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...

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 ...