Friday 20 February 2009

School Run French


Mark Pentleton of Radio Lingua Network fame has one more worked his magic and a few days ago, launched a new addition to the plethora of products already available to help you learn languages.

Called School Run French, the series of 6-7 minute episodes allow you to take advantage of the school run, football run, Brownies / Badgers / BB run - in fact, any short journey to learn or practice your French. As Mark explains

Many of our listeners have been asking for materials which they can use
with their children or grandchildren, and we've been working for some time
on the development of materials aimed at this group. We're delighted to
announce "School Run French" as the first in a series of shows which will
be aimed at younger language learners.

Picking up a language at an early age equips children with valuable skills
for life, and just as our many hundreds of thousands of adult listeners are
learning a language in their coffee break, so too can children learn a
language while they're doing something else, for example in the car on the
way to school, football practice, ballet class, or whatever.

School Run French breaks down the French language into short chunks of 6-7
minutes, and every episode contains an interactive audio game which helps
children consolidate what they've learned.

School Run French is available on iTunes to download and sample audio
episodes will be put there on a weekly basis. However, the first 'pack' of five
lessons with colourful pdf puzzle sheets is now available for £5.00 (+VAT for EU customers).

I've had a listen and I love it - so do my 'testers' - marvellous having two kids who are a acaptive audience! They like the fact that it's fun and there are games and challenges to test whether they know the answer.

Just itching for Mark to do School Run Spanish as I am constantly asked for such a resource by the parents, grandparents and carers of pupils at school. How about it, Mark? ¡Por favor!

Sunday 15 February 2009

eSafety in virtual spaces Pt2

During the session on eSafety in virtual spaces, we were shown a video clip from the European Union's Safer Internet Day (February 10th) resources.

Really interesting and powerful.



You can check out all the resources here and read more about blocking online bullying.

eSafety in virtual spaces.

What is safety? Here is the list we compiled in a workshop on the subject of eSafety in virtual spaces.

Picture 2.png
http://www.wordle.net/
Much of the material we considered n the early part of the session came from the following site -: http://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/

Here's the link to a videoclip linked to people not always being quite what they seem online - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vp5nScG6C5g

We had a discussion based around the theme - where do you draw the line? Do we mind people taking our photos? Does it matter on the context? What about children? Is this different? Should it be the matter of course that we seek written permission for use of children's images? Does this extend to their work or just their photos?

Then we were asked to come up with a scenario that could be used to provoke debate on eSafety.

Our scenario - a 10 year old child with a Facebook profile. The child has given herself a false DOB to register but then revealed the truth on her profile that she is 10 and single. The profile was open to people who weren't friends as she was member of a network. What issues does this raise?

Another scenario - some pupils in a class don't like a teacher and provoke them - the pupils video the teacher arguing with them in the heat of the moment and publish it online. It is devastating for the teacher and they hung themself.

And a further scenario - pupils make a video on their mobiles of children wrestling and publish it. A few weeks later, the police arrive with a complaint from a parent who feels the school is a violent place.

Very interesting - what do you think? Any ideas of your own on this subject? You might gain further insight by listening to Edtechroundup (ETRU) Podcast 4!

Creativity in eTwinning seminar pt2

Here are a couple of movies of ideas from the first running of the Creativity in eTwinning workshop this morning.

The first shows some of the ideas raised about creativity and what it feels like to be creative.


The second are the reflections of the Sunglasses group on what they consider to be the ideal conditions for creativity to happen.

Creativity in eTwinning seminar pt1

A really interesting seminar with lots of discussion about creativity and innovation.

Key ideas included the need for freedom, for space and for the acceptance of diversity; the need to spark ideas in one another, to accept that there are no right and wrong ideas and that the best conditions for creativity can be different for each person. Here are a number of photos taken of the ideas sparked by the session. Perhaps you'd like to add your own comments.

Photo from an exhibition!

Here is a compilation of my photos of the exhibition so far!

eTwinning conference Prague 2009


eTwinning conference Prague 2009, originally uploaded by lisibo.

I've been blogging all weekend from the European eTwinning Conference in Prague on the special blog set up for the event. I've also been tweeting our activities when I've had a chance.

Thought I'd put some of the posts on ¡Vámonos! as well! If you're interested, there are many more posts by other delegates found on http://blog.eun.org/etwinningconference2009/

Saturday 14 February 2009

Feliz Día de San Valentín xx

Friday 13 February 2009

A thought from eTwinning Conference Day 1.

eTwinning in Prague


Wenceslas Square, Prague, originally uploaded by lisibo.

I've just arrived in Prague for the European eTwinning cnference entitled Creativity and eTwinning. The conference hall is very full so I am cross legged on the floor - however, I am comfortable, have free WiFi and my crossed legs are the perfect Mac stand!

