Session plan based on podcast about Melbourne

This is the link for the podcast about Melbourne: Melbourne

Time	Course of the class (phase/ content)	Activity	Media/ Material	Objetives
7-10 min	Opening of the lesson	Brain-storming	Data projector, map of Australia/Melbourne	Activation of previous knowledge
5 min	Acquisition of knowledge	Listening to the podcast about Melbourne; focusing on main topics of it	Computers, headphones, notepads + pencils	Listening comprehension, overview of content about Melbourne
5-7 min	Saving results	Writing the main topics on slide of power-point	Computers	Overview of topics
2 min	organisation	Dividing class into groups	Little cards with pictures to divide the class into groups
10 min	Deeper insight into topics	Listening to the podcast again; focusing on the specific topic	Computers, headphones, notepads + pencils	Listening comprehension
10 min	Exchange of knowledge	Group-puzzle	Notes, notepads + pencils	Speaking comprehension, social interaction
2 min	homework	Teacher hands out & explains homework	worksheets	Saving results of group-puzzle

Blog task No.6

I have a dream…

… about a project in an English class that makes use of New Media, and this not too little I really thought about a “dream project” that does not consider any restrictions of reality according to the equipment and what previous knowledge and skills the students have. In this project the topic “London” will be developed, which constitutes a topic area of the curriculum in approximately grade seven.

When I look back to my own English classes at school,  in most cases a certain sprightliness was missing in the development of a new topic area, to raise our interest and motivation in the topic . And so I thought about a creative and lively way of how to introduce a new topic differing especially from the traditional ways like “Today we’re going to start with a new topic. The topic is London. Please open the book on page…”. On the basis of these considerations my little “dream project” about a lively introductory class about London developed…

The lesson starts with a virtual trip to London:

Without telling the students what the class will be about the teacher hands out the virtual glasses and gloves and the head-sets that are required for the trip. Without knowing what is going to follow the students put their equipments on and the virtual trip is about to start… The students are sitting in a plane not knowing where to go. Suddenly they can see a very big city in the distance . Getting nearer and nearer the pupils can already see “London Eye” and “Big Ben” when suddenly a student says: “I know where we’re going, we’re going to London!” The class experiences the landing and arrival in their yout-hostel virtually. Getting a map of London, in which the most famous sights are marked, the students get the possibilty to visit the various different sights of London virtually, by touching the sights on the map. Visting the different sights the pupils are able to ask specific guides for different information about the sight. In this way the students get the possibilty to gather first impressions about London and their sights interactively. The pupils can decide independently where to go and where to stay a little bit longer according to their individual interests. After an hour travelling through London the students fly back to class again, where they should talk to their neighbours now about what they have experienced throughout their virtual trip in London.

By running through a virtual trip through London interactively the motivation and interest in the city increases. There are of course no limitations according to further developments that follow on the basis of this introduction. Furthermore such virtual trips would be practicable in various different topics and subjects.

In my opinion this “dream project” would constitute a creative and lively alternative to everyday introductory classes in school, which would grant much more “pep” to ordinary lessons, if it was realisable…. maybe one day in future…

Blog Task No.5

Field trip to Kirchhain

Unfortunately, I could not participate in the field trip to visit the Alfred-Wegener-Schule in Kirchhain, which was awarded as “Medienschule des Monats” in January. Nevertheless, I thought about questions that I would like to deal with during the field trip.

First of all I would like to know in which way the school integrates New Media into everyday-life of school to become “Medienschule des Monats”. Investigating the website of the school and talking to my fellow students, who participated in the field trip, I found out that the school integrates New Media in everyday learning processes through a “Lernwerkstatt”. It is still a new concept, established in 2008  and it is combined with the school library. It comprises a computer room, the school library, three group-working rooms and a bigger room for plenum activities. The computer room is well equipped, offering headphones, a data projector and a laser printer.

The “Lernwerkstatt” is composed of three fields of working:

The first area constitutes the work in the “Lernwerkstatt”, emphasising the work with the medium of the computers. This supports learning-processes through internet research, developing presentations and podcasts. Here, the method competence and independent and self-directed working-processes of the pupils get advanced through acquiring a certain topic.

