This is the end of a wonderful and enriching adventure and the beginning of a new way to teach and connect to my students for me!
I really admire the efficiency of  the American teachers of Oregon University ,to present , organize , motivate and accompany a group of "students/teachers" from all over the world , with different culture background , motivation ,way of thinking , needs .

I really thank you very much for your professionalism and competence. It really motivated me .

As I was learning from the readings , the exercises , the discussions , the activities , I also tried to analyze how you had built this course . Everything had been well  thought out , planned : the course started little by little with a few exercises which were preparing us for our project and became more intense and demanding as the weeks went by to reach a climax during the week 5/6 and to lead us towards our own improvement and our capacity to implement new activities with new tools with our students.

The idea of the blog which was used to analyze our progression , our discoveries or to share our doubts and improvements was very appreciated and it help me see how our colleagues worked and felt .

I advise all the teachers who are interested in learning new web tools and in living a new experience to follow the course.

Here is the link of my favorite websites which I will keep on completing day after day and that I shared with my French colleagues :  https://delicious.com/cbostoni

Here is also the final project I wrote and changed my approach to teaching English to my students:

https://sites.google.com/site/seanswebskillswikifall2013/final-projects

To finish , I will say again that I missed meeting the people I worked with , I missed the real contact but I also know that I was very lucky to have had the opportunity to be accepted in the course .

Last but not least , I also want to thank  Rachel Schneller , the American consul in Toulouse , France  and her colleagues Aurelie Delaissez-Forstall who supported me in a friendly way all along the course.

I hope to see you all one day in France or in Oregon !

Learning style / week 9

It was the question of this week discussion!

I don't know if I could completely define my own learning style but the readings and the sites proposed to us were quite interesting .

This question , which should be essential for our students to answer has not really been taken into account in French schools since we are teaching a whole class with 25/30 individuals the same way .We can't propose activities adapted to each students , they are too numerous .It must be one of the reasons why  some students feel bored or not motivated ,that's why new technologies have their essential role . They will help us to individualize our teaching more easily .It seems to me it is the main message of this whole course : 

New technologies will help us ,teachers ,to build better adapted activities for each one of our students .

It has also been quite interesting to read some of the reports of my colleagues .

I started to read Sijing , Maida, Julia , Cecilia and Abdullah 's projects because I work in the same type of school or at least with the same type of students and we also have sometimes the same problems . It is very interesting to see how each one of us build their own solutions , propositions to improve their teaching . It helps us also see how we think differently , how we handle problems with our own learning style in a way !

One more week to go and it will be the end of the course . I definitely hope we will be able to keep in touch and to have access to all the documents and posts and websites we have had the opportunity to discover .

See you next week and have a nice week end !

Happy Thanksgiving !

Week 8 and its loads of activities , work , report writing ! The course is excellent but very demanding !

Day after day an incredible amount of new ideas , concepts , changes are proposed to us and I feel that I really need time now to digest , to integrate , to make mine what it was offered to us thanks to this course.
But after the end of the course I know I need to go over many things again but at my pace , little by little . I need to slow down the intake and to adapt what I discovered to my needs . It will take a while but it will require a time to think , to take a distance with the numerous opportunities which were given to us to change and improve our way to teach .

The small changes I made with some of my classes may appear insignificant to computer literates but they are tremendous changes for me.
I read some of the draft reports of some of my colleagues and I was impressed at the mastery of their presentation. I admire their capacity to deal with many of these new tools so easily and so cleverly .
But I also know that things were not as simple for others !
We are all trying to do our best , I guess !

ANVILL and the difficulties I had to understand the concept and to use it participated in my losing some of the confidence I had gained with new technology .However, I thank Jeff very much for all his advice and help and above all sharing his invention with us.

Fortunately , I could feel more comfortable with websites such as :
http://www.crosswordpuzzlegames.com/create.html
I could create a few crosswords for my students : one on irregular verbs and one on famous American people which I put on the  nicenet thread.

I will use the one on irregular verbs with my 10th graders tomorrow to change from the boring recitation of the verbs!

