My Old Blog

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...

Since my last post about using Storybird in the classroom, I must admit that the excitement among students in using this site has begun to wane.  What is interesting to note is that it seems the male students in my class are the ones expressing dissatisfaction.  My female students, on the other hand, seem to generally still show enthusiasm about it all. When asking some of the girls in the class why they like Storybird, the common response is the illustrations.  They love the colorful, cute images.  This got me thinking about what it is the boys would find appealing.  I have boys in my class who love to draw in class.  One of my students has even gone to the lengths of drawing a character representing every boy in my class! So after some searching, I stumbled upon Story Jumper.  This site allows students to design their own illustrations and write stories.  The boys were all over this new site!  Everything from wizards to robots appea...

I have been playing with Symbaloo , a tool used to organize your web spaces.  I see so much benefit to creating a web mix for language learners.  I have created 2 web mixes for French and Spanish classes.  I have created a row of tiles for different categories of resources in my class.  In the French webmix, the first row takes students to our blog and wiki.  The second takes them to the Language Guide's site and Google Translate (for vocabulary help).   The third row takes them to images for their writing prompts.  The fourth row is reserved for reading resources.  The last row is for links to videos that help develop listening skills in French. You can choose to share your webmix with the public or privately with friends.  Symbaloo lets you share via Twitter or Facebook, too. You can customize the appearance of your tiles (change colors, upload your own images). It's your own web mix so why not have fun personalizing it? I h...

shawnzrossi (Flickr) When I introduced the site called Storybird to my students, I wasn't completely certain of how they would receive it.  Would they like the wide option of images offered on the site?  Would they think it would be too "juvenile" given most of them are around 12 years of age? They have been so excited about using this tool since I mentioned that we would start publishing their stories on our wiki.   Last week, my students were working on their Harry Potter Book project in Edmodo.  One of my students, who loves to write, approached me and asked "could I please go to the Storybird site?".  I casually responded with a "yes".  Shortly after, I heard a flurry of whispering among the students and a few other students then approached asking the same question.  They were eager to write stories! So what does this experience teach me?  Apart from the fact that Storybird has become a popular tool in my classroom, it is teaching m...

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...