Voyage Coetail

This is the end of Course 3 already and that was my favourite course so far as this one was very practical and fun too! My takeaways from Course 3 were the Presentation Zen and the digital story telling. Perfect to use in language classroom! Presentations: I have gathered a lot of student friendly resources to teach the design principles and the CARP principles (found on Jocelyn Sutherland blog) which make me like presentations more now! Digital storytelling: The one I made for the week 4 was the little push I needed to finally jump into the water of video editing. I thought it would take forever not only to edit but also to film the students at work (meaning having some “visual “ activities). I really like the digital story telling as it can be shown to the parents and they can really get a sense of what’s happening in the classroom and hear their children speaking a foreign language. As I have already explained in a previous post, digital storytelling would be such a powerful t...

What’s an infographic? Before preparing for this post, an infographic was for me an editorial infographic or a data visualization , like a lot of numbers put into a picture to make it easy to read. The value of visualization video really helps me to create my own definition of infographics. [vimeo]https://vimeo.com/29684853[/vimeo] We also know that there is a scientific reason for why we like infographics Why using infographics in education? Using infographics in instruction is an innovative and engaging way to ensure that the message you are sharing is visually appealing and easily digested by your students.  They allow students to comprehend, interpret, and analyze complex information in a quick and clear manner.  This combined with the brain research to support why infographics are so effective gives teachers a powerful new tool to use for teaching and learning. I really like this quote from t he JTH instructional technology blog . And it made me think that I have had my students...

I didn’t want to start this post by the usual “I love stories”, yet I love stories…especially when they’re made digitally in French lessons. En français! I kept on asking my students to talk in French, reuse all the words they’ve been learning, to express themselves in French. Obvious to say that some students are natural-born communicator, always happy to talk and raise their hands even if they don’t know the answer and some others who blush just with the idea of talking in front of the group. However when it comes to use technology in the French class and to record them, the activity becomes fun and even the more shy are happy to participate. I regularly record my students when they‘re presenting, reporting to the class or acting out. I found a nice trick to have everybody excited about the activity: recording their feet! I can still hear them, they can still listen to them and everybody is happy to listen to the recording. [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqGSj2EgMl4[/embed] ...

I don't like presentations I don’t like presentations. For me it means a speaker with a monotonous voice reading slides. Actually it’s exactly what Don McMillan explained in his talk “Life after death by power point” in the funniest way ever! [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpvgfmEU2Ck[/embed] Slides presentations are a cause of too many distractions for me. I never know if I should focus on the speaker or on the slides. Presentation Zen It was my idea of a presentation before reading the Presentation Zen blog of Garr Reynolds. Although those ideas and methods of presenting aren’t new, they are for me. And yet most of the principles and methods explained are obvious. In his book “ Presentation Zen, Simple ideas on presentation design and delivery ", Garr Reynolds described six principles under the SUCCES acronym. The six principles are relatively easy to incorporate into messages—including presentations and keynote addresses—but most people fail to use them. Why? The au...

Here is my picture! flickr photo shared by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center under a Creative Commons ( BY-NC ) license What can you see? I bet you’ll answer it’s Italy at night from space. Wrong! That’s the generic of Universal studios according to my Grade 4 students. How disappointed they were when they realized they weren’t to watch a movie but we would talk about this picture. First thing first! As I didn’t make any connection between this photo and the generic, we watched the generic to see the difference between the two. [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFa_Lbqgun4[/embed] Visual Literacy strategy in action Then, we went back to our picture. I showed them this picture as we are in the cultures unit and I wanted them to learn about Europe and the European Union. (NOTE: Luxembourg is really in the middle of Europe). I really enjoy this kind of activity where the students do the questions and answers, when they can freely express themselves. Here are some quotes: “It...

flickr photo shared by gato-gato-gato under a Creative Commons ( BY-NC-ND ) license What is visual literacy? What’s all the excitement about it? Communications, and visuals in particular, is a field that I’m really fond of. I’m a typical visual learner. I need to see in order to understand, remember, learn… As a French teacher, I use images a lot. I can’t teach without visuals, pictures, drawings or symbols ( The Noun project is one of my favourites). Two years ago, I took a “Speech and Language support for 5-11s” course. The aim is to encourage children’s communication skills. I learned that studies suggest that our minds are organised and more prepared to receive information through the visual route rather than any other sense and that over 50% of messages are conveyed through non-verbal communication. I also learned that our memory works much better when we use a multi-sensory approach. John Medina explained that and much more in Brain Rules . Why is visual literacy important? N...

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...