A further area constitutes the pedagogic concept for active, meaningful and creative learning. Here, the “Lernwerkstatt” should represent a place for classes, where the pupils get the possibility to acquire certain topics related to a specific subject through different methods. The students practice different competence degrees and forms in this process to realise the educational standards.

Furthermore the “Lernwerkstatt” comprises the function of improving the teachers’ learning methods and possibilities in the field of New Media through advanced training  according to specific topics like “Podcasts in classes” or “Photoshop in arts classes” etc.

A second question of me would have been if the teachers, who are not that familiarised with special learning methods in the field of New Media, get special support or help by others to include the “Lernwerkstatt” into their classes. But as I have already found out in my first question the “Lernwerkstatt” also functions as a place, where teachers get the possibility to improve and get to know methods and possibilities in the field of New Media.

In my opinion the “Lernwerkstatt” at the Alfred-Wegener-Schule in Kirchhain is a really useful and interesting concept, which advances learning processes of the pupils and the teachers through methods in the field of New Media.

Blog Task No.4

Lichtenberg-Schule Kassel

I started my search on a report about a teaching project, which makes use of the New Media on the internet and I found a really appealing project at the Lichtenberg-Schule in Kassel. At this school they intend to integrate the important aspects of New Media education and New Media competence into the curriculum. The school realises this aim in terms of a “Medienwerkstatt”, which constitutes a compulsory elective course of grades nine and ten. This concept evolved from the EU-project “tolerant schools” and I think it is a really useful and good programme in offering the pupils possibilities to deal with the current and important topic “New Media” creatively in school. One possible activity is to develop a live-show in the “Offener Kanal Kassel”, which constitutes an important cooperation partner outstide of school. Here the students gain insights into making a self-made show, including camera work etc. In my opinion this is a really nice and motivating way of conveying the students New Media competence in a playful way.

Blog Task No.3

Analysing and comparing two learning softwares

Charlotte and me chose the programs “Teen-Talk” and “Tell me more(kids)” and we could recognise a huge difference of the quality of the two softwares while testing them.

“Tell me more (kids)” is a learning software by Cornelsen published in 1997 and is said to be appropriate for the age of ten to twelve. We started with the installation of the program, which was very easy and clear and we could also choose between American and British English, what I think is generally a good feature. Nevertheless, this feature was rather useless in the course of this software because the voice, which guides you through the program talks German.  At the beginning you can choose a character, with whom you can start your journey around the world.  Suddenly a crude melody resounded and after a while testing the software we realised that this music should accompany us all the time. In this journey there is a basic setting of the “world”, where you can see different landscape areas (e.g.mountains, beach, town etc). You can click on these areas in order to see a more detailed setting of this landscape. In this setting there are different typical items that you can click on in order to hear and see the English vocabulary for it. This procedure is the basic content of the software, which we think is very boring and one-sided after a while. The learners do not get the possibilty to acquire English by themselves. They just get presented a wide range of vocabulary, with which they do not go on working. All in all we think that according to its design, content and didactic aspects the software is old-fashioned and one-sided, which are all disadvantages that speak against the recommendation of it.

On the other hand we tested “TeenTalk” by Lingonet from Finland, which is said to be appropriate for children from 4th grade onwards. The insallation of the program was again very easy and clear. The context of this program is a class of a School in Englan that guides you through the program, which we think is really motivating and interesting for the learners because of its authentic style. The basic setting of the program is a clearly structured and transparent side with a toolbar, where the learners can choose between differnt up-to-date and authentic topics, like schoolday, homework, favourite subjects etc. According to the different topics the pupils can do different types of tasks, like listening to videos of the pupils and answering question, filling in gaps, learning vocabulary and grammar etc. Furthermore there is a teacher’s room, which the teachers could enter with a special password. There you can find a lof of extra material, like transcripts of the dialogues or didactic hints, which constitute useful support for applying this program in class. In contrast to the other program we think that this one is much more up-to-date, in providing an authentic setting that offers a wide range of topics and tasks, which is much more interesting and motivating for the learners. We would definitely recommend this software for the usage in school, because it supports communicative skills in a playful way, which is an important and basic aspect in learning a second language.

