Hommage to the Commenter

Power Law of ParticipationI have just discovered today that the settings for how I am alerted to comments on this blog had changed (there must be gremlins in the system as I don’t remember doing it!) and I hadn’t been receiving emails to let me know of comments. Consequently today I discovered that I had quite a few comments (and here I was thinking I was all alone…) awaiting moderation. I approved them and so now they appear around the technoLOTE traps. I usually make a point of emailing my commenters as soon as I can after they comment, but this little hiccup means that several comments and commenters have not been thanked directly! I am sorry about that if it is you. Thank you all for your comments. I just LOVE getting them (as all bloggers do).

Just to highlight a few of the comments that have been left for me lately:

Kacey Snyder added a game to the technoLOTE Games page. Thank you Kacey!

We play a game in my classroom called Basta. It really gets kids using vocabulary and speaking at the begining levels.

You need two sets of flash cards of your vocab list written in the LOTE. Divide the class into two teams. Pass out the flash cards to the students. I usually make the two sets of flash cards different colors so each team gets a certain color. Then the teacher calls out a word in English and the two students that have that card stand up and call out the word in the LOTE. The first team to stand up and call out the correct card gets a point. Noone else is allowed to stand and if they do, they do not receive a point. After a few rounds I usually have the students switch cards with someone on their team so they are getting new words all the time.

The kids seem to love it and even the quiet ones will say their word to earn a point for the team.

In response to the start of the ‘Welcome to My Classroom’series, French teacher Marie-France Perkins suggests:

I am envious!! I have a tiny classroom in a (not so)temporary building. It is so dark inside as well, cold in the Winter and hot in the Summer. But I have done my best to brighten it up. But the advantages are that I have an Interactive Whiteboard, access to the Internet, Sky TV and ample books and magazines to promote Language learning!! We ought to start something about Languages’ classrooms around the world. I may stop moaning!!!
Marie-France

Marie, I think starting something about language classrooms around the world is a great idea. We could really expand these Welcome to My Classroom posts when I get some more!

Andrew Jeppesen who teaches Japanese, is promising photos of his classroom…

Jess,
Love the classroom – especially the colours. Looks like it could have been fairly drab without your additions. I’ve taken my camera to work a few times this week (probably could call it last week now) with the intention of taking some snaps but still to do. Will pass some on. Keep up the great work!
Andrew J

Andrew has also written a great post on using projected images of soccer teams in a game of swat to teach numbers in French. Check out his blog. It’s called In Search of Enlightenment.

There are a couple more comments I could mention here, but instead they might evolve into full blog posts on their own. David Kees has challenged my understanding of m-Learning, so I’m going to read his recommendations more closely and write something about that soon.

So, to those of you who have commented: Thank you! :-) I really do value your input.

 

3 Series on Blogging: Question 1 – A bl-what?

In an attempt to keep posts fairly short, sharp and shiny, there are 4  parts. Each answer a common question about blogging: 1.What is a blog? 2. Why would I use blogs with my students? 3. How would I use them? 4. How do I get started?

There has been a blogging explosion at my school! Woo hoo! It’s great. We’ve got kids blogging and some staff have jumped right in the blogging deep end too. It’s not all to do with LOTE. The kids are blogging about anything and everything for any subjects. Most of the students set up their blogs with our fabulous ICT teacher, Anne Mirtschin. She got them to use Global Student. Global Teacher / Global Student is a project started by Heather Blakey in Melbourne. She has created a fantastic blogging community for both students and teachers.

Blogging Question 1: What is a blog?

A blog (which is short for ‘weblog’) is a website that you can edit very easily. Each new entry that you write appears on the front page, above the previous entry. A blog is on the internet and available for anyone to read. A blog can be about anything, and there are blogs about everything! technoLOTE is a blog and I write about technology in the LOTE classroom. One of my other blogs, The Rise of Reflection, is more general reflections on lots of different things really.

