Back to School!
Our students here at the Lycée Astier began classes yesterday, 5 September, and Bruno and I are looking forward to communicating regularly with all of you. We've got tentative agreements on participation from several other colleagues, and really hope we can make this multi-national project into something special.
As usual, we have a few technical issues to overcome, but our computer room should be operational by the first of next week, and in theory at least we have a grant to buy some simple videoconferencing tools that should allow our students to see and talk to each other more easily. I think it best to take this on a step-by-step basis, as I'm sure the resources we each have available to us are different. And I want to remind you that you don't necessarily need to work through me personally. If, for example, Gosia in Poland wants to exchange something with Jacqueline in Ireland then go ahead and just do it! All I ask is that all teacher-to-teacher communications be copied to the rest of our partners, so that anyone interested can jump in and help. Here is my plan to get started:
1)Within a week I plan to get 2-4 classes started writing on the "living spaces" theme: describing their homes, and later their school, classrooms, town and region. I'll have groups of 4-5 students work on each sub-section, submit their work for correction, and prepare it to be sent to all partners, both in English and in French. I suggest you do the same, in both English and your individual native languages. Or for teachers like Jackie who teach another target language (German) use the solution that works best for you.
2) I have already started working on the theme of "disaster", with BBC articles about the aftermath of the hurricane in the southern US. I plan to follow this theme in two directions, first with a WebQuest about climate change (using the BBC site on Climate Change and perhaps the following articles 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 ) and then with an activity about living conditions and overcrowding, working from the recent tenement fires in Paris towards activites about living conditions around the 1880s - 1900s in New York and London. Both topics, climate change and living conditions, should be good motors for student participation, and allow for extensive exchanges of ideas with distant partners. I'd like to get your reactions to these.
I've had a few personal problems this summer, and am currently without an internet connection, except through my school. But I should nevertheless be able to share my documents with all of you within a few days. Lastly, I'm going to make a final effort to contact the other schools who said they were interested last year; at the very least, we've got Poland, Ireland, Italy and my school here in France. That should be enough for a super dynamic project, if we can all get into it and participate.
Cheers, --- Phil
As usual, we have a few technical issues to overcome, but our computer room should be operational by the first of next week, and in theory at least we have a grant to buy some simple videoconferencing tools that should allow our students to see and talk to each other more easily. I think it best to take this on a step-by-step basis, as I'm sure the resources we each have available to us are different. And I want to remind you that you don't necessarily need to work through me personally. If, for example, Gosia in Poland wants to exchange something with Jacqueline in Ireland then go ahead and just do it! All I ask is that all teacher-to-teacher communications be copied to the rest of our partners, so that anyone interested can jump in and help. Here is my plan to get started:
1)Within a week I plan to get 2-4 classes started writing on the "living spaces" theme: describing their homes, and later their school, classrooms, town and region. I'll have groups of 4-5 students work on each sub-section, submit their work for correction, and prepare it to be sent to all partners, both in English and in French. I suggest you do the same, in both English and your individual native languages. Or for teachers like Jackie who teach another target language (German) use the solution that works best for you.
2) I have already started working on the theme of "disaster", with BBC articles about the aftermath of the hurricane in the southern US. I plan to follow this theme in two directions, first with a WebQuest about climate change (using the BBC site on Climate Change and perhaps the following articles 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 ) and then with an activity about living conditions and overcrowding, working from the recent tenement fires in Paris towards activites about living conditions around the 1880s - 1900s in New York and London. Both topics, climate change and living conditions, should be good motors for student participation, and allow for extensive exchanges of ideas with distant partners. I'd like to get your reactions to these.
I've had a few personal problems this summer, and am currently without an internet connection, except through my school. But I should nevertheless be able to share my documents with all of you within a few days. Lastly, I'm going to make a final effort to contact the other schools who said they were interested last year; at the very least, we've got Poland, Ireland, Italy and my school here in France. That should be enough for a super dynamic project, if we can all get into it and participate.
Cheers, --- Phil
posted by PhilB at 4:53 PM
5 Comments:
IMHO, the most important thing for students is *interaction*. As soon as students have something (anything!) ready to send to the partner schools, we should send it. The interesting part comes afterwards - how students respond to the materials they've received from their distant partners.
I have at least two classes (probably more later) that I intend to get deeply involved with our exchanges. Some colleagues at the Lycée Astier have expressed strong interest in participating as well, notably (for Jackie) a teacher of German.
Let me suggest a basic shared approach for now:
1) We continue with our current plans for student production -- Jackie's students writing about "Mein Wohnort", Gosia's with various projects around the living spaces theme, my students probably doing something very similar.
2) As soon as students have something to share, we send it to all partners. For Jackie that may mean sending materials as attached files, ready for printing. Or even snail mail. Or, her connection problems may be solved quickly. That's not really important. The important thing is to communicate.
3) As soon as each of us receive some material from our partners, we can have students read it, work on it, and respond. Again, all responses should be sent to all partners.
Once we can all confirm that we have at least occasional access to a computer room with a classful of students, we can discuss using more interactive means of communicating than email and word documents. For now, let's get started as soon as possible using the means we all have at our disposal.
Cheers, --- Phil
Hi! Welcome back.
I'll start school in two days time so I don't know the number of students who can participate in the project.
I think I'll motivate students to work on topics such as: home, school and town. They have some knowledge of powerpoint presentations and word documents. I'm sure they will be also able to produce films but I want to know if we should publish the materials produced here or in etwinning desktop.
Enza, good to hear from you again. On this specific point: I think we should reserve this blog for planning and discussions between teachers. I'm not sure the E-Twinning desktop is the best place for students to read each other's production either, especially since we still have three separate spaces to share our work, rather than one collective space.
Once we *all* have access to a net-connected computer room with our students, I'd like to propose using the "Viva Virtual Village" for the exchange of messages and writing between students. It's really easy to use, and allows students some degree of spontaneity in answering different partners. For attached files like videos or powerpoint presentations, for now I think we should stick to e-mail, and I plan to use e-mail for our first messages, since we don't all have working computer rooms available yet.
hallo!!
ich habe gerade von diesem projekt (dank phil!!),ich bin nämlich deutschlehrerin in Lycée Astier und denke ,meine Schüler (leider nicht viele !!)würden Interesse finden...sie sind von 14 bis 17 Jahre alt....
mein E-Mail: elisa2.ley@wanadoo.fr.
bis bald!
I'm trying to translate it in english....I am a german teacher in Lycée aAstier with phil Benz and I would like to participe in this project...my students are aged from 14 to 17 .
Hello!
Je m'appelle Fadila Dib. Je suis une collègue de Phil Benz au lycée Astier. Je m'occupe de jeunes adolescents décrocheurs du système scolaire: ils ont plus de 16 ans. Je voudrais m'associer à ce projet qui, je pense, sera une source de motivation pour mes élèves "cassés" par l'échec.
My name is Fadila Dib. I am a colleague of Phil Benz at the Lycée Astier. I work with teens who have dropped out of the regular school system, and are trying to return: they are all over the age of 16. I'd like to work with this project and I think it will be a great source of motivation for these students "broken" by their past failures.
Post a Comment
<< Home