Just been reminded that TONIGHT we are having a MFL Flashmeeting, just like the one we had on May 4th! I was sure it was next week as there had been a suggestion of possible activities for Bastille Day due to the proximity to 14th July but it seems that it is today – 8.30pm – 10.30pm.

You can check out details here on the wiki and see who else is joining. There is a waiting list for places, but do not despair as some people may be unable to attend for thw whole time and others may have had to change their plans since signing up.

So why not pop along here at some point during the 2 hours and see what we’re up to!

Heres the agenda!

AGENDA ITEMS

1. If you are a blogger, what is your favourite post and why?
2. Getting into podcasting. Where do you start?
3. Ideas for celebrating The European Day of Languages on 26th September 2009 using Web 2.0 tools or otherwise (How about a massive VoiceThread?)
4. CPD opportunities for next academic year. Would anyone want to organise a one or two day face to face event somewhere in the UK? (@josepicardo – I am not able to make it tonight, off on a staff do, however, I would like to volunteer that we might be able to use my brand new sixth form center at Nottingham High School for a one day f2f probably Easter or October 2010. Discuss if appropriate. José Picardo)
5. Cunning tips: how do you save time in blogging/podcasting/resource creating and so on, to keep work/life balance & prevent divorce/forgetting names of children, etc.?

Having never been to Stoke on Trent previously, I was there twice in three days! This time I’d been invited to speak at a ‘Creative Spanish’ afternoon for Primary Language teachers, organised jointly by Lorna Harvey from Staffordshire and Helen Thomas from Stoke on Trent. I really enjoyed the presentation on using Art by Shirley Kliment-Temple and was sorry to miss the salsa and skipping!

My presentation was a repeat of the one I did at the Primary Language Show in Liverpool about the QCA unit based on SaintSaens Carnival of the Animals, and I have posted the slidecast from that event below so that you can listen and watch the slides! If yu want any of the resources, they are in this post.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.

It was great to be asked by Helen Thomas to talk to some teachers from Stoke about International Dimension and especially eTwinning a couple of weeks, and I’m sorry that it’s taken me this long to upload my presentation.

As promised, here is the presentation (it’s the same presentation but from a previous date – nd you get it with sound!) and the case study from my school below it. If you have any questions, please get in touch with me or with the eTwinning team at the British Council. The West Midlands contact is Isabel Lalsingh who is lovely and very helpful.

As I don my Spain shirt to watch Spain take on the singing might of Bafane Bafane, I thought I’d share with you a clip of the ‘guapísmo’ ‘Nando Torres scoring a hattrick against New Zealand earlier this week.

(thanks to Year4 at Green Park School for sharing this originally!)

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piLVaZ1ilsY&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x402061&color2=0x9461ca]

Can’t believe I haven’t blogged for nearly a fortnight! Blame reports, three presentations and a morning of preliminary meetings / observation with TeachersTV in one week, and a short break in Spain!

There will be more posts soon, but to keep you going, here’s another of the reasons I’ve not being blogging recently. Enjoy!

I picked up the above tweet earlier from Chris Craft, a teacher at CrossRoads Middle School.

Intrigued, I checked it out and found the following.

A few things struck me;

• Kids did this without being asked.
• They genuinely enjoy their lessons.
• They appreciate the use of technology.
• Kids are the best people to be persuading their peers.
• And, as Chris said in his blog post, ‘Kids, they’re too cool!’

You might also want to check out SpanTube, Chris’ channe on which you can find videos made by his classes. they include a series of films featuring Eugene who really should pay more attention in Spanish class as she seems to misunderstand lots of signs around school!

Can I join your class, Sr Craft??

Jayne Jackson, one of the delegates who attended the Next Steps in ICT for the Primary Languages Classroom (And active member of Talkabout Primary MFL) has made the following in response to the course. She tried to embed it as a comment on the blog post but unfortunately the comment feature in Blogger is limited in its use of html code so I’ve posted it here.

Jayne also let me know that she’s started a wiki for her school following on from the course.
It’s always good to know what happens ‘after the event’.

AC_Voki_Embed(300, 400, ‘4affb83a3247802aa8e435b684bab9f8’, 1458056, 1,”, 0);

PS I’m in the middle of making all the Slideshares of my presentations into Slidecasts – it is taking some time but the first session is done!

Altogether now …..

The Premiership season is over – how will I get to sleep at the weekend without Gary and Adrian?

Liverpool may not have won the Premiership, nor the Champions League but they still have the one and only ‘Nando xx

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jNZ2ZhrOXA&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&feature=player_embedded&fs=1]

Looking forward to seeing him in action for Spain soon!

I had the pleasure of delivering the Next steps in ICT for the Primary Language Classroom at University of Cumbria in Lancaster on Tuesday. I had delivered the same in Cambridge last month, and whilst the presentations were identical, the days were quite different with the delegates taking a greater lead this time in guiding where we went. That always keeps you on your toes!

Below are my presentations from the day – you can also find these on the event wiki which was set up for us to ‘play around’.

Thank you to my 6 ‘victims’ as I referred to them on Twitter; to my Tweetmates who responded to my request to say hello; and to CILT for giving me this opportunity to share my enthusiasm for ICT and Primary Languages with others.