In my opinion this task was a useful way to get an insight into various possibilites of supporting learners in English. I think it was a good method for us as prospective teachers to evaluate differnt didactic and content aspects of second language acquisition, because this will constitute an essential part of our profession.

Blog Task No.2

Comment on one of the posters

In this second Blog Task we should write a comment on one of the posters we’ve created in the session about Learning Theories and Principles of Learning.

I’ve chosen the poster of the first group of task no.8, which deals with the question of how the Internet can be used with respect to multicultural and cooperative learning.

According to this question the group has developed three main fields, namely communication, research and presentation, that constitute ways in the Internet comprising multicultural and cooperative learning. Furthermore, the group listed some explicit examples according to the different fields. The field of communication includes Skype, Chat and E-mails; research includes search engines and online libraries, whereas the field of presentation includes homepages, Podcasts and Weblogs.

I really like the visual realisation of the poster because it is clearly structured and therefore understandable. Dividing the poster into three different coloured categories in the form of a mind-map appears well-arranged and comprehensible.

According to the content I think the poster includes the main points to illustrate their ideas. One disadvantage could be the fact that the keywords are very broad terms and that the group did not include an illustrated connection to multicultural and cooperative learning. Nevertheless I think that this disadvantage does not outweigh the overall comprehensible illustration of the content, because I could easily deduct by the specific keyword what it has to do with multicultural learning.  According to the category communication, for example, the relation to multicultural learning is reasonable in providing tools like E-mails, Skype or chatrooms to communicate and get into contact with other pupils from other cultures or countries. This again offers students the possibility to reduce prejudices and stereotypes of other cultures and to increase acceptance and knowledge about eacht other. The field of presentation entails fitting tools to convey cooperative learning, because they constitute cooperative environments, where students get the possibility to interact in groups that support the learning of everybody.

All in all this topic arouse interest inside me because I think that the field of multicultural and cooperative learning constitutes and important role in foreign language classes. Especially the fact of getting to know other cultures in communicative learning situations entails a very important advantage in learning a language. Because here, the students get the possibilty to speak in the target language to other pupils, which brings the students from other cultures closer together.

Blog Task No.1

“Why use the new media in foreign language education?”

When I think back to my own schooltime, considering how our teachers involved new media in our foreign language classes I can not report a lot, because we nearly never used it in our classes. What I can remember is that I took computing science in grade 9 and all I learnt was how to use Word and Excel. Surely this is maybe better than gaining no insight into new media at all. But when I have a look at the vast opportunities it can offer teachers nowadays, I really regret that I did not have the chance to profit as a student by it.

Nowadays the importance of new media is growing steadily, which entails the fact that it plays a big and fundamental role in the student’s life. Pupils grow up in a society with far developed technologies where it is normal to possess mobile phones,computers, Ipods etc. I think it is a really good idea to make use of the student’s experience in foreign language classes, picking up their interest in new media. The motivation of the pupils to work out a specific topic on the internet, via e-learning platforms or search engines for example, is in most cases much higher than doing tasks in their books.

Furthermore new media offers a great variety to work on different topics in various different ways, which is a good basis to access different learning types (like visual or audio). The internet provides a lot authentic material, like newspaper articles or news video clips in the specific target language, that are great sources to work with in classes.The use of a variety of websites in the target language enriches classes greatly. For most students it is more interesting and motivating to work with authentic sources, like a newspaper article from a “real” English newspaper, than just reading a story in a book. And especially new media constitutes a great source that teachers and students can access very easily. Discussing different topics in chatrooms or writing blogs is much more vivid than just writing essays. So as you can see there are a lot of advantages in using new media in foreign language classes, that are definitely worth it to bring more enjoyment into the language learning process. But beside this enjoyment the risks of including new media in foreign language classes also need to be considered. Because, as we all know, there are is a lot of untrustworthy information on the internet, which requires a careful and selective handling with it by the students. And this handling has to be guided by the specific teacher.

Yours,

Isabelle