Thought for today!

Thanks to Lidija from Croatia, here are some brief highlights of the ‘TeachMeet styley thingy’ at #etwpdw, showing some of the people about whom I blogged earlier this week.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41T8Df33OnY

Thanks to eagle eyed @joedale for spotting it!

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.

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)

I came across this wonderful website today, linked from Teaching Ideas site.

Chillola.com is a multilingual site, offering simple resources in English, French, Spanish, German and Italian.

There are attractive vocabulary presentations accompanied by audio on subjects like colours, numbers, months, fruit and vegetables and body parts.  There are also very simple printable activities and colourables.

It’s a great resource for introducing vocabulary and for individual access, as well for raising awareness of other languages that are not necessarily taught at your school.

My favourites are the hamster teaching prepositions and the lovely illustrations for the opposites.

The site also offers links to several other websites about which I’ve never previously heard.  I feel more posts may be forthcoming…

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.

As well as teaching Spanish at Whitehouse Common Primary, I am also often asked to speak at conferences about Primary Languages and how I teach using ICT.

I really enjoy speaking (as those who have met me already know!) and see it as a way of sharing my passion and enthusiasm with others.  Just as I use my blog as a way to share with others, when I’m presenting I’m passing on experiences and ideas that I have gained over time.

Over the next three posts I’ll be sharing details of three conferences at which I am speaking over the next term.  Perhaps one of them will attract your attention.

Image by Cristóbal Cobo Romaní

Fast forward is the (long awaited by many!) article  published today in The TES magazine about ICT in MFL.

Yojana Sharma interviewed lots of fellow MFL Tweeters a few months back, gathering our thoughts on the use and importance of ICT in language learning.  She’s done a good job to condense all our thoughts as she spent on average 45 minutes interviewing us on the ‘phone.

So, if you’re interested in what Helena Butterfield, Clare Seccombe, Chris Harte, Isabelle Jones, Joe Dale, Alex Blagona, Suzi Bewell, Jo Rhys-Jones and José Picardo think about ICT and MFL, as well as the wonderfully named Norbert Pachler from IOE, check out the article.

Oh, and someone described as ‘widely regarded as a trailblazer for ICT use in Primary Languages’ has a word or two to say as well!