My Old Blog

Please view this tutorial about Edmodo, a safe learning management system for students. I have used Edmodo with French language learners (online teaching) and with my Grade 6 French Immersion Students as part of our Harry Potter Book Project with students from Cairo, Egypt. It is a very useful tool if you don't have Moodle or an affordable (or free) Moodle hosting service. I am a strong advocate for the open source movement :-)

Thanks to this great post by one of my favorite teacher bloggers, Ana Maria Menezes, I have learned how to create a quiz using PhotoPeach . This is my first time actually using PhotoPeach but I am not new to using images in the French Immersion classroom.  I see so much potential and benefits to using images as a medium of language instruction.  Images serve as visual aids and can help students more readily form associations between objects/feelings/places and their words in the target language. I have been a big fan of using images as part of my "Image mysterieuse" weekly writing activity in class.  I would put up an image from Flickr and ask students to write about what might be transpiring in the image.  Sometimes I would also use sentence prompts to accompany the images, facilitating the thought process behind this writing exercise. Using PhotoPeach to create Grammar quizzes would undoubtedly be a more refreshing approach to teaching grammar or spelling...

Storybird is an amazing tool that I blogged about earlier this year when I was using it with my Grade 6 French Immersion students.  It is an art-inspired story-writing tool that can be great for students who have a difficult time getting started with writing. Recently, Storybird has made some changes to its site.  Now children under the age of 13 can create their own Storybird accounts.  The child would need to provide a parent's e-mail address to complete the sign-up process.  Please view my brief tutorial below for further details: IMPORTANT NOTE: Your child should not make their Storybirds public; otherwise, the stories are taken down from the site if they are in any language other than English. To keep it private, your child should select "Menu" once finished with writing his/her story and select "Publish this Storybird": When scrolling down the page, there is an option to make the Storybird public or private.  Select "Private".  Th...

There is growing discussion around the term "personalized learning" in British Columbia. The idea behind personalized learning is that students can have their learning experiences and instruction customized to fit their abilities and learning preferences.  I like to think of personalized learning as a buffet of several choices of items that the learner can choose from.  The intent is to ensure the learner is getting the most out of his/her learning journey. basykeyes (Flickr) When I think of personalized learning, what comes to mind is a student being able to listen to an audio version of a chapter in a book on her mp3 player while reading along; she can then go to Khan Academy and watch a video on adding fractions with different denominators while taking notes.  She can replay the video as many times as needed.  She can then go into a learning management platform such as Moodle or Edmodo to ask her peers a question about today's video lecture on the Econom...

This fantastic gem appeared in my Facebook status update feed today.  The American Association of Teachers of French shared a link to this pdf version of a board game you can use with students in your classroom. This is a great game for students to learn parts of the body, colors, and action verbs.  Instructions are also enclosed in the pdf attachment at this link. Amusez-vous!

My grade 6 French Immersion students have been using Storybird to create stories in the classroom.  I can't even think of one student who is not excited about using this site.  Even the students who usually struggle to construct a few sentences on paper in French seem to have a plethora of ideas to write down using this tool. Storybird contains several colorful illustrations that its audience can use to create stories.  You can then publish them for the world to see or mark them as private.  Because this service is only offered in English, Storybirds will not permit public views of stories in other languages at this time.  You can, however, create stories in other languages and keep them marked as private.  Should you wish to display them on a blog or wiki, you can send them to yourself by e-mail, create a screenshot of the Storybird's cover page, and add a link to its image that you received via e-mail. Our students are still working on mastering som...

I came across this video in my Facebook feed today, thanks to a friend who is a Language Educator. The teacher featured in the video explains the value of using music to teach young children a language:  I also see the value of using songs with adult learners. There are plenty of wonderful songs that can be used to teach verb tenses, vocabulary, expressions, and grammar. I have used Youtube videos with adult learners for this purpose and find that in addition to teaching the language, I am also teaching the culture through them.  I would strongly recommend always preview the lyrics carefully to ensure the words are appropriate for the audience. I would also recommend providing the lyrics to students so they may sing along. For young children, encourage as much movement to music as possible. Correspond hand and body actions with words to help them solidify connections between the spoken language and its actual meanings.  Consider using songs with your lang...

I have been very intrigued by the "Flipped Classroom" for some time. I have created a page about this approach which you can view on my site at this link. While teaching online last year, I pondered how much of what I was doing could be applied to a classroom in a face-to-face context. I provided learners with videos and links to sites and documents that aided their understanding of what we were learning about. I also provided learners with a space to discuss and ask questions pertaining to topics we were exploring. I am currently teaching grade 6 French Immersion learners face-to-face in a public school. I have been fortunate to teach in a classroom equipped with a digital projector, laptop, and speakers. I have been extensively making use of digital resources with learners across the subjects. I have also created a wiki for learners to visit and view all content that we are exploring in the classroom. I would like to eventually reverse my approach to teaching...

This is a video tutorial introducing Il était une histoire , one of my favorite literacy sites for children in French. I am currently using this site in my class with Grade 6 French Immersion students for our Guided Reading sessions.

Below are some resources that I think will be highly useful to teachers and parents interested in the "Flipped Classroom" (or reverse instruction) model: Articles Explaining the Flipped Classroom Approach Copy of Learning Styles and The Flipped Classroom (Neil Commons' Presentation) How the Flipped Classroom is Radically Transforming Learning Real Flipped Classroom (Edudemic) Warning: Flipping Your Classroom May Lead to Increased Student Understanding (Teaching Science and Math) Infographic Explaining the Flipped Classroom Approach