Edward de Bono - he of the thinking hats - is currently speaking - I'm tweeting his talk as I blog too!

Also blogging on the eTwinning blog so looks like I might be busy!

It's good to be back in Prague - the picture is from my last visit, also for an eTwinning conference last year!

More as it happens!

Monday 9 February 2009

Pedagogs :o)


I love stickers! I love sticking them on my books, and I love sticking them on children as rewards!

So I am always looking for funky stickers, particularly in Spanish for my classes.

There are lovely ones available from
Language Stickers in French, German, Spanish, Italian, Mandarin, Welsh, Polish, Portuguese, Turkish, Russian and Latin
Superstickers in French, German, Spanish and Welsh
Linguascope in French, German, Italian, Welsh, Mandarin and Spanish.
Brainwaves
in French, German, Italian, Polish, Spanish, Turkish and Welsh.

But some of my favourites come from ...

Perhaps it's my juvenile nature or my love of dressing up, but I love the resources available from Pedagogs! And so do pupils.

So I was really pleased to receive an email today offering 15% off during February!

Stickers are available in Spanish, French, Mandarin (tradtional and simplified) and German, and feature little cartoon people dressed as cowboys, firemen - well, see for yourself below!

And I've just noticed that the design of their charity tote bag has changed - I've got a blue one but the new one is pink with a mermaid... I feel the need to shop!!

Monday 2 February 2009

7 things you may or may not know about me!


7 by duncan
Attribution-NonCommercial License
As I have now been tagged twice for this meme, by @ajep and @stuart422, and as I have an unexpectedly 'free' day, guess I'd better get on with it!

Seven things you may wish to know about me....

1. On my very first school photograph I am wearing a Muppets T-shirt and shorts, and look like a boy. My Mum assures me that's what I wanted to wear - and I guess she's probably right! I was an opinionated 5 year old!

2. I appeared on Dutch national TV in cycling shorts and a crop top - but did not fair as badly as my cycling mate whose bottom was filmed cycling away into the distance.

3. In the sixth form, I was nicknamed 'Anneka' due to my penchant for jumpsuits and dungarees and the speed at which I moved, and was regularly greeted in the corridors with shouts of "Stop the clock, she's found the clue!"

4. I have an irrational phobia of cotton wool - even the word makes me shiver and my mouth go dry so I have to lick my teeth.

5. I once sang Lucky Stars on stage with Dean Friedman at Ronnie Scotts in Birmingham. I was volunteered by my 'friends' :os

6. I had the chickenpox aged 21 on my year abroad in Spain. Not a pleasant experience :o(

7. Although I'm not technically Spanish, I really should be!

So - who can I tag? I think.... Chris Fuller, Andrew Rhodes, Helena Butterfield, Lynne Horn, Joe Rowing, Sinclair Mackenzie and Dave Baynham!

Snow stops play!


Today I was supposed to be in Leicester speaking about eTwinning and the potential of using Voki, Voicethread and Audacity in projects. However, the snow got in the way so I'm not there but at home. I sent my presentation and notes to Jenny from the British Council so those brave souls that made it could have a look at what I might have said.

Below you will find all that I would have presented today given the chance.


Notes for Madrid - Free Legal Forms


Madrid - Free Legal Forms

And here's the slideshare related to Whitehouse Common's awardwinning project - if you want to see examples of the sort of things we did, leave me a message and I'll upload some of those too.

Sunday 1 February 2009

Who would have thought....

Yesterday I ran in my first ever running race. At Teachmeet on January I stood up in front of a room full of people and told them what I'd been doing in my classroom with technology.

If you'd told me a year ago that's what I'd be doing in January 2009, I would have laughed. Lots.

But, as I entitled my Teachmeet presentation - What a difference a year makes!

Below is what I said at Teachmeet, along with links to the work we've done (omitted to show any of it on the night as I was so nervous!)


Lisa Stevens (lisibo) @ TeachMeet BETT from Learn4Life on Vimeo.

Our wiki is http://wcps.wikispaces.com and our school website http://www.whitehousecommon.org.uk

And, bless him, this is what Drew Buddie said about me!


Last one of two bits of feedback from TeachMeet at EatMeet from Learn4Life on Vimeo.

And here's the last 50m of the race in Sutton Park yesterday. It was a handicap race, with each participant estimating how long it would take them to run 5km. We were then set off that amount of time before 1a so in theory we should all have arrived in a bunch together. As it was, I finished in 26 minutes 46 seconds which was 14 seconds off my estimate, and won a prize as I was 5th nearest! Ironically, if I hadn't had to stop on the final corner because I was heaving s much, I wouldn't have won anything because I'd have been too fast.




So - what will you be doing this time next year? You never know!

Newer Posts Older Posts Home

 

blogger templates | Make Money Online