DigitaLang

This video is the fruit of a long project my 4th year students have been working on this year. The video is called: “A vision of Italian Students today -  Our Thoughts.”

The video was entirely produced by my students. We posted this as a reply to Prof. Mike Wesch’s video “A Vision Of Students Today,” which you can see at the bottom of this post.

Prof. Wesch’s video discusses the old-fashioned methods many teachers still use in class. If you are an educator and you haven’t seen it yet, you really should. My students have explored the same theme in this video.

Everything you see in this video was written, organised, filmed and publicised (at our school) by the students of our class. This includes the writing of questions, posting them to an online survey host. The statistics quoted in the second part of the video are based on the online questionnaire written entirely by the class. We then turned all the data into the script for our video. Oh, and English is our second language too!

Seeing as the results of our survey showed that by far the most popular means of communication in the school is via SMS, we did an experiment and organised the creation of our Flash Cards via SMS. This is why you’ll see some of the flash cards more than once!

The whole school was invited to reply to our survey, which asked what our schoolmates attitudes are to the Italian education system. I think you’ll agree, the results are surprising in more ways than one.

Here’s the (fantastic) video produced by my students:

And here is Prof. Wesch’s Original:

This year I have organised a series of ICT and Web 2.0 training semninars for the Office of Foreign Languages and Bi-lingualism in Alto Adige (Italy.) They run 2 language libraries, the MediaTeca in Merano and the Multilanguage Centre in Bolzano.  This is a short introduction to IWBs, or Interactive White Boards that I will be presenting today.

The presentation is in 4 parts; A quick look at research intro IWB use in language teaching; some Do’s and Don’ts when using IWBs, written by myself, a great film from www.teachers.tv plus, best of all, some practical ideas from my friends and colleagues on Twitter. The presentation also looks at websites suitable for IWB use, as well as pointing out some of the types of IWB software available for language teaching.

Hope that it can be useful to you too!

I stumbled across this handy, home-made video comparison of the €3000+ Smart Interactive White Board and the €50 or so Wiimote Whiteboard the other day. As it’s done from the perspective of teachers I think it’s findings, both positive and negative, about the Wiimote board are really interesting.

Best,

Seth

Last summer I wrote a post about a n IWB that costs just €50 that the technology guru / geek Johnny Lee had invented using an infra-red pen and a Wii remote. I was really excited about it thinking that maybe this could help many more schools get IWB technology into the class.

I made myself the €50 IWB, I tried it out a few times last summer and I must admit the results were not all that encouraging. I didn’t think much more of it until recently when I “met” a guy called Chris Hill (thanks to my friend Enza via Twitter). Chris is a big evangelist of the Wii remote IWB. This started getting me interested again in the project. I’ve been looking again at my Wii console think “Should I drag you back to the classroom? The answer now, I think is, yes, I will.

My desire to try out the Wiimote IWB again is because Chris has written a handy and comprehensive FAQ on the Wii IWB drawing on his experiences and sharing solutions to the niggly little problems teachers might find when trying to set up their own Wii IWB. Here’s a quick snippet of his post:

How much does it cost? / Is it really only $50?
The controller for the Nintendo Wii is for sale throughout the United States for $40. [It costs about €50 in Europe - Seth] You can build an infrared pen for $5-6.  The software is free to download.  The cost of the computer, projector, and Bluetooth adapter (if your computer does not have built-in Bluetooth) are not included in the $50.

I can’t make my own infrared pen.  Can I buy one?
Absolutely.  Do a Google search and you will find several options starting as low as $6.

Do I have to modify the Wiimote? / Can I still use it with my Wii?
No / Yes.  The Wiimote connects to the computer via Bluetooth, the same way it connects to the Wii.  You don’t have to open the Wiimote, break it, or reprogram it.  So, if you (or your kids) have a Wii, you can use the equipment you already have for both purposes.

How do I get started?
Download the free software (Mac version or PC version), build an infrared pen (see my demo) or buy one online, connect to the Wiimote via Bluetooth (open your Bluetooth devices, push the 1 and 2 buttons on the Wiimote, add the device) , run the software, calibrate it (push the “calibrate button,” click on the targets), and you are done.

And Chris has loads of other great advice in his post as well as elsewhere in his blog. Definitely worth checking out if you’re interested in trying out the Wiimote white board!

All the best,

Seth

Wiimote Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/yerahg/551627536/

I saw a fantastic video by Alvin Trusty recently where he talks about how to create high-quality PowerPoint presentations. There are many great ideas in his video, among the ones that I really liked were the use of Flickr Creative Commons photos, the excellent Flickr photo search tool Compfight (which also finds creative Commons photos for you) and Alvin’s move and grow Powerpoint animation (watch the video to find out how this works!) I used the advice in this video to write the Philosophically Speaking PowerPoint lesson I recently posted here. It’s good advice!

Although this video is 45 minutes long, I think you’ll agree that it’s 45 minutes that are VERY well spent! Enjoy!

How to Create a Great PowerPoint – Take 2.0 from Alvin Trusty on Vimeo.

WARNING! This video will seriously damage your contentedness with previous PowerPoints you’ve made! I am now re-doing several of my favourite PowerPoint lessons!

Best,
Seth.

This year’s British Council / IATEFL Conference in Milan was on the theme of CLIL and Learning Technologies. I was really pleased and privileged to give a workshop there, especially seeing as so many of my fellow presenters gave great presentations full of great ideas and useful hints and tips.

By far the biggest highlight of the conference for me was the opportunity to work with such an enthusiastic and participatory group of teachers in my workshop. It was a real privilege  to be able to help such an experienced and  knowledgeable group of teachers integrate technology into their CLIL teaching. We had great fun during the session, and there was a lot of great positive feedback about the work me and my colleagues at Martino Martini have been doing. There was some great debate too about the practical time constraints of integrating technology into CLIL. I think, all told, we agreed the results are worth the effort.

As I promised the teachers at the conference (cross my heart!) here is the PowerPoint presentation with details of all the ideas and tools we looked at during the workshop. If you are one of those great teachers who came along, I hope this helps you! If you would like try something out with your students and want to talk about it, or if you just fancy a bit of help or advice on something we looked at during the workshop, I’d love to hear from you! Leave me a comment (by clicking on that little box with a number on up there at the top left of this blog post – that will take you to the comments section.)

Finally, be sure to check back again in a day or two and I’ll get the History, Science and Geography resources we looked at posted here as well as our fabulous videos!

All the best,

Seth.

UPDATE: For some crazy reason I think anyone who uses Internet Explorer will not have been able to read this post until now.  If that includes you, I’m really sorry! I hope you’ll now be able to read this okay. As always, I look forward to reading any comments and would love to continue discussing the work we looked at in my IATEFL workshop with you all.

Seth.