Some slightly Wizzy Techie ideas for MFL teachers. Using Internet tools in language teaching.

2. examine how some of these ideas can be used in practice, in and beyond the MFL classroom.

3. share ideas and good practice.

5. make Wordlesfor each other,

7. Keepvid 1 2 www.keepvid.com Copy Youtube videos Copy and paste the Youtube URL into the top Keepvid box. 2) Click the top Download button. 3) Choose download mp4 as the download format 3

8. Voki www.voki.com create speaking avatars in lots of languages http://verulamvle.typepad.com/mflteaching/2010/06/voki-demo.html

9. Xtranormal www.xtranormal.com Text to speech movies French, German & Spanish do a ‘soliloquy’ presentation Simple dialogue Make a joke http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/7933459/

10. Dvolver www.dvolver.com/live/home.html Create moving image cartoons Pupils can make their own mini movies using familiar language. Text bubbles only – no speech. This is a good option for an alternative homework task. Can be a bit fiddly but most will like the creative process. They’ll certainly enjoy presenting their work to the class. http://www.dvolver.com/live/movies-497659

11. Glogster www.glogster.com Online Poster creator (similar to Publisher) More interactive as you can easily make objects act as links Pupils could produce a poster based on a piece of research linked to the target country. e.g. sports personality, region, vocab field, famous person or product http://jonmeier.glogster.com/techier-teacher/

12. Toondoo www.toondoo.com Online cartoon/ comic strip creator Idea: Teacher compiles their own and writes a set of instructions in the TL – don’t show the pupils the picture– include some help regarding categories and where elements can be found - e.g. Background , Characters, Props Pupils read the instructions, build the image and get as close as possible to the teacher’s version - compare everyone’s versions at the end.

13. PicassoHead www.picassohead.com Online Picasso style Face creator Pupils follow a set of written instructions to design their own picture. abstract but fun – “abstract fun” You can sign your name in the style of Picasso

14. Fotobabble –Talking Photos www.fotobabble.com Online tool which lets you upload a photo and add audio Upload a photo and add an audio commentary- great for homeworks about family, pets, home, school, friends, favourite team, hobby etc Ideal for the new GCSE speaking http://www.fotobabble.com/m/Vk55V3RocndHYTA9

15. Prezi http://prezi.com Another online alternative to Powerpoint Creates online presentations, like Powerpoint but you start by putting all your material on one big slide or ‘canvas’. You can then set up Prezi as a slideshow to zoom in and out of certain sections. Fiddly at first but worth a collaborative go with a friendly class.

16. Wallwisher www.wallwisher.com A live online message board Pupils can add post-it style stickies to a notice-board. Pupils could watch a film and add comments, or submit sentences on a theme e.g. leisure- past tense http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/iZjTwupdVL

17. Photostory Free Download for Windows PC – just googlePhotostory3 free Windows download. Puts photos into a slideshow, add your own music and titles great for real photos - homeworks about family, pets, home, school, friends, favourite team, hobby, holiday etc You can also turn Powerpoint into a movie, or save each slide as a jpeg photo image and upload them to a site such as Animoto which turns them into a lively music-style video. This will only work well for simple, uncluttered slides – simple vocab-style flashcards

18. Imagechef www.imagechef.com Generate captions on fun objects and signs Pupils could use incorporate these as fun captions into their Powerpoints: Use recent vocab to create various images e.g. newspaper headline, US style road-sign, baseball cap.

19. Triptico www.triptico.co.uk Great IWB style resources – free to download In the process of a revamp- lots of great resources such as scoreboards, timers, word magnets, random name/word pickers

20. Jing (also Camtasia) - Screencast tools Download from www.techsmith.com/jing/ Screencast software- record what’s on your screen into a video and add audio commentary . Jing or Camtasia are good but not free. Screencasts are great for step by step guides to how to do something on the computer. In MFL you could use Jing or Camtasia for guiding students through a text Here’s a basic example: http://verulamvle.typepad.com/files/jingexample.mp4 You could also ‘screencast’ yourself marking someone’s work on Word and commenting on it as you go along.

22. Stick a code in a text book or exercise books to take pupils to a related website

23. You could set up an audio guide, similar to ones in an art gallery. Pupils use the phone to read printed barcodes positioned at various ‘hotspots’ and then access audio files which you have uploaded to the internet. I’ve used www.zshare.net to upload audio files which can then be accessed via the internet on an i-phone. Use a smartphone to read a printed barcode which opens up a website or a message. Sometimes known as creating the ‘4D classroom’ – the internet is the extra dimension.

24. Jigsaw planet jigsaw creator http://www.jigsawplanet.com Create a short text on a Powerpoint slide. Use an 18 or 20 point font Save as … Pictures (this converts the slide to a jpeg photo). Give it a name and save it somewhere obvious, e.g. desktop. Go the site Upload the jpeg Select the number of pieces Click create http://www.jigsawplanet.com/?rc=play&pid=3911b12f35be

25. Text to speech tool Voki for grown-ups! l http://text-to-speech.imtranslator.net/ Select language (Fr, Ger, Sp) Type or paste your text Select ‘Say it’ The voice will read it back Pupils can generate their own simple listening comps for each other http://tts.imtranslator.net/DaqE

26. See this slidecaston ….. Another time, another course: GreenscreeningBlogs & Wikis I am also working on using ipads in the classroom. Keep in touch See also: http://verulamvle.typepad.com/mflteaching/ http://verulamvle.typepad.com/mflteachingplus/ jon.meier@verulam.herts.sch.uk

27. Finally ………. There’s no substitute for The teacher Personal interaction Tried and tested traditional methods Good old enthusiasm Personality And a passion for seeing young people enjoy and succeed