I also liked reading my partner's draft report on a group of students with learning disabilities and the way she managed to make them feel more confident and interested in literature thanks to new web tools .It was very well done and very interesting to read and maybe to use with some of my own students.
And I also loved her conclusion about the importance of the physical presence of teachers to work with students . New technology tools remain tools to help us but I do not think they will be able to replace the human contact .
Thank you Julia !

Happy Thanksgiving to all our American friends !

WEEK 7 ALREADY !

This week will have been devoted to my project report , I spent most of my time organizing ideas , thinking about the different parts , writing drafts .
I haven't written long and analytic report for many years now and I am not as sharp and quick as I was when I was a young student but I love this feeling of rejuvenating !
This course is not only opening new horizons for me but also giving me a new impulse to see my teaching differently and myself too !!!…..

Let's stop the self analysis to get into what I did this week :

Mainly , a lot of exchanges with colleagues about students' autonomy and the use of mobile devices in class. It is still a controversial subject and even if it is the future , it is not adaptable to all type of students . It depends a lot on their age , their capacity to be autonomous and trustworthy.

I read with a lot of attention the article of thanasoulas  http://iteslj.org/Articles/Thanasoulas-Autonomy.html  and I enjoyed commenting on his sayings and receiving Donna's and my colleagues thoughts about it. (see nicenet)

This week I also went to a training session on "how to use new technology in our classes"  offered by the ministry of education for 2 days and I was very proud to be able to give the links "vocaroo" and http://www.voxopop.com  when we talked about how to help students improve their pronunciation !

I also discovered a link during this training session ,which could replace powerpoint , this link was given by our trainer
Here it is :
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1CTyfrtVAlMWGjdfWJnDIEF3_kxnpy-USJ0ICQSNlXlc/edit#slide=id.p
It may be useful for some of you .

 Goog luck to all of you with your project report ! See you next week !

WEEK SIX =POWERPOINT (for me) !

For me this week is associated with my first creation of a powerpoint for my class ! It must seem strange for some of you who are already mastering this device .But it was a big deal for me !
Many of my students use it to present some of their tasks but I had never created one myself before .
It took me quite a long time but I managed to create something by myself .Yet, I definitely need to practice this new software since I have most probably used 1% of the possibilities it offers.

This powerpoint will be used to introduce a new topic and to engage students in a more captivating way into the lesson . Then I will study a song  ( lyrics and video on you tube) and the students will have to write a poem (a limerick) on the topic studied ,related to their own life , as a the final task .
(The details are on nicenet)

Then , this week , I also enjoyed reading all the good and new ideas proposed by all of you , my foreign colleagues , on nicenet , on engaging students . Even if the course readings given to us as the week task were interesting too , I preferred discovering the practical ideas proposed and used by all of you in your respective classes.
As I said in my post on nicenet , engaging students has become a challenge these days in a lot of French high schools , that's why learning new "tricks" (class website, blogs, powerpoint , quiz games, group work, information gaps, jigsaw , graphics, quick thinks etc…etc..) to attract the students 'attention has been greatly appreciated . Thank you !

Moreover , I implemented the use of Vocaroo and Rachel (la cle des langues/rachel) in my 12th graders class to help them prepare their next oral presentation on "hispanics in The US". Students will use these two websites to train themselves before speaking , to improve their pronunciation .
I will record their oral presentation each time they have one every trimester throughout the school year and we will check their improvement at the end of the year before their exam as far as their pronunciation is concerned.
My students seem to be eager to start this experience and see how their way to speak and pronounce evolve.

Then , I gave the NYC webquest to my 10th graders . I took them to the computer room to do the webquest :
 http://questgarden.com/author/create/preview.php?u=163961&l=163961-131104023429&pt=student&p=introduction
They liked doing it but I noticed they had difficulties to find the right answer in the wide range of information contained in wikipedia . I had to teach them how to scan documents to find what they were looking for .
Actually , students are used to some websites they know to handle because they use them regularly such as Facebook or you tube but they are not very comfortable with new ones for them and we have to give them methods to be more efficient .

