rosetta2032 has begun...

Fake accounts have been created, fake websites are up and running and the Phase 1 task sheet has been sent. The Bunker (edmodo) is also ready. 

Students have just been sent the following:

 

My name is Glen, aka rosetta2032. My apologies for previous emails that may have confused you but a certain level of secrecy is needed. I have successfully navigated the portal and am contacting you from the Year 2032. The future for you is bleak. It's not a happy place here because there is one amongst you who will one day go on to wreak havoc in the world.

It all changed for the worse in 2018, but sometime in 2011 the man known as BenK hid 5 coins and a code. These were later used somehow to gain the power he now has. We need you to find where he hid them and pass that information on to me. 

Your first step will be to find your way to our Bunker; this is a place we can work together. Please join the resistance with me. The attached document will guide you on your way. I will be working with your language teachers - they too have been contacted.

Be vigilant and be aware.

@rosetta2032

Tomorrow our year 7 students will be searching for the future ruler of our world, reading through clues in the target languages of French, German and Japanese. They will need to complete profiles and find clues left along the way (working together) - mind you 'the way' is far from complete. Phase 1 and 2 are ready and Phase 3 will be something along the lines of a Google earth tour. From there they will need to navigate some cuiltural etiquette to find clues and at some stage there are plans for a trek into minecraft for a treasure hunt activity. 

At the moment I am not sure how successful this will all be but perfect or not, we expect to learn a lot from it - hopefully the students will learn some language and collaborative skills on the way too. It has been a learning experience trying to create it and I have discovered some cool sites and tools on the way. iSpeech for text-to-speech (in English and other languages) and Wix for creating simple but cool flash sites are my favourites so far.

And so I am off to help The Resistance...

 

A Journey into ARG

We are organising our Yr7 programme for languages a little differently this year and this has resulted in a Term 4 where students have already chosen their language for Yr8. Their choices are French, German or Japanese and the most likely scenario for Term 4 has always been that they will work on that language in a class where not everyone is learning the same language, or where the teacher who is in the room is not skilled in that language.

Essentially, we had to come up with a Term 4 'project' that students could work on independently but also be able to receive feedback. When we, as a department, were first discussing the possibility of this new structure for Yr7, I thought it would be a great opportunity to try something new. Now, I'm just hoping it will all work.

Inspired by a conversation with Jess McCulloch earlier in the year and more recently by her fantastic Blackline Mystery, I have been slowly trying to piece together a unit of work for the 3 languages that students will be able to work on semi-independently for about 5-6 weeks. My initial plans were to simply use edmodo: students could then join, complete tasks and use the discussion threads to ask questions. But, the more I read and explored and saw what Jess was doing, the more I realised the potential to go out on a limb and try something completely new. It may not work but hopefully we'll learn from the experience. The challenges were to make it work across all 3 languages and ensure that language learning was actually occuring.

The more I have learnt about and explored the worlds of "Alternate Reality Games", "Interactive Fiction", "Minecraft" and "Transmedia", the more I see the potential that this has, and that this would be an awesome way to learn. I am by no means an expert on the pedagogy of all of this but when I start to worry about those things, I am reminded of a tweet from Steve Collis: "so many sins are compensated for by the level of engagement". For me, engagement is critical. Engagement is the first step in finding a passion for something.

So, as for Term 4, we have: characters, a storyline, a headquarters (The Bunker, more commonly known as Edmodo) which contains our 'Database' (library of links and resources) and accounts across several websites. I will try to blog more of the journey but, for the moment, this is where our Term 4 jorney begins for the students...

Next, they will receive an email.

Corridor Display + QR Codes

QR Codes are something I've had a bit of a play with but have not quite worked out how I would use them in the classroom. Mind you this post from Joe Dale has some great ideas. I have, however, used them as part of the corridor display outside the classroom. The aim is to change the theme of the display a couple of times a term but...

Last term's theme was 'Sakura' (cherry blossoms in Japan). I generally have a flickr image collage and some simple signs or words in Japanese but this time I included some QR codes that directed students to websites or videos that explained more about the images or the Japanese words. One code led to a popular Japanese song with 'sakura' in the title and another led to an explanation of 'sakura zensen', which can somewhat loosley be translated as the 'cherry blossom front'. The results are below, though apologies for the quality of the mages. If you're looking for a site to create the QR codes, I used Kaywa which enables you to link to a URL or shows text.

See the full gallery on Posterous

Champions of quizlet

Quizlet is a great tool for revising vocabulary in a language or for learning definitions in any subject. It allows you to set up class groups and when students are logged in and completing the tests or games their scores are recorded. So, for part of our 8 French lesson today we logged in to quizlet and the whole class jumped on to the recently created set to practice conjugating the verb 'aller' (to go).

