What did I learn during this semester?

To start, I would like to say that at the very beginning of the semester I was not really enthusiastic about what we were going to do, I mean blogs, computers...because I am not really in love with ! However, I am rather happy now because I've learnt plenty interesting things and tools...

I've learnt how to create a blog and add podcasts even if I am still very bad using it ! Moreover, I know more about new technologies and Web 2.0 that lead me to say that I 've learnt how to use many great tools for me and for teaching to kids like Wordle, Story Maker, Flickr, Voicethread and also Toon Boom Studio. They are all great tools that can be used for teaching, create a stoty telling for kids and follow-up activities...

Few tips about making good stories for kids:

What does a good story contain?

• Teaching objective (imput): moral lesson, follow-up activities
• A good story have a beginning, a Middle and an end !
• Conflict: external, internal, environmental
• Resolution of conflict: climax!
• Happy endings and so on...

Few benefits of stories:

• Developping imagination
• Teaching moral values
• Making kids thinking about how to react in real life / capacity to solve a problem
• Interacting with others
• Developping way of thinking / point of view
• Asking themselves questions
• Learning skills throught stories

Language Input / Output:

• Visuals: pictures, colours, cartoon
• Type: humorous, horror, detective, fairy
• Language: vocabulary, grammar
• Sounds: animals, music...
• Characters: clearly define: bad/good/hero/vilain...

Telling a story:

During:

• Make gestures, mimes...
• Speak slowly and repeat
• Eye contact: participation
• Make pauses
• Variation of voices

After:

• Play games
• Draws
• Sing songs
• Acting the story
• Quiz...

Few important words I've learnt this semester in class, podcasts or activities:

Podcasting, broadcasting, video-conference, templates, artefacts, wired, Web 2.0, digital, baladodiffusion, input, output.

Problems that occurred over the semester...

In this semester, I had many troubles finding my time to work in this blog because I am really bad at managing my time and it is a real big problem for me every day...Moreover, I am not really interested in computers and I am really bad at it so I guess it did not help me!

It was essential to have a good internet access and not having too much troubles with its computer but some of these happened to me; indeed I caught a virus in my laptop so it was sometimes not really simple to work on it.

Also the fact that for some work the sharing of tasks between classmates were not really well-managed.

This is all about troubles that occurred to me during this semester and I can truly say that it was an interesting semester!

Podcast n°3: How to engage underperforming students?

This video is about Cochrane Collegiate Academy, Charlotte NC, and it shows how the school have faced problems concerning underperforming results and students. For about 8 or 9 years, they were considered as a failing school so they knew they had a restruction in order to keep the school open, according to Shana Oliver, an Academic Facilitator in Cochrane Collegiate Academy.

The big part of what they do is a professional development and training as a very specific on in answering the skills set.

According to the American Institutes for Research (2007), it has been said that teachers who received at least 49 hours of professional development per year could be expected to boost their students achievement by about 21%. For Cochrane Collegiate Academy, teachers receive about 90 hours of professional development!

The aim of Shana Oliver's job is to provide to teachers with professional development strategies, that they can learning here throught modeling, throught expriences and take those out to their students to help them to be successful in the classroom.

As Shana Oliver presents, there are non-negotiables rules that they apply, they are classroom practices.

Here are the non-negotiables rules:

• The essential question: is the big question students have to be able to answer at the end of the lesson, so teachers can know if the students got it or did not get it !!!
• The activiting strategy: the thing that get students motivated by the lesson to want them to learn what teachers teach them.


• Limited lecture: Research says that students can only keep their attention spend for their age plus 2 or 3 minutes, so teachers have to give students doing something after this time.

• Graphic Organiser: give opportunity to students to conceptualize whatever information teachers give them and that does not happen with lots of notes, pages and pages, copies...

Learning focus and non-negotiables have been very successful for this school because it allows students to collaborate and teachers to involve and engage them.

In the 2006/2007 school year, the school were listed in one of the most performing schools in the State of North Carolina. According to the Principal of Cochrane Collegiate Academy, this what making a difference in their students lives.

As far as i'm concerned, I can tell that it is a lot more easier to learn something when it is ludic or relating to an activity because it is easier to keep ourselves concentrated on the thing we have to learn. Also, according to my schoolboy and student's experience, I really disapprove "brainwashing" lessons with lots of notes, pages and pages to read and to know because it is actually demotivating and boring at the end and even after the first 15 minutes class ! However, sometimes we can't really do something about because it is maybe the way that some teachers want we to learn and activities are sometimes not really adequate to the subject. I think it is really necessary to give ludic relating activities with the lesson that the teacher wants we to get especially in primary schools and junior high schools because pupils need to be really concentrated and captivated to get ready learning something, otherwise it could be really disastrous at the end, I mean they can be completely discouraged by school.

To conclude, I really like the way you teach in "Méthodologie class" because you give us ludic activities, the class is in a really pleasant atmosphere and you have a very good and easy relational with students.

