BP16_2009103_ReflectiveAsset2

BP15_20091003_MyCommentstoClassmatesPost

Why wait?

BP14_20091003_Web2.0Tool_PlanetEye

(PlanetEye, 2008)

Planet Eye

Planet Eye is a web tool that allows users to access guides to several destinations around the world that include maps, photos, and reviews of those destinations. The site also features travel packs on certain destinations that offer a view into a certain theme or excursion highlighting geographically, culturally, and historically significant information. With a PlanetEye account, users can plan their own trips based on other user’s reviews and can even write their own reviews and upload photos from their recent travel experiences. There is also a blogging tool within the site and tools for personalization of information that users receive in relation to their travel interests (PlanetEye, 2008).

I think that PlanetEye has the potential to add a sense of exploration and discovery to the classroom by taking what might be a boring research project and bringing it to life. In the French courses that I took when I was a student, each year was the typical project where students would create a brochure about a French speaking country or destination. These projects where never really exciting and they did not produce much learning for me because I never remembered anything about any of the regions that I researched for my final projects. Instead, it meant hours of stressful library research into encyclopedias or boring travel books. PlanetEye takes the idea of a travel brochure project and brings it into the current technological culture and reaches more students through many of the different intelligences.

For use within the classroom, instructors can allow students to conduct research on various destinations while they access comments from real people who have actually visited these sites. The perspectives of the real-life travelers bring a more realistic understanding to these destinations. A project that I might use to integrate PlanetEye into my French courses would include having students use the information that they gather from PlanetEye to create online travel blogs of different locations in French speaking regions of the world. Also, since many of my students are very well traveled, they could write their own reviews of destinations that have visited in the past through PlanetEye.

References

PlanetEye. (2008). Help. Retrieved from http://main.planeteye.com/?page_id=41

BP13_20091003_Web2.0Tool_MeCanto

(MeCanto, 2009)

MeCanto

When transferring files to and from computer hard drives or Mp3 players and burning and ripping CDs becomes too burdensome, MeCanto provides an alternate way for accessing your personal audio files. MeCanto is a web tool through which users can upload all of their music files and access them from any computer through the Internet (MeCanto, 2009). This tool helps to relieve the repetitiveness and hassle of managing other music management tools that load music files directly onto a hard drive such as iTunes or Windows Media Player.

Sometimes there are tools that are helpful to education simply because they make it easier for teachers to be teachers. While I have not yet been able to come up with specific lessons or activities that might include student use of MeCanto, I believe that it has the ability to be very helpful to teachers and their instruction. Because MeCanto eliminates the need for Mp3 or CD players, the reduced need for that extra equipment makes the integration of music and other sound files into the classroom more practical for teachers. If, for example, a teacher would like to share their music collection with students for education purposes, they can do so through the Internet with MeCanto. Also, because MeCanto is a completely legal and can remain an appropriate site, because it is the user that controls the content, it is possible for school administrations to remove any blocks to the site.

For me, MeCanto is a very promising tool because it could help me in my current situation. Since I teach several courses in different content areas, I have to, unfortunately, switch from classroom to classroom to teach each of my courses. Whenever I want to play songs for French class or background vocals for Musical Theater, for example, I must carry my CD player from room to room or remember to bring my personal Mp3 player from home. With MeCanto, I can upload my entire music collection as well as all of the sound files for my courses and access them through the computers that are already in place in each classroom. If nothing else, this could be motivation to integrate more songs into my lesson plans for cultural studies or just a way to bring something new to my students.

References

MeCanto. (2009). Frequently asked questions. Retrieved from http://mecanto.com/faq

BP12_20091003_Web2.0Tool_GoogleDocs

(Google, 2009)

Google Docs

Google Docs is a free web tool from Google that allows users to upload and create documents online. These documents are saved securely and accessible from anywhere through the Internet. Users can also invite and allow others to view and edit these documents live. Editable documents include Powerpoint presentations, Excel sheets, and Word documents. In addition to several other functions, Google Docs allows users to insert images, change fonts, and text colors just like how these one can edits documents in Microsoft Office programs. Also, users can now also translate documents into to other languages and use translation dictionaries available from Google (Google, 2009).

Google Doc gives users the ability for creative collaboration on documents and presentations within a educational setting. Students can work with classmates to produce documents through Google Docs and, while students create and edit their documents, instructors can observe this process. Instructors can receive updates on who is editing and who has edited the documents and when they did so in order to give students grades based on their work.

In the context of the foreign language classroom, Google Docs can be used in several lesson plans or activities. For example, one lesson plan could include the creation of a research project that students write in French through using the Google Docs to create a word document. As students research the assigned topic, they can add new information to the document then edit their work and their classmates work to create a final document for a grade.

Another lesson might include the same kind of process for a Powerpoint presentation of their research findings. Each of these projects would allow students to practice writing in French, allow their classmates to assist each other on making edits to grammar and vocabulary, and therefore, give the students a first hand and collaborative approach to creating well written documents.

One other option for an activity that features Google Docs in the French classroom is for the instruction to upload a document that needs editing and correction. This would most likely be an anonymous essay from a former student that contains grammar mistakes and limited vocabulary. Students would then have to access the document through Google docs to make the necessary corrections. As students make the corrections, teachers will observe what corrections they make and give students hints and assistance through footnotes or comments on the page.

References

Google. (2009). What’s new in Google Docs. Retrieved from http://www.google.com/google-d-s/whatsnew.html

BP11_2009103_ReflectiveAsset1

BP10_2009102_Flickr

From the perspective of a foreign language teacher, Flickr presents several useful capabilities to the classroom but it takes some creativity in implementing the tool. Flickr is a "photo management and sharing application" that is accessible through the Internet which enables you to share photos both publicly and privately (Yahoo, 2009). The great part of about Flickr, from a teacher's standpoint, is that you can create a group within your Flickr account can set the level of control you have over the group members and the way they share photos. With such a level of control over the group, teachers could create project assignments and set parameters for the completion of that assignment through Flickr.

Through a group project that I worked on with some fellow Full Sail University students, I discovered the concept of a pictionary. This is simply an activity that builds students' vocabulary as they gather a list of vocabulary words and define each of those words with pictoral representations of their meaning. Flickr is a tool that would be perfectly suited to this activity. First, students can upload the photos that they will use to define each vocabulary world. Second, they can attach meaning to each photo by typing in a caption for the photo and even tagging this photo for their classmates to view and share. The process of tagging serves to further solidify a word's meaning. Tagging also forces students to make connections between other words and terms and even synonyms for each word.

For my own personal use, I could see Flickr as a tool to help build students vocabulary at varying levels of French. I might, for example, have students take words that are in the vocabulary section of their current textbook chapter and create a pictionary of those words. The students will be required to add captions that will be exclusively in French and the tags should involve at least one synonyms for each vocabulary term as well as one term that relates that photo to classmate's photo tags. This builds vocabulary, gives students a hands-on approach to learning, and presents an opportunity for collaboration with classmates in a unique and exciting way.

Over the next months, I plan to integrate this project, at least once, into my lesson plans and report on my successes and struggles. I am confident, though, that Flickr has the potential to be a tool that I would use in the classroom for a long time.

Resources
Yahoo. (2009). About Flickr. Retrieved from http://www.flickr.com/about/