Friday 7 June 2013

LOTE professional learning

In the next half of the year I intend to trial using our iPads to deliver LOTE ( Languages Other Than English) I attended a PD today which I hoped would help with that. t wasn't quite what I needed but I did learn a bit about some great apps that can help with LOTE an other subjects.
The PD was in Melbourne so I travelled up there by train. ( I took a photo of Ballarat Railway Station early this morning in all its Victorian glory and another one of Southern Cross Station in Melbourne.I also took a photo of our PD which is below along with my notes from the day.
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'How to Effectively use iPads in LOTE'
Rebecca Gregory
07/06/13
Cliftons, Collins St. Melbourne

iPads enable children to work at their own pace and personalise their learning
Some languages have excellent apps (French) while others have few( Indonesian)
The iPad can provide: feedback, repetition, student talk time, real communication with target language speakers.
A lot of potential to link in with real language speakers overseas ( Skype) however there might be some Issues with time differences

Considerations
Time and effort v benefit
Reliable wifi connection
Saving an sharing work- need to have reliable access to work produced by students.

Socrative
Great online quiz activity for a whole class using the student paced quiz. Results can be emailed as a spreadsheet.Questions can be short answer or multiple choice or a game called 'Space Race'.- use the online version to set up quizzes.
( Log on as a teacher and go to Manage Quizes to start)
other good apps
A+Flashcards Pro
Antiblank lite
QUIZLET
Teachers use the website to create the quiz and students should use the iPad.
QUIZLET also contains games as well as flash cards. Children could use it to create their own lists and to practice it themselves or share it with other students.This app is reasonably easy to use.
Edmodo is another app that can be used to make a quiz and for formative assessment.These quizzes can be done at any time and from home.
For uploading videos Rebecca recommended Drop Box.
QR Codes from the Barcode+Free app was explored and although time consuming to prepare looks like a lot of fun.Rebecca set up some QR Codes for us to explore with our iPads.

Apps to help with speaking languages
Make Dice Lite: This is a simple game. You can put words on dice that they roll by shaking their iPads.
Speaking apps:
Puppet Pals
Talking Tom
Morfo
Voice Record Pro
Garage Band- Podcast

At Glen Park
My next task in introducing LOTE to the classroom will be to ask children what they want to learn ( from a short list) and then find some suitable apps for them to work with from early next term. I will provide them with three half an hour sessions just before lunch time to explore their apps. They will be asked to create a 'presentation' ( Including a teaching tool of their own design using iPad apps mentioned in this report ) at the end of the half year to show what they've learned and we ( myself and the students) will consider the future of the approach for 2014.
They can use QUIZLET to make their own Flashcard quiz, Morfo to practice their pronunciation and SOCRATIVE to set their own class activities. From talking to LOTE teachers during the PD they felt that using only iPads to teach LOTE was not sufficient. They believed that existing apps weren't good enough to use without support from trained teachers.( I will investigate that ) I would like to continue with the trial for this half year and judge our results at the end of the trial.







2 comments:

  1. Beside Quizlet, you can also use Superflashcard to make your own flashcard quiz. It is an effective tool for your study process. You can learn faster in class and home because its benefit and convenience.

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    Replies
    1. thanks Eric, I'll certainly be giving it a go. I think the kids would love making them for their friends.

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