Anyway , many changes for me this week with my students ! Exciting and scaring at the same time more for me than for them I think .
After 6 weeks , I start seeing things change ……..but I need more time to feel totally comfortable with all these novelties !
Take it day by day !

Webquest on NYC

Here is the link of the webquest I created for my students on NYC



http://questgarden.com/author/create/preview.php?u=163961&l=163961-131104023429&a=&p=introduction&pt=student

I am going to work on it with my class next Wesnesday . I hope it will work ! 
I will let you know!

WHAT A WEEK !!!!!
Working , reading , thinking , questioning my work , changing ……………so many things to do !
A very demanding task indeed!

At first I felt a little bit lost among all the terms given this week : PBL, Rubrics, assessment, webquests , holistic grading …and step by step I made links between the training we receive as teachers in France , the French school curriculum we follow and what I was reading in this course , this week .

Actually many techniques presented this week can be found in what we call the CECRL (the common European framework of languages) which was published in 2001 by the European Council of Europe but started being used in school in 2005/2007.

For years , I and my colleagues , centered our teaching on "learning" "feeding students" and for 7/8 years now , we are focusing on learners to accompany them in their learning.

All these techniques presented this week in the course ,create a relationship between  the learner -the teacher - the learning.
These tools can be very efficient to involve the learners in their evolution , their progress , their way of learning , their bond with their peers.
But it also requires trust, respect , will to progress , envy to learn , to share between each student , the group he/she belongs to and the teacher ……which is not always the case …..

Our goal as teacher is "to create a supportive classroom environment in which students feel comfortable with one another " and with their own learning , as it is said in http://www.nclrc.org/ (alternative assessment ) ; but the reality of the class is not always as idyllic !

Anyway ,PBL and webquest are what I worked the most on this week but I definitely have to complete my reading of alternative assessment and holistic grading . These are topics , techniques that I have to deepen and master to be able to use them with my classes.

Finally , as far as rubrics are concerned , after reading some of my foreign colleagues , I noticed that the one I proposed is maybe too centered on the quality of the language and maybe not enough focused on students' behavior  and  involvement .

Changing habits is always hard but I am working on it !

Happy halloween to all of you !

Week four is about to end and I have been working a lot this week . It has been a very demanding week for me with a lot of reading , creative activities , sharing with colleagues –which I like a lot .

I realized ,thanks to Sean’ s remarks that I may have been demanding too much to my students most of the time . When I worked on the ABCD objectives , I noticed that I was asking more than one objective to be reached by my students and I realized that it may have had a discouraging effect on some of my weak students .

When you have been teaching for many years ,you get into habits that are sometimes difficult to change and this course offers me the opportunity to refresh my way of thinking and planning my lessons . It is a great opportunity to question my work and I wish I could have had this opportunity before .

Anyway , better late than never !

I also really enjoy reading and experiencing what some of my colleagues in this course are proposing , sharing with all of us . It participates in my reflections about my teaching .

Thank you all for this lively adventure which will continue next week with new discoveries !

See you next week ! 

My students enjoyed Dvolver website

Here are two of my students 'dialogues:

http://www.dvolver.com/live/movies-907579

http://www.dvolver.com/live/movies-907652

They are 9 th graders .
 The assignment was :
Create a dialogue between two characters . They are two friends who are exchanging their opinion about the new school year , their new friends and the new school .

 Write questions in English  (at least four )

They loved doing this mini movie and were very proud of what they had done

But I have a problem : How to correct them ?
I do not have access to what they wrote and going through the 26 of them individually is too time consuming .
If you have ideas , I would be very grateful !

Week 3 and its load of new weblinks !

Week 3 already!
Just before starting to write my report today I read David Garcia 's blog . David seems overwhelmed by the huge quantity of ideas , web links etc..we receive every week .
I also have the same feeling specially on Monday when I discover the infinite number of links we are given access to and we have to work on .
I do hope we will have the possibility to go over all these links after the end of the course to study them more thoroughly .
We need to "digest" the enormous quantity of information.

