Emma's+Till+Learning

I thought this might be a good place to jot down how things are going with our Wiki experiment.

Getting Started Thanks to Ruth Bourchier (National French Advisor) I was able to link up with a senior school just outside Paris who were interested in becoming out Virtual exchange partner. The English teacher there called Annette was very keen, though like me new to the world of Wikis. A few issues to be worked through. Firstly issues with being at different stages in the school year ie the French students are now on holiday until September and also are a little older than my year 10's. However, we decided that Waimea should get the Wiki going and invite the French school students to join when they returned in September. We would use Year 10's even though the French students would be closer to Year 11 age. This way those Year 10 kiwi students continuing with French in year 11 would still retain the links.

I decided to keep to my scheme of work -next topic SCHOOL- and explain to my students that whatever they learnt how to say in French would be useful as we would be describing our school life to a group of French students. Definitely made the learning relevant and increased motivation I think for this topic.

Week 1 Term 3 Organised a committee of students to help me build the WIKI. Got my librarian to show me how she set up a WIKI for our junior GATE students Set up the WIKI and named it "WaimeaMistral' (combination of both school names) using Wikispaces Met with student committee and changed the front page so was personalised. Students quickly picked up how to use the WIKI-faster than me by far Students discussed ideas of what they wanted on the WIKI

NB Decided a small group was needed to get the WIKI up and going as 57 year 10 students adding and editing might be a little difficult.

Issues came about around putting photos of students on the site. Internet safety a priority. I would need to check school policy and probably send permission slips home if identifiable photos of the students appeared on the site.

Week 2 Term 2 Launched assessment task for 2 Year 10 groups. Students to do a prepared talk about Waimea College and school life in NZ and deliver to the class. They would be recorded and a selection loaded on to the WIKI as PODCASTS. Many students did not know what a PODCAST was. Students begin writing their script. 1 group particularly motivated. Another meeting with ICT committe-changed front page, added a question page (to be added to), students added a photo of Nelson. Students keen to take photos of the school and post. Weather too bad for this to happen

30/7 To be continued

5/9 Week 7 Term 3 Students have now delivered their prepared talk podcasts. They did this in a lesson and stayed in their seats and I used the digital recorder to record what they said. These have now been downloaded and marked. Overall the standard of pronunciation and fluency was good but not as many students had memorised the whole of their talks as I had hoped. Many lacked confidence and read their scripts. However,as one student said it was a podcast and maybe not all podcasts were talks given from memory-good point. I took an afternoon using Ministry funded time and marked the podcasts as advised by Jo. ERO has just visited at saw me giving back the marks.

The Wiki committee has continued to meet on a Wednesday and spent time taking photos which I down loaded on to the network. They have been working on putting them up on the WIKI and writing captions in French and English. The front page of the WIKI has been changed many times and now looks good. A space has been left on this page for the French school to add their contribution. This week the committee continued on the photos and we also picked 8 podcasts from over the two classes that gave good information about Waimea College and were understandable. Initial failure to load podcasts-we have to work out how to embed them. The students and me are working out this together by following wikispaces instructions. The french students start their new school year this week and I have invited the teacher to become a member and to send me her students email addresses so that they can start contributing. This will be the exciting bit as the virtual exchange begins to take place. Hope to invite all year 10 French students to see the WIKI soon when France has contributed. Building the WIKI has been a slow process and a learning curve. WIKI committee still keen.

[|www.waimeamistral.wikispaces.com]

Week 10 Quite a bit of progress since week 7. With a bit of help from the ICT coordinator we discovered that we needed to upload our podcasts to the web by using a song website given by Wikispaces called iseem. Once on the web each file had an html code and then could be uploaded up on to the Waimeamistral wiki. I did one then Jordan from Year 10 spent a couple of lunchtimes and putting our selection on to the web and then the wiki. The French students have now listened to the podcasts and enjoyed hearing our cute accents. The French school have now replied to our questions in French and in English which I showed both of all classes last week. Photos of Fresnes (the French schoool) have also appeared and my students helped by resizing them. The virtual exchange is starting to take shape! Latest is that we have been given a camera and the Wiki committee students spent last week doing a little video which I will attempt to upload first to youtube and then on to the front page of the wiki. The plan is to do a bit more next term. All the students in both classes are now members of the wiki and next term will create introductory pages about themselves in French and English so that we get them interacting a bit more with our students. I need to encourage my students and the French ones to use the discussion pages to leave their comments. At this stage the French students are not members and I think this is something that I might have to sort out from my end. The French teacher is keen but not sure technology wise. It would be great to see her handing over more ownership to her students who I feel sure like mine will be much better at working the wiki than either teachers. Thats it for this term-time for a holiday!