Oz et Virgo

I went to have a look at Chris’ blog and I listen to his last podcast. A year 5 class was speaking to someone in Antarctica via Skype. It was some how incredible. But what interested the most in his post is that he used Google Earth to find someone in Antarctica with whom he could start a conversation.

I then, had a look at Google Earth and again I found a fantastic tool many teachers in diverse KLAs could use.

For a LOTE teacher it is fantastic, we can locate places we are speaking about, give our students a more precise idea of how people live in France. Many times I heard that all French live in flats. For example we could ask students to locate a specific city and ask them to list different types of habitations or ask them to list different types of landscapes. Students can interact with the geographical aspect of the country. Especially for students who are living so far from other countries it is such an interesting tool to use. The most touristic places have cultural points about food or habits or geographical wonders.

I am again vey enthusiastic and really the list of new technologies, online tools and other media a teacher can use in his or her KLA seems endless.

As Michelle mentioned in her post TALE- the portal to Language Learning, parents and teachers are concern about children and students using a safe online environment.

TALE and other websites built bridges between communities and allow teachers, parents and children to access easily and quickly to information. It is interesting to see that many people are willing to share their knowledge or information with others in the perceptive of offering a better education to our children.

This type of websites have a place in the classroom. Teachers can use them not only to seek information with their students but also to teach their students how to look for intersting information and documents. Consequently, students learn to define their research and to develop a critic thinking.

Virginie and Ming’s Video

This the video we produced for our elective C. Hope you will have fun. We did!

Mathhew, in his post Connecting learning across the world, mentioned a French teacher, Bernard Garcin who has been running a collaborative project with 30 schools around the globe. They use online technologies to learn languages.

To me, this project is fantastic to more than one level. First of all as a future LOTE teacher, it is exactly the kind of project I would like to engage my students with. Secondly, Bernard Garcin proved me that even in France, mentalities are changing and a more constructivist education is taking place. Lastly, In France as in many other countries, schools are closing in small villages and youths are living those places. This type of e-learning and e-teaching could be one of the key to maintain schools in these areas.