Anyway , It is Tuesday and I have already opened my delicious account , I have put some links , I have read some articles about CALL and I went through a number of websites to teach oral skills such as www.esl.about.com where I found a quiz on national stereotype that I am going to use with one of my classes.
But I also found proverbs board games in www.esl-galaxy.com and my TOP , number one site for the week : vocaroo in the classroom . I love it ! so easy !

The more I go on the internet , the more I want to go and stay longer each time ....It seems as if you are attracted to it and I start understanding the teenagers who are addicted to it.
However my job and my private life help me to control the time spent on the computer but it is the first time in my life that I am sitting in front of my computer for such a  long time !
Am I becoming a geek ?

This week starts with an avalanche of websites to look at , documents to read . I am very impressed by the quantity and the quality of the information we are given. I have already participated in" improve your teaching "courses in England or in France but I have never received so many well-thought advice ,efficient  ideas ,and varied information as we are offered in this course .

It is also the first time for me to follow an E.course , I mean being taught through the internet . I guess it is one of the reason why we are given access to so many documents ,which is good and overwhelming at the same time !Yet, I miss the one to one real contact with teachers or our supervisor ( Even if Sean is always present and active through mails). I sometimes would like to have the opportunity to exchange , to discuss "live"and  not  thanks to the mails .

 

Anyway ,I am very interested in having the opportunity to follow this course and I learn something new everyday . A new site , a new teaching approach reading the blogs of my colleagues . We have so many different conditions of teaching !

I really enjoy reading your blogs and I talk about what I discovered with my colleagues in my school . I am sharing what I learned with them . It opens us to new ideas , new teaching approaches.

 

Let 's go back to my aims for the week now: I looked at a few  websites to search infos about Ellis Island.

As I explained in nicenet , I am going to work with a class of 12th graders who are preparing their "baccalaureat" : the end of high school diploma in France .

We are working on "mythical places" in the USA .

I went on different websites : American memory (too long to find complete infos , not clear enough for me ) then I went on library and archival exhibitions on the net which led me to ellis island .org and then ellis island timeline which I found very useful , well organised and clear

and finally wikipedia : ellis island (wikipedia is one of my favourite site !)

Some students will have to read these two pages and sum up the content to present it to the rest of the class.

A second group will watch a video on you tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=hlHGDw14JZ8

and will have to share what they heard with the first group and then we will start a debate on immigration in the US nowadays .

I may ask them to open a blog each to put complementary infos they will find on the net so they will be able to share their knowledge on the subject . It would be a sort of copycat of what we are doing with our blogs.

I may also ask them to present their mythical place in the US: a place they have heard of or admire. 

They will use videos , power point , photos etc....and will make an oral presentation to the class.

As you must have understood , my students need to have learn a lot of facts about the American culture an history for their exam so instead of using the book only we will use new tools (I guess new for me but certainly not for them !)

I have been browsing "the documents"we have been given , I mean the blogs , websites etc...and I have found two interesting websites I would like to share with you :

  1- Demunca website :http://dvmunca.blogspot.com/
where you can find http://www.dvolver.com/live/home.html , for students to make their own film and which seems very interesting for teenage students .
I have decided to try it with my 9th grade pupils next week and I will let you know how it worked out.

  2-Julia Koifman' s blog in which she tells us about using" you tube" to help students like poetry . It seems very interesting .

I know it is the right way to take but it requires a lot of questionning , re-assessing  my way of teaching since the pupils are more and more demanding and very quickly bored and uninterested in what is presented to them .

Learning the technique , discovering the new tools , adapting my teaching ....a real revolution for me but I know it is the route to take .
Thank you for your help!

I am so happy I managed to create this blog !
It is a total discovery for me even if it seems ridiculous !
I had heard about blogs before but had never used one or even create one !!
I am still wondering how I could use it with my students as it is so new for me . I am thinking about it .
New horizons seem to appear ahead ....to be continued

hello to my new colleagues from Toulouse , France