Voyage Coetail

Here is another good reason why I’m learning with Coetail . At our school we had two big events over the last two weeks: the French open class day where parents come to see and participate in French lessons and the PTC. During the PTC, I had excellent feedback from the parents, they were ecstatic to see IT integration in my lessons! For my final project I choose to do a story map with my Grade 3 students. This group started to learn French last year. I choose to do geo-literacy as the subject space is at the same time an easy one but also a difficult one as it takes time for the students to transfer the French to the English. I’m not even sure that a 8 year old can find his/her way easily in his/her own home language. In this case the best way to learn is to practice. The final product for the students would be to screen-cast their story map and to post it on their class blog. This project allows the students to work on the four attainment targets: listening, reading, writing and spea...

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="225"] https://quotesgram.com/le-petit-prince-important-quotes/[/caption] I’ve just opened the Pandora box ( YES, tech is evil!!!). For the last five weeks, I’ve realised the power of new technology integrated into teaching, the impact it could have (or not) on learning. For me, a whole new world of possibilities is out there. Thanks Coetail! I’m becoming paperless! Last week, my French department had Open class days. That’s a day where parents came to participate to French lessons and to receive information about French curriculum and resources. This year, I uploaded everything on my Wiki pages. No more paper copies!!! Back to my reflections for this week: how can we embrace globally collaborative projects in our curricular areas to address this facet of 21st Century Learning? By the way what are global collaborative projects? Why do we do that? How do they take place? Do I do collaborative projects in my classroo...

So I did try it on Monday! See how my students were busy! The little guy running was actually helping his classmates with the use of the ShowMe app. He did such a brilliant job! For this first try with the I pads in the classroom, I choose to use them to show their learning. My students worked on a story “Le Roi Chaton”. Reading and writing activities were put together on a booklet. My students used it to show their learning. I let them choose what they wanted to talk about. This first experience gave me an idea of how, why and what the technology could be used for in the classroom or made me think of those questions. Do I want to use technology to further their learning or do I want to use it as a tool? In both cases, my teaching has changed as this equation has changed: The teacher + the students=learning It has became: the teacher + new technology + the students=learning I really found myself doing old things in new ways as Marc Prensky explained in Shaping tech for the classroom. ...

Okay, last week I was super excited. This week, I’m completely overwhelmed by all this new knowledge. I don’t know where to start with. How can I authentically embed technology within my curricular area? Outch! Time for a little thinking about how I have been using new technology…Honestly I’m not tech savvy but I’m not either technophobe. What are the tools I can use? I have an interactive whiteboard and how I’m using it? Sad to say that it’s mainly a TV screen. My IWB is a visual support for the students. I turned it on to put pictures or posters to introduce new units. It’s useful to make corrections of exercises. Although I was trained to use the Smart notebook software, I have used it to create noughts and crosses games with vocabulary and verb endings. It also allows students to play online via learn & play websites. Well, it’s not that boring at it seems. I also use “Plickers” and the kids just love it and me too!!! That’s a great tool for real-time assessment. I also can hav...

Wouah! I’m super excited with the Coetail program as I’m learning new things that open new horizons!! Genius and powerful! Those are the words that came into my mind after reading “Connectivism: a learning theory for the digital age” by George Siemens. This is so obvious! Of course, I have used this theory before. And you know what? I have experienced it just before writing this post. What I have done? To make sure that I understand it well, I did some research. As I “messed around”, I have found several interesting, inspiring articles and videos but this one makes sense for me. [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFCYjm6nf40[/embed] I store my knowledge in my friends As George Siemens says: “Learning is a continual process, lasting for a lifetime. Learning and work related activities are no longer separate. In many situations, they are the same. Technology is altering (rewiring) our brains. The tools we use define and shape our thinking.” Karen Stephenson states: “Experience has ...

This is my first post and this is my first Coetail assignment. The questions I had to answer – What fundamental principle is the Internet built on? Is the Internet a mass of content or a mass of connections?- gave me a lot to think of. I should start with a definition of the Internet, according to merriam-webster.com : Internet, noun : an electronic communications network that connect computer networks and organizational computer facilities around the world. It gives a very technical definition of it although there are two words that define the principle of which the Internet is built on: network and connect. Mass of content I then thought back about how I have been using the Internet for the last 15 years or so. At that time it started with a simple email address and few emails to reply to. I also used it to send my articles  (I was a journalist writing for the local newspaper) via the old 56K connection. Then it rapidly became a way of looking up for information and mainly people to ...