Voyage Coetail

The bumpy road of collaborative work Thanks Jennifer Keenan  for this collaborative work! I really enjoyed working with you and I think we are a great team! Thank you Suzy Ramsden for sharing your brilliant ideas and thank you Tanya Irene and Sean Walmsley for launching this project! This final project has changed from its initial statement. We decided, with the 4 others teachers working at my school and taking the Coetail programme, to work together with 3 others teachers. After realizing (we were told!) that the group was too big, some teachers left it and the others sub-divided the group into 4 groups. At first, it was: The vision for the whole project would be to have a working infographic for students and teachers as a guide, reference and reminder with lesson plans to go with it. Sean and I ( Tanya ) are looking at the big picture. We are trying to create an infographic for posting online that starts the conversation and thinking process but also identifies the 'outcome...

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...

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...