Students were given 10 minutes, which was counting down on the board thanks to the Countdown Timer over at classtools.net. At the end of 10 minutes jelly snakes were handed out to those on top of the leader boards for each "Set Champion" - the 'Scatter Champion', 'Space Race Champion' and the champion of the 'Most Right Answers' category. All in all, it was a great way to round off the lesson and all were on task.

 

Choose a Study ModeScatterLearnFlashcards

Study these flash cards

From the Classroom - Student Posters

Student created posters promoting Japan and some reasons for learning Japanese:

See the full gallery on Posterous

Calling the roll + Target Language

I don't always call the roll at the start of the lesson for some of my classes, as by mid-way through the lesson I usually know who is there and who isn't. We complete our rolls electronically and so when there's an opportunity during a lesson, I complete it then - either on the school laptop or on my iPod Touch as I wander around. However, I do call out the roll for my new Year 7 classes at the start of the lesson as I don't yet know them so well. 

Over the past couple of weeks we have been learning numbers and so rather than have the students call out 'Hai Sensei' (as in "Yes Teacher"), I had them call out their favourite number in Japanese. This has worked really well and so from next week I plan to do this for Year 8, who have been learning the subjects in French. They will be asked to call out their favourite subject in French.

So next time you are calling the roll in your language class, pick a topic for the week and have them call out a word from their vocab list in the 'Target Language'. You could do it sequentially for something like numbers or you could place limits on the number of times a particular word is called out. Please share your ideas in the comments.

 

Posterous + iPod apps

Recently I've been playing around with apps on my new iPod Touch, enjoying the camera, video and audio recording functions that my previous Gen1 iPod Touch were lacking.

Over the past year or so I have been using Posterous to post reading exercises and student work for an increasing number of classes. It is simple to use and the fact that you can email posts straight to the web makes it great for creating things on the iPod before emailing it up to the class site. The amazing array of apps available for the iPod meaning you can add bells and whistles to your reading passage.

The following are some of the apps I have so far found useful. I use the free version of most of them though they do have paid versions with extra features that I may soon upgrade to.

I have more and more students appearing in class with iPod touches or iPhones and am trying to show them how they can use these devices for 'good' in my class. Some of the weaker students have used these devices to create simple comics or images with speech bubbles and although it doesn't sound like much, it is so much more than they have done before.

Comic Touch Lite (free)

• Add speech bubbles (and a couple of effects) to your photos. 
• In class: students can take photos of themselves before adding captions to the photos in the target language (Japanese). We did this during the 'Daily Routine'. You could also have students search for images of people, take a screenshot (by holding down the 'home' and 'on/off' button on the ipod) and add captions introducing themseleves in the target language.

SodaSnap (free)

• Turn photos into postcards with the image on one side and your written note on the other. Great for writing in the target language and then emailing to your class blog.
• In class: great for writing virtual postcards on where they have been, what they did, etc. The amount of text is limited but is useful for Junior classes. Connect with other classes using it and have students write comments on each others posts.

PhotoCard Lite (free)

• Another app where you can create postcards, this one uses Bill Atkinson nature photos. The images are great and although they may not suit what you are writing about, you can write more than will fit into the SodaSnap postcard.
• This one allows you to send it to yourself via email and also has a 'print-and-mail' service if you want a 'real postcard' to arrive in someone's mail.

Strip Design ($3.99)

• Use your photos to create comic strips with a variety of templates, speech bubbles and other effects.
• It's useful to remember that you can use it with any image on your device. Take a screen shot, use an image that you have enhanced via another app or use a map (with directions in the target language). With a little imagination the possibilities are huge.

SonicPics Lite (free)

• This is something akin to a "Photo Story" type application. You can record audio over images and create a slideshow.
• In class: you could use it for listening and speaking exercises, describing images (people or places) or giving directions on a map. Describe daily routine, a holiday, your family and so on.

StoryKit (free)

• Create little electronic storybooks with pictures. This app is quite simple but an effective tool for writing in any language. Although it does not allow you to email the finished product, it does give you a web link to your product. Great for digital storytelling.
• This is my little experiment with Mr Happy and the camera on the iPod Touch.

There are a lot of apps out there and because many are designed for having a little bit of fun in English, it makes them extremely useful for helping to engage the students and, in the process, for creating a variety of texts using the target language. Then, once you post them on the class blog / site, they are there for reading practice and for all to admire. Check out how I've done it here.

So, download some free apps that you think might be useful, play around with them and, if necessary, get the paid for version before showing the students how they can be used to help them engage with the target language and improve their ability to use it.