Friday, March 25, 2011

VLN French Year 11

Last week I took a decision, a very important one. I have decided to set up a French course for year 11 students who are learning French. I have never done that before and I have to admit that I feel a bit nervous.

My head is spinning with ideas going in every directions. Thus, it is going to be hard for me to write down my reflections as my head is going very fast.

First I need to explain why I have this picture as symbol of my course. This painting was actually in colour, not black and white, but I have played around a little bit with the colours.

The children dancing on the painting represent for me the collaboration between the students, and the collaboration between the teacher and the students. It is very important for me that during the course the students work together in a collaborative manner. I need also to always keep in mind as the teacher that I am part of the scene as an active member of the class. I need to be present for my students if they need any help and I need to keep in mind the needs and wants of my students when I plan each unit .

I kept the children coloured on the painting because for me people are the important part of a course, not the background, not the technology. Although the choice of technology is pivotal to create the right course, it is here to serve the only purpose to enable students to be successful in their learning, to engage them in their learning and to help them blossom their learning. As you have understood what is important is the learning not the technology.

I also liked very much this painting as there is no sign at all of technology, none...just the people.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Florence, I think the picture does a great job of describing facilitation...that its a collaborative, equal role whereas teacher insinuates power and control.

    As for technology, I always used to feel a tad guilty because I could never agree with people who said that pedagogy came before technology. I have since heard Terry Anderson talk about pedagogy and technology are hand in hand, like yin and yang...they dance together. I don't know why I am telling you that...but I think its nice to think about :)

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  2. I can see your point about technology going hand in hand with pedagogy. what I meant was that I see too many times teachersnot thinking about they want to teach, but they ask students to do it on a computer and it becomes suddenly elearning. For example, I have seen teachers asking students to do wordsearch (at secondary level) on a computer. Firts I think that in this example doing a wordsearch is not teh best teaching in the world, but even worse it is why doing on a computer when you can do very well on a piece of paper. Those teachers have not thought at what the impact of technology can have on learning. I love technology, I think it is a wonderful tool that I use a lot in my classes, but I try to think about technology before using it.

    What does technology represent for me? What are the advantages of suing Web2.0 tools? How technology can improve or make my student's learning easier?

    Those are some of the questions I ask myself when I plan my lessons.

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