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/

BP9_2009102_Week 2 Comments to Classmate

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Go!Animate-animation website

GoAnimate.com, the online platform that enables everyone to create their own customizable animations, it has recently announced that it has signed a licensing agreement with CopCorp Licensing to add Jim Benton's popular (and hilariously rude) It's Happy Bunny™ to its ever-expanding list of characters. You can now create full animations using It's Happy Bunny, providing a whole new world of possibilities for interacting with and creating your own humor to share with your friends.

http://goanimate.com/howdoesitwork tutorial.

http://goanimate.com/ is a website that allows you and you students to create animations with background scenes, audio, music, and animated characters, in a storybook format. Generally, visual clips and different visualization assets have changed the way we elaborate and share our ideas. Studies show that the human brain is more capable of processing what it sees compared to what it reads. This is because communication channels, more often than not, focus on the visual and verbal aspects of what we see and hear. Visualization helps in associating the need to rapidly understand the feedback we receive in relationships and also aides in allowing us to share story lines that someone could find difficultly dealing with.Go!Animate is an entertainment portal, and makes use of these animation techniques, which can allow the user to convey their ideas with visual impact; making sure your ideas are delivered. Students can translate any topic, project or event into an animated video. There are tutorials and examples and this provides a user-friendly interface, making sure that your use of the site is smooth. Go!Animate is complete fun and a perfect platform to shape your imagination into an animation reality.

BP8_2009102_Web2.0Tool_Babbel

While there are many Web 2.0 tools that I have encountered over the past couple of courses through Full Sail University, I have also uncovered some interesting tools, through recent research, that would be specifically useful to the instruction of my French courses. One such tool is through the web tool Babbel at http://www.babbel.com/.

Babbel is a tool that allows users to learn French vocabulary and grammar through interactions with other learners around the world. Although some features require users to pay, many of the features available for study and practice are completely free. All of these activities are available exclusively on the Web as opposed to a computer based platform. Users create a profile and complete grammar and vocabulary lessons to receive scores. They can also share their completed assignment with other users to receive feedback (Babbel, 2009).

It is appartent, from the way that this tool is designed, that it is very useful to French students but there are some other specific ways that this tool can benefit my instruction in particular. In my French courses, I would use this to have students practice their French when they are outside of the classroom. With block scheduling, students only meet every other day and this schedule format is often not conduicive to the consistent pratice students need to study a foreign language. Babbel will give students the opportunity to study during off days and still receive feedback for their work that they could not otherwise access when they are not in class with me.

Another useful feature of this tool is that is helps to reduce the need to provide students a computer with a specific set of software loaded onto it. Again, students can complete actitivies as homework assignments or even use the computer in my classroom to complete activities during class. This would eliminate the frequent use of the school computer lab. Although that lab would be ideal, a tool like Babbel will make it is possible for me to accomplish more within my classroom and on my own classtime.

It is this feature of mobility in tools like Babbel that I wish to explore more deeply as I begin an Action Research project on the concept of the language lab. A tool like Babbel could illiminate the need for a school to purchase software and additional computers for a school wide language lab and, instead, give teachers the opportunity to do more with just one classroom desktop.

References

Babbel. (2009). Knowledge base. Retrieved from http://support.babbel.com/forums/28238/entries

Babbel (2009). Images Retrieved from http://www.babbel.com

BP7_2009102_Web2.0Tool_Blogger

As I discussed in my last post, it is extremely important to find ways to create ways that will exercise foreign language students' writing, reading, speaking, and listening skills in the classroom. One useful way to have students work on writing in French is through the use of a blog. Blogger is one such utility that allows users to create their own blog site and post their findings to the web. They can share these blogs with anyone and anyone can comment on the blog posts (Common Craft, 2008).

In my French courses, I currently have students write journal entries in French pertaining to their reactions on subjects that we have studied in class. Students write these entries in a paper notebook each night. It takes me a long to read and make comments on these journal entries and no one else is able to read these entries except for me. That means that students do not get a lot of feedback, and they do not necessarily appreciate or connect to the limited feedback that they do receive from me.

Blogging through a Web 2.0 tool such as Blogger could completely revitalize the journaling process within my courses.

(Blogger, 2009)

Using Blogger, I would have students create individual blog pages and share them with their classmates. Once students have created and shared their blog pages, I would have students write their thoughts on what we have studied in class as blog posts each night. In addition, students would read and comment on the blog post of at least one other classmate. This process will cause students to practice writing in French, reading in French, and having to think in French as they create and comment on blog posts. Hopefully, this will make the process of journaling more fun, more interactive, and more useful to students.