Click here to let Lee Lefever of the Commoncraft Show explain exactly what a blog is in his video ‘Blogs in Plain English.’

If anyone has some better definitions of a blog than what I have written, please leave a comment!

Stay tuned for the answer to Blogging Question 2: Why would I use blogs with my students?

My Day in the Twittersphere 2008-02-25

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My Day in the Twittersphere 2008-02-24

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Those That Make Me Think (The Thinking Blogger Award)

definedIt’s always great to know that your blog has not only been noticed, but that someone has actually gained something from it. That’s what powers me on to keep blogging, as I’m sure it does for many other bloggers. It is easy to get into a bit of a rut though and think that no one would want to read what you’ve written – there’s always someone out there who has already written about it, or who on earth would want to know what you’re doing?!

It’s so important to remember that we ALL contribute something and we contribute it in our own way with our own perspective. We don’t all have to analyse everything and write deep and meaningful posts on it all. Just sharing what we are doing is enough. It’s so very easy to feel overwhelmed and inadequate, but I just remind myself that I am a learner too and will always be. So, if I have something that someone can learn from, then I’m rapt. If I’ve written something that makes someone else have a good think, then brilliant!

This all leads to me saying thank you to my treasured colleague, Anne Mirtschin, who has just tagged me with the Thinking Blogger Award. Anne, thank you for reminding me that I am making a contribution, depsite the fact that lately I hadn’t felt like I’d been doing much at all. It has been just the boost I’ve needed.

Anne says she’s learnt a lot from me which is so nice to hear. You should see it – I’m sitting at my desk in the staffroom and here comes Anne around the corner, laptop in hand. “Ah Jess, are you busy now? Have you got a minute to show me how to get that heading on my blog? How do I put this Clustr Map in? Have you seen this?!” Anne and I have lovely little chats over our laptops and her enthusiasm and fascination with all this Web 2.0 is very inspiring too. She is so good at getting the kids involved and when looking at their work can often be heard to say ‘Oh, isn’t that precious?!’

Anne leaves her glasses everywhere and ends up in live webcast conversations without realising what she’s done, but she is an absolutely brilliant teacher who I learn a lot from every week. Thanks for this award Anne. You inspire me too.

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So now it is my turn to pass on this little award. Here is how it all works:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think.

2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.

3. Let the people you tagged know what you tagged them!

4. Optional: proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post you wrote. (Here is an alternative silver version if gold doesn’t fit your blog).

In addition, there is a note: “Please remember to tag blogs with real merits i.e. relative content and above all – blogs that really get you thinking!”

So, without further ado – 5 Blogs that make me think:

Betchablog – Chris Betcher’s blog is one of the first I subscribed to. His podcast Virtual Staffroom is also one of the first podcasts I listened to when I started getting into all this Web 2.0 madness about 18 months ago. Chris has been teaching and playing around with geeky stuff for years and is totally willing to share what he knows. He’s got great ideas and enthusiasm and I like reading the mix of things he writes about on his blog.

The Open Classroom – Jo McLeay writes really thoughtful blog posts on teaching and using Web 2.0 with her students. She is obviously very experienced and very passionate about what she does and I really value her opinions and thoughts.

Integrating ICT into the MFL Classroom – Joe Dale is incredible! The amount of things this man manages to blog about is great. He has lots of resources and ideas on his blog which always get me thinking about what to try next.

Always Learning – Kim Cofino is an expat teaching living in Bangkok. She’s a 21st Century Literacy Specialist and write really great posts about she uses new tools with her students as well as step-by-step posts on how you can do it yourself. She’s always got me thinking about new projects to start!

Langwitches – Silvia Tolisano’s blog was another one of the very first blogs I started reading. I was totally inspired by the things she was doing and her blog is probably one of the reasons I started my technoLOTE blog.

Thank you to all of these thoughtful thinking bloggers! You all deserve the thinkingbloggerpf8.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

Image is ‘Be Yourself’ by fotologic

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