Learning & Collaborating in the MFL Classroom

I have been reaping the benefits of Twitter since March 2011.  It has been the most influential professional development tool that I have used since that time.  The constant discussion, and as a result, the constant self-reflection are improving my teaching abilities and enriching my lessons.  I have become an active learner, and am constantly modeling this behaviour to my students.

After having read @syldiaduckworth’s  presentation on “Dear Foreign Language Teacher, if you had been on Twitter…”, I was inspired to create one about“If You Were on Twitter…you wouldn’t have missed these tweets about Assessment for Learning”.  Both of these presentations show just how much someone can learn from Twitter in only one week.  In June, I invited teachers from my school, and members of the school district administration to join Twitter, and while they could understand the benefits of Twitter, many found its usage daunting.  So I created the step-by-step Slideshare “Twitter 101: Twitter for Teachers” to help them out, and others who would like to understand the basics of using Twitter.  If teachers can get over the “technical” understanding of Twitter, they will find a whole world outside of their school and district.

This Friday, I am presenting at the ACPI (Association canadienne des profs d’immersion) on collaborating tools for French Immersion teachers.  I want to introduce teachers to Twitter and the benefits of this tool.  So I decided to write this blog post (in English) in order to appeal to other teachers who have benefited from teacher as much as I have.  I want to answer this question: how has Twitter helped me?

I have implemented many strategies in my classroom that I have acquired from my relationships on Twitter.  For example, one day I asked my PLN and fellow #langchat tweeters for some ideas on vocab review games.  Within half of a day, @coindoeil sent me a game called “Ladders” which I had adapted and frequently use in my FSL classroom.  It is engaging and fun, and serves its purpose of vocab recognition.  This past week I taught using the online illustrated book “Mi abuela ya no esta” as a way for students to learn about Mexican culture as well as engage in conversation about their own losses (tweeted by @MsWendyGonzalez).  These types of conversations have helped create a community.  Therefore the community I feel apart of on Twitter is being extended to my students.

There are many programs I have used in the classroom from suggestions on Twitter.  Some of these programs include:

• Prezi: a tool for creating a new type of presentation which my students seem to enjoy more than PowerPoint.  I will do a poll to find out why and add their results to this post later.
• Dropbox: a tool for sharing documents with other teachers easily
• VoiceThread: an excellent tool for analyzing digital media, for recording student conversations and oral production in the language classroom
• Wordle: a creator of word clouds. I use them weekly in the classroom as students write down what they have learned from the week before and the Wordle shows students on a concrete level what they have learned.

Furthermore, my Français Langue 8 class has created a  Twitter account from which they communicate about the lessons they have learned, and communicate in French from home.  I have been using the images and sentences they have put online in their classroom assessments since they have been student created.  I am looking forward to learning about new ways on how to develop this from my PLN and how they are using their own class created accounts.

As aforementioned, I am an active learner.  Twitter has not only provided me with ideas for use in the classroom and a multitude of useful online tools, but more importantly it has provided me with the opportunity to engage in conversation with teachers from all over the world.  When I ask a question on Twitter, I usually have four to five valuable answers within an hour.  It is so useful, that my students are asking me to post questions to find ideas for projects in their other classes.  Also, having such a diverse Personal Learning Network (PLN) allows me to reflect on everything from teaching strategies to why I need to give my students marks.   In one year, I have learned more than I learned in university in two.  I am really looking forward to what my relationships with my PLN will come to in 2012!

Please share what you have learned from Twitter and how it has benefited your teaching practices.  I would love for your comments to inspire other teachers and those I am presenting to this Friday.