References

Blogger. (2009). Blog post images. Retrieved from http://kdavisfso.blogspot.com

Common Craft (2008). Blogs in plain English. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN2I1pWXjXI

BP6_2009102_Web2.0Tool_iGoogle

As a French teacher, I seek as many opportunities as possible to immerse students in the French language in an authentic way although there is no possibility for students to travel to a francophone country. Therefore, it is necessary to find some other way to integrate authentic French into the classroom in a way that helps students practice the four competences (writing, reading, speaking, and listening) daily.

IGoogle is one of many Web 2.0 tools that are quite useful in teaching foreign language. Foreign language teachers, like me, can use iGoogle in a way the replicates an immersion experience and fosters daily practice. The iGoogle tools allow users to set up a homepage and add several gadgets to that homepage (Google, 2009).

According to Google (2009) “gadgets come in lots of different forms and provide access to activities and information from all across the web.” Both the iGoogle tool itself and the gadgets that one can add to it are easily adapted into the foreign language classroom because these gadgets can feature information in the target language that students can read, listen to, write about, then discuss in class.

If I were to integrate the iGoogle tool into my French courses, I would use many aspects of the tool to develop the students’ skills in the four competences. For example, students could create their Google homepages from the French version of the tool. Here is an example of a French iGoogle homepage:

(Google, 2009)

The French version of the homepage forces students to read in French because all titles, tabs, and gadgets in French. This gives students immediate access to authentic and current uses of French phrases and vocabulary.

Second, students could add gadgets to their homepages that would give them further access to current and authentic French. For example, Google Reader, which allows users to receive updates to websites to subscriptions to RSS feeds can give students access to French sites with podcasts, articles, and videos on a variety of subjects (Commom Craft, 2008). Students can then share these feeds with their classmates and with me as their instructor so we can collaborate on what they have been learning through the feeds.

Third, students can add gadgets that feature famous French quotes, word of the day, or a French-English dictionary. These are gadgets that will introduce students to new vocabulary, and even some French culture or history as they look up new words and learn quotes of famous historical French figures.

(Google, 2009)

Finally, students can also use the Google Docs gadget within their iGoogle homepage. This could allow students to create PowerPoint presentations or Word documents in French and invite classmates to edit the documents. In this way, students could collaborate on group projects and presentations using the information they have learned in from the articles and resources in their Google Reader.

IGoogle presents many opportunities to improve the communcation skills of French students and would be extremely useful to me as a foreign language teacher. The main benefit of a Web 2.0 tool such as iGoogle is that it presents an adaptable platform that can only improve and become more useful as more gadgets are created and made available.

References

Google. (2009). Features: what is iGoogle? Retrieved from http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?answer=20324&nbsp

Common Craft. (2008). Google reader in plain English. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSPZ2Uu_X3Y

Google. (2009). iGoogle homepage images. Retrieved from http://www.igoogle.fr/ig

BP5_2009102_SocialBookmarking

Social Bookmarking in Education

There are a wide variety of uses and benefits of social bookmarking in relation to education and instruction. This useful Web 2.0 tool accomplishes many of the objectives inherent in current educational goals and perspectives. First, social bookmarking can produce educators who are more informed on current research. For example, teachers can search for several sites and other links on Internet, save them immediately, share those links with other teachers, and organize those links for easy and expedient access in the future. These bookmarks are then available to teachers at any time without a platform giving teachers support for their class lectures and lesson plans (Grosseck, 2008).

The second benefit and utility of social bookmarking in education is that it creates a collaborative environment in which students can share links with classmates or students from anywhere in the world (Educase Learning Initiative, 2005). In this way, social bookmarking is also beneficial to teachers because it offers them a way to maintain lines of communicating. This, for example, helps teachers remain part of a professional community through sharing perspectives on information beneficial for training or other instruction as part of Personal Learning Communities (Solomon & Schrum, 2007). Both students and teachers benefit from the collaboration that is key aspect of a variety of social bookmarking sites.

As a result of collaborative nature of social bookmarking, another benefit to the educational environment is that it encourages accountability on the part of students. The process of tagging calls uses to make decisions about the words they choose in tagging links. This is also known as folksonomy and, as part of this process, users are in control of how others will be able to view and make use of links. Users must decide whether to be selfish, altruistic, friendly, or popular as the classify links and “the social benefit of such a classification consists in the user’s maturity” (Grosseck, 2008). This provides teachers the opportunity to instruct and set standards and requirements for ethical and accurate approaches to tagging.

