Japanese Teacher's Conference

A couple of months ago I had the opportunity to volunteer as a presenter at the annual Japanese Teacher’s Conference in Sydney. I was at the stage where I felt I had the confidence to get up and share my Web2.0 journey with my Japanese teaching peers, so I took the plunge and yesterday I presented to my peers for the first time. I loved the experience and felt like I’ve grown a little bit more as a result. After the conference and the presentations I saw, I am more convinced that "Teachers teaching teachers" is definitely the way to go.

Whilst preparing for the presentation I was determined to remain aware of what I had learnt from seeing other presenters in the past few years - and not repeat the mistakes that I had perceived in them. For me, proof that reflection is an important part of what we do. See this post here for clarification on that point. Also, as there are so many fantastic resources out here, I decided it may not be the best strategy to bombard people with information, though it’s very easy to do that without knowing it. So, I decided to try to take people with me on the journey that brought me to a place where I was talking to my peers about how to use technology with language students.

I began by explaining RSS (for visual learners) and readers like Google Reader and Bloglines, before moving on to the power of a PLN and where to go to start building your Personal Learning Network. I suggested that delicious and diigo (diigo groups in particular) were great places to start to do this, also briefly explaining about twitter. Some Web2.0 tools we can use in the classroom with language students was the next stopover and so, at that point in the presentation, I switched over from my version of death by powerpoint to the presentation wiki. I had also intended to show a couple of my class wiki as an example of how I use them but ran out of time; so for those who were at the presentation yesterday (and anyone else out there) check out Year 7 Japanese here.

Of the sites shown in the presentation, Voki seemed to be the biggest hit, and so it should be. It is a great site to get students to practice their speaking skills in a language and gain confidence in using the target language. For other sites I found useful last year, check out this post.

Thanks to all those who attended the presentation and for the positive comments. All feedback is appreciated so please let me know if you have any suggestions on how I could improve for next time.

Some thoughts on professional development

I am liveblogging and so .....

It's the last day of term and professional development day for staff. I had been looking forward to learning some new things which I could mull over in the holidays and put to good use. - today is ICT centred PD. The session I'm in at the moment is giving me something to mull over but not what I had planned.

The session is on IWBs. We now have one in our library and I thought, having seen and heard all the inspirational people out there talk about smart boards and how they can be used in the classroom, that I should work out how we can use it. The session got me thinking not so much about interactive whiteboards but more about how we present these sorts of tools to teachers. The session has been showing us more about the basics of using a whiteboard and what it is, rather than showing us all the amazing things that can be done with the IWB. If I had not know anything about IWBs I would have learnt only that it is a glorified whiteboard / laptop screen / overhead projector; not what you can actually do with it - engage the students, have them involved in their own learning. Most teachers in the session are as switched off as the students often are - or completely off task (writing blog posts).

To attract teachers into using these tools, shouldn't we be showing the amazing things others have done - and that have worked. Shouldn't we be showing how they can engage the student, inspire the student, not simple update the chalk and talk to a "magic pen" and talk, talk, talk ...?

So what will I take away from my pd session on IWBs ?

1. The IWB has a "magic pen".
2. It is not necessarily the technology itself that is turning teachers away (or not pulling them in) but the way it is presented to teachers.
3. I can learn so much more from an online PLN and from social networking / bookmarking sites / microblogging sites than any PD session; and this is ongoing - everyday, anywhere PD.
4. I'm ready for a holiday - to catch up with some blogging and some professional development from the comfort of my own home.
   

Hopefully the after lunch sessions will be better.