Jean W. LeLoup, SUNY Cortland
Robert Ponterio, SUNY Cortland
ACTFL2001: Washington DC, November 15-18, 2001

I. Overview

• Problem: Technology workshops for teachers are often not discipline specific
• Learning to use the technology in FL context leads to:
• grasp of its usefulness
• new ideas
• better retention
• Presenting a technology workshop with a pedagogical focus
• Designing the workshop to meet attendees’ needs
• Being prepared & flexible
• 4 sample technology workshop topics with pedagogical focus and technology tips

II. Link to pedagogy

• Workshops should focus on curricular goals, not tech for tech’s sake
• Integrate pedagogical considerations:
• goals
• syllabus
• national standards
• Something to take away
• Follow-up opportunity

III. Needs assessment

• Hardware venue
• Teacher needs / wants
• What they already know
• Chicken and the egg
• How do they know what they want if they don’t know what there is?
• Start from curricular goals and national Standards, and look for technologies to help meet these.

IV. Flexibility

• Make sure you are really comfortable doing what you’ll ask attendees to do, and more.
• Check out the system before the presentation. Know your equipment.
• If something doesn’t work, drop it.

V. Using authentic materials : Demo
        (P=pedagogy, T=technology)

• Multipurposing with a view to the objectives in classes at different levels (P)
• Targeting the standards (P)
• Present multiple modes of access (T):
• lab, home, single in-class computer, overhead, handout
• Example/Activity: Job application, Macdo

• Presenting activity involving authentic materials (P)
• Hands-on: show & do, not show & tell (T)
• Presenter / participant ratio (T)

VII. Functional tools :

• Avoid the “push this button” approach to teaching simple general purpose functions (T)
• Browsers: Searching & bookmarks (T)  Demo 1

Curriculum development; NYS Syllabus topics, e.g, Standards goal areas and individual standards (P)
• Word processing: Keyboard & proofing tools: spelling, grammar, thesaurus (T)  Demo 2

Writing techniques, self-correction habits, proofreading (P)

VIII. Digital media (images, sound, video) : Demo

• Portfolio assessment (P)
• Student projects (P)
• Teacher’s collection of authentic materials (P)
• Steep learning curve - Don’t overload participants with too much technical information about such things as sample rate and size or digital vs. analog signals. (T)

Many similar lessons may be found in our course materials:
http://www.cortland.edu/flteach/mm-course/mm-syl.html

Authentic Materials in the World Languages classroom:

Multipurposing

Standards

Multiple modes of access

Using materials at multiple levels

 

Task:

1. Select article
2. Create beginning level activity
3. Create higher level activity
4. Identify standards addressed

Creating a Web Page with a Pedagogical Purpose

Getting started:

We will use Netscape Composer to create a WWW page from text written in MS Word and digitized images.  Before starting, it is a good idea to plan your page carefully by making a storyboard (as you might tell a student to do an outline before writing a paper).  It is possible to use Wizards or Templates from Netscape when creating a new page or even to copy a page that you like from the Web and then make changes to fit your needs.  We will simply create a new page from a blank. The purpose of this page will be to present come cultural information and also work with an authentic text for a Spanish class.
 