Just as social bookmarking provides an opportunity for students to practice maturity and critical thinking skills when tagging, it also provides a similar opportunity with source evaluation. Because of the way social bookmarking requires users to view and tag links, users must also make value judgments about the links that they choose to tag. This can be a benefit of social bookmarking in relation to education because it will help train students to evaluate sources. As students weed out invalid or unreliable sources they will contribute to the validity and reliability of the links that their classmates and others will find on their sites. In the end, the more users who access social bookmarking sites “the more value accrues to the system itself and thereby to all who participate in it” (Hammand, Hannay, Lund, & Scott, 2005).

References

Hammon, T., Hannay, T., Lund, B. & Scott, J. (2005). Social bookmarking tools: a general review. D-Lib Magazing, 11(4). Retrieved from http://www.dlib.org/dlib/april05/hammond/04hammond.html

Grosseck, G. (2007). Using de.licio.us in education. Retrieved from http://www.scribd.com/doc/212002/Using-delicious-In-Education

Educase Learning Initiative. (2005). 7 things you should know about social bookmarking. Retrieved from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7001.pdf

Solomon, G & Schrum, L. (2007). Web 2.0: new tools, new schools. Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education.

BP4_2009101_iGoogleScreen Shots

Below are the screenshots for my iGoogle PLE for the ETC course for October 2009.

This is my What's Going On/Home Page:

This is my Action Research Page:

This is my ETC course page:

BP3_2009101_RSSFeeds

Though it is slightly embarrassing to admit, I am entirely new to the world of creating and following blogs. The first set of assignments for the FSO ETC course on creating and setting up the iGoogle site as well as the Blogger and Google Reader has caused a huge learning curve on my part. Still, the process of searching and adding RSS feeds to the Google Reader has brought interesting insight to the use of these feeds.

Before knowing about RSS feeds and how they worked, I couldn't picture how they would be useful to me. In just a fews additions to my subscription list, I have already discovered how incredibly useful these blogs will be to my work at FSO and the improving my teaching methods in general.

I chose the initial 11 feeds that I have added to my Reader for the purpose gaining information that I will hopefully use in the classroom. For example, several of the feeds that I discovered came for the website for the French newspaper LeFigaro. These blogs involve a variety of subjects in French including news and perspectives on French culture, cinema, foreign relations, fashion, and more. All of these will help to inform my teaching on current events and information about the French speaking world and hopefully cause students to become more excited about the real life application of the French language as I share this information with them.

Also, these blog posts and links will help me, most simply, to continue to keep up with my French speaking skills. One of the challenges of teaching a foreign language when it is your second language it finding the ability to use and practice your own communication skills. Especially with French in the US, it is difficult to find many people with whom you can communicate in French or places in which you are immersed in the French language. The feeds that I have chosen for my reader, in ways, replicate the immersion experience through offering several opportunities to see French, read French, and if desired, respond to posts using French.

Some of the blogs also include tips geared toward helping teachers such as French for Fun and The Drama Teacher which offer perspectives for teachers of those subjects on how to improve the time with students in the classroom. I would hope that being able to access this information in a more timely and manageable fashion through Google Reader will render obsolete the issue of searching for information each time I create a new lesson plan.

The next weeks will hopefully bring more insight into the effectiveness of the easy accessible information that the Google Readers will provide and its impact on my work at FSO and my teaching in general.

BP1_2009101_BlogResearch

From just a brief scan of sources on the usefulness of blogs in education, it is very clear that blogs serve many purposes in the instructional environment. A majority of these sites and sources discuss the transformational nature of blogs. It seems that blogs, because they are based on using technology in a way that is different than in the past, are forcing us to rethink the ideas of of how information is sent and received. Moreover, blogs allow us to use information in ways that have not yet been explored.

For example, in the world of education, the concept of blogs could mean that students can have more control of what the learn and how they apply that in their daily lives. As an educator, I find that one of the toughest challenges in making the classroom an exciting environment is having to confront the questions students always ask "when am I ever going to use this information?" Blogs could bring an end to that question. According to Solomon and Schrum in the book Web 2.0, New schools, New Tools blogs are "natural tools for writing instruction" so, as an example, a lesson in-class on grammar, could come to life with a homework assignment involving a blog using that lesson's grammar rules.

