shows the front page of today’s Spanish newspapers and also a site translator – although I’m not a great fan of online translators, Google Translation seems to be quite good – but it’s on trial! I toyed with adding Sticky Spanish as the idea looked good ,bu the preview showed no content so I didn’t!

More exploring seems advisable to keep my ‘bling’ quota sufficiently high, but there’s a small child complaining of hunger so must go.

UPDATE – in fact, I’ve removed the site translator and replaced it with a (far superior?) link to Google Translation!

Visit Talkabout Primary MFL

A few months I became a member of Talkabout Primary MFL – and what a good decision that has proved to be!

Set up by Jo Rhys-Jones ‘This is an interactive network for those teaching (or considering teaching) a foreign language in a Primary school; a place to share your worries/successes with supportive colleagues. Please let us know what works (or doesn’t) for you.’

I have contentedly made myself at home on the site, joining in discussions, discovering new resources, making friends and blogging about a number of things including European Day of Languages, the Rugby World Cup and teaching Primary Languages without a voice (my first ever blog post!!) And I will continue to do so.

I’m starting my own blog because I’ve always wanted to have a blog, and also due to the fact that NING is blocked at school. As one of the intentions of doing this is to support my colleagues as they begin to teach Spanish at WCPS, it’s important that they can gain access to the support when they need it.

However, I would thoroughly recommend joining Talkabout Primary MFL as you will discover a supportive network of people with a mixture of experience in relation to PLL , offering and discussing lots of ideas and resources to support and inspire.

So why not click on the badge in the sidebar and find out for yourself!