1. Open Netscape Communicator.  Select File / New / Blank Page.
2. Type the title of your page/activity/lesson. Then type your name, your school affiliation, and the class for which the activity will be.
3. Select your title.
4. Change the font (Ariel or Times New Roman)
5. Make your title large by selecting point size 24.
6. Change the text color to a color of your choice.
7. Make your title Bold and Italic.
8. Center your title.
9. You decide that your italic centered title looks awful.  Realign it to the left margin and remove the italic format.
10. Save your page on your hard drive with the name INDEX.HTML (depends on your server)
11. Insert a blank line between your title and your name.  Then select your name, your school affiliation, and the class.
12. Make them a bulleted list.
13. That was a bad idea.  Remove the bullets and indent them instead.
14. Ugh. Flush left is better; remove/undo the indent.
15. Select your school name. Right click on the highlighted text.  Chose the option Create Link Using Selected and type the URL for your school’s homepage page:
http://www.webster.k12.mo.us/
16. Do the same for your own name if you have a home page: http://facultyweb.cortland.edu/~leloupj/
17. Place your cursor below the table and select Insert / Horizontal Line.
18. Select the menu Format / Page Colors and Properties.  Click the General tab, and put your lesson title in the page title location.  Click the Colors and Background tab, and click the background color button.  Select the color Other.  Select a color of your choice, but make it very light.
19. Make a table by positioning your cursor under your name and clicking on the Insert Table button or selecting the menu item Table / Insert Table.
20. Give the table 1 row and 2 columns.  Align it right. Uncheck border line.  Make sure that table width is checked and change the width to 95%.  Uncheck equal column widths.  Click OK.
21. Decide what text you want to enter in the left pane of your table. Place your cursor in this cell and begin typing.  If you have text already written, select and copy it (ctrl-c) and then paste it into the left pane/cell (ctrl-v).
22. Make sure that a photo that you want in your page is on your hard drive in the same location/folder as your index.html page.
23. Place your cursor in the right pane of your table and click Insert Image or select the menu item Insert / Image.  Click Chose File, and find the file name of the image that you wish to insert.
24. Place your cursor below the table and select Insert / Horizontal Line.
25. Below the line type your email address.
26. Select your email address, right click on the highlighted text, chose Create Link Using Selected, and type mailto:name@cortland.edu
27. Open the file with the text that you wish to place on your WWW page.
28. Copy the text from your text file and Paste it in your WWW page below the table.
29. Format to your heart's content, but try to follow basic principles of good style, so don't overdo it.  A left margin tends to look better than text flush against the edge of your browser window.  Items look better if they line up.  Big blocks of text without white space looks like $#@&.
30. Follow directions to FTP your page and your image to your WWW folder.
31. Read Laura Lamay and Robin Williams.  There is LOTS more that you can do.
32. When making changes, always work on your local copy then FTP your work to your WWW folder.

The instructions help create this sample page

Web page creation - please refer to this page for additional information:

http://www.cortland.edu/FLTEACH/MM-COURSE/first-www.html
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

What to look for on the net:
Finding Materials for Curricular Goals

Typical Topics for the World Languages classroom: e.g. the New York State Syllabus:

1. Personal Identification
2. House and Home
3. Services
4. Family Life
5. Community/Neighborhood
6. Physical Environment
7. Meal Taking/Food/Drink
8. Health and Welfare
9. Education
10. Earning a Living
11. Leisure
12. Public and Private Services
13. Shopping
14. Travel
15. Current Events

(Modern Languages for Communication.  New York State Syllabus.  (n.d.)  Albany, NY:  The State Education Department.  pp. 13-17)

Use the bookmark browser tool to manage curricular materials aligned on the NYS Syllabus.

1. Bookmarks / Edit Bookmarks
2. File / New Folder
3. Create folders for each NYS Syllabus topic.



4. Search for web pages appropriate for use in addressing various topics.
5. Bookmark / File Bookmarks
6. Organize bookmarks according to the NYS Syllabus topics to help manage web resources.
7. Return to Edit Bookmarks mode as needed to sort, edit bookmark names, delete, or otherwise manage the sites.


 
 
 
 
 
 
 

• Prepare an activity based on the Culture standard illustrating the relation between the practice "Official French Holidays" and the perspective tied to the Catholic tradition in France.
• Edit the interview to isolate the reply about holidays in France.
• Sound editing is in many ways like text editing.
• Select the portion of the sound that you want to keep.
• Edit / Trim to crop or "trim" the sound to your selection.
• Locate any distracting noises, select them, and reduce their volume.
• Edit any long pauses, keeping the natural rhythm and intonation.
• Transform / Amplitude / Normalize to normalize the sound so all sound files used are at the same sound level.

 

 


 

Using the audio file in a culture activity.

• Pre-listening activity : What are the official holidays in the US? Do you know any French holidays?
• First hearing : [Holiday audio file]
• How many holidays do French workers get off?
• The class tries to name as many holidays as possible.
• Second hearing :
• Complete the list.
• What are these holidays for?
• Which of the holidays are religious?
• Separation of Church and State is very important in France. So why might there be so many official holidays for religious celebrations?

Sound Recording and Editing - Please refer to these pages for additional information:

http://www.cortland.edu/flteach/mm-course/sound.html
http://www.cortland.edu/flteach/mm-course/sound-2.html
http://www.cortland.edu/flteach/mm-course/sound-ed.html