The Goal I will be
concentrating on is for Standard 1c - Promote
student reflection using collaborative tools to reveal and clarify students’ conceptual
understanding and thinking, planning, and creative processes. My students will
be creating a presentation of a Francophone city in
French. They will need to research the city so they will need to use search engines and the
Internet. They will need organization software like Kidspiration for concept
mapping. Students will use presentation software like Prezi, Google Docs,
Power Point, Powtoons, iMovie, Movie Maker, or Animoto to create their
city presentation. Students will need a tutorial on how to insert movies and
videos into the presentation. I will use YouTube tutorials to show the students
how to use this for their projects. The students and I will need to use
computers, the Internet, and I will also use a projector to show samples and
tutorials to the class.
I will be incorporating
several different learning strategies during this project. I will have the
students brainstorming some topics that they would like to know about
Francophone cities. They will be completing individual research and creating
individual presentations about their chosen city In French. Students will be
completing handouts to evaluate their research and verify their facts. They
will review their facts and answer class generated questions about their
presentations to verify that they have enough and interesting facts about
their cities. The audience will also be choosing which cities they would
like to visit based on their peer's presentations. They will also explain why
they would like to visit that particular city.
The most important aspect of this project is having the students use
French to describe their city. As of today, this is the only
aspect that I have worked on with the students. We have covered two
chapters where they have learned to describe themselves using adjectives,
how to use the verbs to be and to have, introduce people and things to others,
and they have learned their numbers in French. So far they have practiced
speaking French into audio recorders and are experienced at listening to
themselves and critiquing their work and possibly deciding to rerecord
their audio segments. These skills will again be used for their
Francophone city presentations. So far so good.
Hello,
ReplyDeleteI love the project idea that you described! The students will have so many opportunities to be creative! I also think it is a great idea to have them using audio devices in order to record themselves and play it back to correct any errors in their speech or pronunciation. Last year, when my students were creating VoiceThreads, I was shocked to see how many chose to rerecord their explanations because it was hard to hear or unclear. It was amazing how determined they were to improve. This is especially valuable when learning a new language. VoiceThread may be a great idea for this project that you are describing, now that I think of it. The students can match pictures with their verbal explanations and present to the class. However, you are certainly reaching a large variety of learning styles by offering so many choices for presentations. I know you stated that the students would be completing individual projects, but are they allowed to collaborate with others if they find a creative way to do so? To illustrate conversation, for example?
Sounds awesome!
Jessica B.
Jessica,
DeleteThank you for the idea of using Voice Thread. I actually have not considered that yet. I will have to investigate that and see if it is easier to use for the students. Sometimes the students have a difficult time adding audio into their Power Point presentation. I have had the students pair together while completing chapter material for the French lesson work, and they pair together for brainstorming the facts and ideas for the Francophone research. However, I ask that they complete the research and the presentation on their own. This project is a combination of all of the chapters that we have covered throughout the year. This project is counted as a test grade so I would expect the students to be able to complete this individually. I do have the students have complete conversations throughout the chapters leading up to the project and tests. I then have the students listening to the presentations and explaining why they want to visit a particular city in French. Therefore I can determine if they were listening and could comprehend the projects. If you have any ideas about making this more collaborative, I would really love to here the idea. I think I am too close to the project to be able to see another way. I really could use some help in that area. Thanks!
Corrie
Corrie,
ReplyDeleteThe project is amazing and authentic for your students. It is so interesting that your students will write it in French. I am assuming that you teach French in high school. The tutorials that the students will watch to insert videos is a good strategy to use for your students. It will keep them interested and engaged in the project. It will improve students attention and provide resources that will enhance students interest.
Learning a new language is difficult as it is, however, when you give them a project or activity that makes them feel like they are actually there, it gives the students that motivation to ,learn as much as they can.
~Tracy
Tracy,
DeleteI actually teach a high school level 1 French class to 8th graders. They are geared to take AP French their senior year so they start French a year earlier then the other 8th graders. I definitely wait until the end of the year to assign this project so the students will have every opportunity to learn the language before completing the project.
I do hope that they are excited about the project. I do want them to be involved and be motivated to learn. While the project does sound a little advanced, the language skills needed are based on our text book and they will be using the present tense. So that makes the project easier for my students. They are able to be creative and make a fun project. I did this project last year but it was not as structured or as meaningful to the students. This year, my students will be very prepared and the project will be more detailed to help the students do meaningful research on the Internet.
Thanks,
Corrie
Corrie,
ReplyDeleteI think that you have really done a very thoughtful application of technology tools into your students learning. The presentation tools that you are using to both integrate technology and assess your students builds a solid conceptual foundation of technology tools in student learning. The only aspect that I think that you should highlight is sharing this information with parents, staff and the community. I think that if you were to share student work on the information of their city through the use of a social media tool it might motivate students to not only complete the required work but also show more motivation in developing something that they would be proud to show off. Great Project!
Cody Gabriel
Cody,
DeleteThank you for your warm and fuzzy thoughts! I hear what you are saying about the student work going public to parents and the community. We have a curriculum fair in May every year where our student work is on display for the parents and incoming 6th graders to see. However, we have no way to present our technological projects to those parents. Every teacher would need a computer set up to showcase the student work and logistically there is no way to set that up. Our principal is very worried about the dangers of the Internet and exposing our students to harm on the Internet. She has not allowed our staff to create blogs for the classrooms. She wants to be able to monitor all emails from student to student and teacher to student. Therefore, I am reluctant to approach the subject of publishing our work. We do show the presentations to the class and I send copies to the Language supervisor and the high school French teachers. So they do know they have an audience.
Thanks,
Corrie
This sounds like a great project!
ReplyDeleteI love that students can connect their interest of the French language and culture together while demonstrating their knowledge. Of course being from a technology course, I also like the technology use aspect. Hands on and it can be used as a summative assessment, sounds like a great assignment to me!
Thanks!
DeleteHi Corrie,
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned about having your students to prepare presentations on the topic of “Francophone” cities. It inspire me to ask the question which are the top two largest “Francophone” cities in the world. To my surprise, aside from Paris which is an obvious answer, the other one is not in France. According to Vigouroux and Mufwene (2012) Kinshasa- the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo- is the second largest "Francophone" urban area in the world. French is adopted as the language of government, schools, newspapers, public services and high-end commerce in the city, while Lingala is used as the street language and at home. If current demographic trends continue, Kinshasa should surpass Paris in population around 2020. An interesting assignment is to get students to look for some Kinshasans at Facebook or Twitter and interview them in French about their lives in Kinshasa.
Reference
Vigouroux, C. B. & Mufwene, S. S. (2012). Globalization and Language Vitality. Perspectives from Africa, pp. 103 & 109. London: Continuum.
Choy Ching Yee Ruby
Choy Ching Yee Ruby,
DeleteWow that is an interesting fact! It would be weird for Paris not to be the largest French speaking city in the world. Now I have my research set up for me!
As I wrote to Cody above, our principal is very worried about our students being exposed to people on the Internet. We are not allowed blogs or anything on the computers that can not be monitored through our school email system. I have been researching ePals and am writing up a proposal for next year so that my students can participate with a French/English speaking school. My students are only in level one French so that does restrict their language use a bit. We are going to be welcoming some French exchange students in the district next year, so I am hoping to have my students make connections to that school next year.
Thanks,
Corrie