In the article Panelists: Blogs are changing eduction (http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/index.cfm?i=36898&CFID=13543917&CFTOKEN=47085391)

, Pierce discusses how blogs involve creativity, sharing ideas, excitement, and more inclusion of those students who are tech-savvy. Students can begin to feel more involved in the process of learning as opposed to just receiving information and regurgitating it onto quizzes and tests.

As a foreign language teacher, I have also begun to look for examples of how blogs can help to build students' communication in the target language. In the presentation The efficacy of technology in the classroom (http://www.slideshare.net/maheyman/technology-in-foreign-language-education-blogs) it is clear the use of blogs as a way to encourage "ownership and responsibility on the part of the students" is an important part of the foreign language classroom. This implies that teachers could raise the excellence of student work though putting them in charge of the own work. As a result, written communication in the target language would improve as students write, read, and comment on each other's work through blogging.

With the interesting prospects that this preliminary researched has highlighted, I look forward to beginning to delve more deeply into research and gain more practice with blogs in relation to education and instruction.

BP2_2009101_Anti-Teaching

According to Educause (2009) Personalized Learning Environments provide students the opportunity to view, critique, upload, share, and discuss a variety of topics. When it comes to the subject of education, students are able to direct their own learning in a way that is not available to them in traditional learning environments. Because it seems like the schools of today are so entrenched in the traditional style of teaching, including classrooms and courses structured toward the lecture format, it may be difficult for any new methodology to begin to make an impact. That being said, the concept of PLEs offers a possible solution to the problem of disenfranchisement that has plagued many students today and rendered their current learning environments virtually useless.

In an age of grader mongers, something new in the educational world must give students more control and the final responsibility over what and how they learn. PLEs are "created from self-direction" putting the control of information in the learner and not the instructor (Educase, 2009). This could be an effective way of improving education, but major consideration must be given to the role of the teacher. With many traditional schools and teachers who have become comfortable, or maybe lazy, in the use of traditional teaching methods, the idea of such control being in the hands of the learner can be frightening.

To make the PLE an effective system that does not scare away traditionalists or completely remove the role of the teacher, it must include some kind of organizational set-up that involves guidance. This could include, for example, the importance of credibility and reliability in documents, how to research, how to set goals for learning, and so forth. This could be the answer to some of the pitfalls in PLEs and well as a way to assuage the fears of instructors, administrators, and school districts that may not otherwise consider the concept of converting to PLEs for instruction.

Since all of the information used in and added to a PLE is internet based, this also gives offers the possibility of a gatekeeper of sorts. For example, as a principal would come to visit a teacher's classroom to observe their performance and the students progress, principals, administrators, and even parents, can go online to observe students' PLEs to observe the learning process. Students and instructors could even use the blog posts within the PLE to communicate directly with parents and school officials (Solomon & Schrum, 2007).

For a PLE based educational system to work effectively some things are essential. First, in the case of any particular school or school district, it would be impossible to set-up an environment that features PLEs without computers accessible to each student and powerful Internet connections. That then leads to a discussion of whether PLEs are to be part of the school day or after school learning. School classrooms are currently physically structured with the teacher at the head of the class in, again, a lecture style arrangement (Wesch, 2008). Therefore, secondly, if PLEs are meant to replace current forms of daily instruction, then the physical structure of school buildings will have to change to reflect, arguably, a more personalized environment.

Finally, administrators, teachers, researchers must begin to look deeply into the best Web 2.0 tools, the most effective assignments, the specific impact on PLEs on learning, the impact on PLEs in skills-based learning and lesson objectives, and the usefulness and characteristics of possible PLEs in relation to different curricula, subjects, and content areas. Without in-depth research and consideration into these areas, there is no way to know for sure that PLEs would be any better than the current educational system. Regardless, it is important to begin to look into these issues now instead of waiting and leaving behind countless students with the current system.

Educase Learning Initiative. (2009). 7 things you should know about personal learning environments. Retrieved from http://www.educause.edu/Resources/7ThingsYouShouldKnowAboutPerso/171521

Solomon, G. & Schrum, L. (2007). Web 2.0: new tools, new schools. Oregon: ISTE.

Wesch, M. (2008). Anti-teaching: Confronting the crisis of significance. Retrieved from http://www.scribd.com/doc/6358393/AntiTeaching-Confronting-the-Crisis-of-Significance