Daily Archives: October 26, 2006

Sharon Peters
Montreal, QC, Canada
Blog: http://www.mtl-peters.net/blog

Presentation Title
“Listening to the voices: student empowerment through collaborative learning projects beyond the school walls”

Bio
Sharon Peters is a secondary English teacher and an educational technology consultant. She recently completed an M.A. in educational technology while working full-time at Lower Canada College in Montreal. Her thesis work was an action research study about online collaborative learning in a blended environment for high school students. Sharon has been an active user of moodle and blogs in the classroom. She also blogs regularly about social computing and educational technology: http://www.mtl-peters.net/blog/ Her three digital native teenagers keep her motivated to explore the use of web 2.0 tools in education and to provide a vision to others about their effectiveness.

Description
Online collaborative learning projects provide students with an authentic audience and a sense of student empowerment by giving them a voice and an opportunity to engage in dialogue and feedback. The Internet has become the read/write/speak/listen web which has the power to connect students in safe, dynamic environments. This presentation will offer a rationale for collaborative online learning projects, the tools available to support the projects, ideas for types of projects, project management and real-life examples of collaborative exchanges. The presenter, from Montreal, Canada, has been participating in online projects for several years with such countries as Israel, New Zealand, Russia, the U.S. and Kuwait. Ideas on how to integrate projects into the curriculum in order to meet standards and guidelines will be offered. Exemplars of evaluation criteria will be presented. The presenter has experience with such online learning environments as Nicenet, moodle and elgg which will also be featured and explained. As much as possible, dynamic content such as screencasts, podcasts and videos will be used and organized on a wiki to make the presentation a richer multimedia experience and to permit comment feedback.

Presentation
https://k12onlinespeters.wikispaces.com/
http://k12online.wm.edu/voicesk12.wmv
http://k12online.wm.edu/excerptfriedmanint.mp3

Silvia Tolisano
Jacksonville, Florida, USA
Blog: http://www.langwitches.org/

Presentation Title
“iPods- iSpeak- iSing- iListen- iLearn”

Bio
Born in Germany, raised in Argentina and living in the USA, Silvia graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Spanish and a Master’s in Instructional Technology. Currently in her 5th year of teaching at a private elementary school, she serves as Spanish teacher and Instructional Technology Facilitator. Her own professional development continues through the use of blogs, wikis and podcasts and experimenting with other web 2.0 tools. Silvia’s outlook on literacy, available information, research, and cross-referencing opinions has changed dramatically over the last year. Many of the tools available are especially useful to the foreign language teacher and student. Blogging and other social media support reading, writing, listening, and critical thinking skills. Culturally authentic material for the foreign language classroom used to be scarce are now readily available, only a click or an RSS feed away. The tools of Web 2.0 are exactly what foreign language educators needed to better infuse the target language and culture into our students.

Description
iPods and other MP3 players have revolutionized the way kids listen to and purchase their music and videos. They are entering the classrooms as a teaching and learning tool as well. The foreign language and ESL classroom can especially benefit from the possibilities the iPod opens up, such as podcasting, video capabilities, and audio recordings. The popularity of such devices directly effects students’ engagement in the learning process. The presentation will demonstrate ideas and ways teachers can easily create and distribute authentic language and culture, pronunciation guides, audio books, lectures, notes, and much more for their students. Through a podcast and accompanying show notes on a blog, participants will hear and see specific examples how foreign language and ESL teachers can incorporate the use of MP3 players creatively to engage and motivate their students in the target language. Envision students being journalists in the target language fulfilling an authentic task of interviewing a native speaker. Imagine students using their cell phones to record a message in the target language that will be published on a blog or incorporated into a class podcast. Visualize your students listening to authentic language on their own time, extending the learning time beyond the classroom. Picture your classes creating a culturally authentic electronic recipe book and sharing them with the world.

Presentation
(PCs right click, Mac users control click to open in a new window/tab.)
http://k12online.wm.edu/ipods-ispeak-ising-ilisten-ilearn.mp3

Supporting Links
Show Notes
http://www.langwitches.org/blog/?page_id=82