Podcast n°2: Water Crisis

This is a short video about the global issue of the water crisis worlwide. It shows how The "Lions Clubs International Foundation" helps to provide access to clean water in Africa and Asia. Here are 20 questions about the video to help you understanding what are The LCIF projects.

1/ How many people in the world does not have access to clean water? circle the right answer.

• 1 in 3 people in the world
• 1 in 5 people in the world
• 1 in 8 people in the world

Response: 1 in 8 people in the world does not have access to clean water.

2/ What the Lions Clubs are making a priority?
Lions clubs around are making water-based projects a priority

3/ How many people worlwide are facing economics and health circumstances and why?
Nearly 1 billion people in the world face serious economics and health circumstances because they lack clean water.

4/ In which countries are from the 3 first people interwiewed at the beginning of the video? choose the right answers.

• Malaysia
• China
• Mali
• South Africa
• India

Response: Malaysia; Mali; India;

5/ Why the children are not regularly able to follow the class according to Ramachandran?
The children often feel sick because of no proper water.

6/ Who is Adil Najam?
He is a Climate Change Expert and a co-winner Nobel Peace Price.

7/ What are the 4 majors projects of the LCIF?

• Install water purification systems
• Educating community members about hand and face washing
• Building latrines
• Providing access to clean water sources from Africa to Asia

8/ What local members of the LCIF and neighbours have developped in Kota Kinabalu?
They have developped the infrastructures to bring to a remote but a clean source directly to theirs homes.

9/ Why Rosalind Ludan is happy and how she uses the water?
Rosalind Ludan is happy because she can use clean water for feeding, boiling her daughter's milk and washing her clothes.

10/ What serious health problems are facing villages in Mali due to contaminated water consumption, according to Niajale Diarra?

• Stomach ache and diarrhea
• Children have big tummies from worms in their bellies

11/ Did some children die from stomach ache?

• YES
• NO 

12/ What The LCIF has brought in this village?
Clean water and irrigation.

13/ What have improved these changes?
These changes have improved health conditions and economy.

14/ What villagers are now able to do with these changes?
They give them the ability to grow food to sell in the market.

15/ What women are forced to do when clean water is not accessible? Fill the blanks:
" Women spend hours ........(1)........... and ...........(2).......... heavy water ...........(3)..........."

Response: (1) fetching (2) carrying (3) jugs.

16/ What are the two negative points of doing that?
It is dangerous and disability.

17/ What Rachel is suppose to do when she needs water?
She has to wake-up at 4 am to get water.

18/ How far from her place? choose the right answer:

• 600 meters
• 2 kms
• 5 kms
• 10 kms

19/ To conclude, what The LCIF helps to improve? 3 things.

• Health
• Economic opportunities
• Make a global impact in the water crisis

20/ How many water projects worldwide The LCIF has helped to fund? choose the right one:

• 60
• 100
• 150
• 300

Podcast n°1: Making teaching more affordable

 

I choose this podcast because I think that it is realy interesting.

There are two characters in this podcast which are Deborah Stipek who is a professor and Efundunke Hugues who is a teacher in Berkley Maynard Academy .This bideo talks about the fact the fact that students loans have been reduced in Stanford .

  It is says in the video that Efundunke, which is interviewed, wanted to be an engineer. She says that there was a nedeed of black engineer but she has never heard that there was a nedeed of black teachers, even if it was the case.

But she decided to become engineer. She said that those people a respected paid a lot and she knew that. But then she started to ask herself if that realy was what she wanted to do .

Was that her passion?

She says that if you want to go to Stanford you have to be able to work in groups, to have a valuer direction , but you have to believe in yourself to become successful.When she knew that she was accepted in Stanford she immediatly realized that she could not afford it . So this is the reason why she send an 

e-mail to the President. She explained her passion about teaching to him and the that she could not afford it .

So this is the reason why she says in the video that she does not find that normal to see than young children cannot go to school because their parents cannot afford their education.

She would love to see ger pupils to go to the University. Deborah says that teaching is the most important job, because children are our future !

Web 2.0

This is Web 2.0, what make a difference with Web 1.0 ?




http://www.slideboom.com/presentations/83589/Web-2.0-et-ELE




 

Web 1.0		Web 2.0
DoubleClick	-->	Google AdSense
Ofoto	-->	Flickr
Akamai	-->	BitTorrent
mp3.com	-->	Napster
Britannica Online	-->	Wikipedia
personal websites	-->	blogging
evite	-->	upcoming.org and EVDB
domain name speculation	-->	search engine optimization
page views	-->	cost per click
screen scraping	-->	web services
publishing	-->	participation
content management systems	-->	wikis
directories (taxonomy)	-->	tagging ("folksonomy")
stickiness	-->	syndication

Wordle ! Create your own way words !

Usefully simple to create !!! What a funny way to manage words !