El blog de JimmyP

Animoto workshop at the etwinning national conference Nottingham

2011-06-12T15:28:00.000+01:00

Here are the links to the Animoto helpsheets as promised at the etwinning conference.

For some examples of Animoto in action check out the following:

Using QR readers in MFL

2011-06-03T12:54:00.000+01:00

I came across a lot of these bar codes in some American newspapers while on holiday and wondered how they might be used in MFL teaching and learning.

To read the barcode on an iphone you need to download the QR Reader app from the App Store.

You can create your own - here is one that is a hyperlink to my own website, created by www.qrstuff.com

As well as hyperlinks I thought they could be used for quizes, recipes etc. If you have any thoughts or if you've already used them then please post a comment.

Games templates for MSWord PowerPoint & Excel

2011-03-05T13:26:00.003Z

This site is a good source of templates for MFL games and countdown timers.

http:people.uncw.edu/ertzbergerj/msgames.htm

courtesy of Jeff Ertzberger.

Le Kiosque numérique - French reading resource

2011-02-27T11:24:00.004Z

An excellent French reading resource composed of different magazines for readers of a wide range of ability and age.

You can save each magazine as a pdf document once you are viewing the magazine by clicking on the print icon. www.lekiosquenumerique.com

There are 3 magazines:

Le kiosque des Écoliers

Le kiosque &

Le kiosque des Lycéens

Adivina la palabra de hoy (013)

2011-02-21T15:22:00.001Z

"Es una zona de la casa donde hay azulejos y te puedes duchar"

Adivina la palabra

is an audiovisual dictionary in which young Spanish children give clues for the viewer to guess the word. A brilliant listening resource for various levels of ability depending on how much support you provide. Available from You Tube
http://www.youtube.com/user/fundacionlengua#p/a

Using poetry as a stimulus for writing

2011-02-20T12:56:00.002Z

To celebrate Valentine's day students this week wrote poems following two patterns:

Eres .... como

= You are .... like ...

and

Sin ti soy como .... sin ....

= Without you I am like a without ....

Congratulations to Rebecca for her very romantic version.

Brilliant Spanish website - environment/consumerism

2011-02-13T13:00:00.003Z

I've just come across this truly excellent Spanish website from the Junta de Andalucía. It contains at present 10 video chapters with accompanying teaching materials - intended for Spanish children but suitable if adapted appropriately for KS4 and certainly for KS5. Each chapter is on a different topic and involves a number of animated characters.

http://www.miscelaneajoven.com/

Chiste del día

2011-01-23T07:59:00.002Z

I've been using Spanish jokes recently as a way of engaging students in reading in a foreign language. I have found them to be really motivational - despite the jokes often not being very funny!
This website will email you a joke a day. I just copy and past the joke onto a PowerPoint slide and have built up quite a collection.
Very useful as a starter activity.
www.chistes.com - el chiste del día

20 mundos

2011-01-23T07:55:00.003Z

A brilliant free Spanish language magazine available to download in pdf form with accompanying mp3s. There are also exercises based on some of the texts. Particularly for AS/A2.

El gancho

2011-01-23T07:51:00.004Z

A great resource for authentic Spanish reading texts. You can download past editions. Suitable for exploiting at all levels.

Social networking for schools

2010-10-30T18:38:00.006+01:00

Create your own networks for each class to communicate homework, maintain an on-going dialogue, or even a self-help group.

http://www.twiducate.com/

Wallwisher.com

2010-06-30T20:28:00.000+01:00

Wallwisher is a great site for pupils to leave messages on a web page, by posting comments in the form of sticky notes. Comments can include pictures or video that are a weblink.

MYLO - My Languages on line - coming soon

2010-02-15T18:44:00.000Z

MYLO - the new national website for languages will shortly be going live. It is the work of a number of national bodies including the DCSF, and CILT. 'It is an exciting online language learning service that links your favourite interests with things you like doing on the internet – like playing games, creating blogs and movies, and sharing and working with others – making learning languages exciting and fun!'
Initially the languages available will be French, German, Spanish and Mandarin.

Creating resources with Study Stack

2009-12-31T15:07:00.000Z

Study Stack is a great website that allows you to create a variety of exercises that can be done on-line. You can create revision flashcards, scrambled word, hangman and crossword type exercises. The flash cards can be printed out if you wish.
With some of the exercises you can embed the code on a web page
Here is a link to a scrambled word exercise that I have created using Study Stack and embedded the code on to a page on my own site.

http://www.jimmyp.me.uk/page199.html

Creating resources with StudyStack.com

2009-12-31T14:55:00.002Z

Study Stack at http://www.studystack.com/ is a great site that allows you to create study materials including flashcards, scrambled words, hangman, crosswords, matching up exercises etc
Activities can be done on-line or on a pc or even a mobile device and also flash cards can be printed off.

The website is free and activities are created by simply typing in the required text

Some of the activities allow you to embed the code into a webpage.

Reading out text with DeskBot

2009-04-16T11:33:00.000+01:00

DeskBot is a freeware, Clipboard Reader, Text Reader, Desktop Application for Microsoft Windows featuring Microsoft Agent Animated, Talking Characters. For use with Microsoft Windows 98/2000/XP/Vista. Just copy some text to the clipboard by Ctrl C and the animated character will read out your text - in a variety of languages. You will need to download different characters or agents and also the different voices male/female and languages.
I think that this has great potential to enable students to hear their GCSE presentations spoken in the target language. The quality of the pronunciation/intonation is very good. Unlike Voki you are not dependent on another site hosting your recording/avatar.
Once it is all installed it is very simple to use.

Creating Word Clouds with Wordle!

2009-02-17T14:04:00.000Z

Wordle.net is a great site where you can create word clouds either from words you type in yourself or ones you have copied and pasted from a text document. It allows you to alter the colour and layout once you have created it. The finished word cloud can be printed or saved to an on-line gallery. There is lots of potential for using this either as a starter (a brainstorming activity for topic vocabulary) or as a plenary (what key words have you learnt from this lesson/topic). It creates great visuals for display too!

2008-12-06T15:50:00.001Z

On Friday I was invited to give a talk at the 'Success in Language Teaching and Learning 14-19 Conference' at the National College for School Leadership. I talked about how the Department and students have used digital still pictures, and combined them with an audio track to create both stories and exam revision videos. This work has been the subject of a case study by CILT on their 14-19 website. Check out the link:

http://www.cilt.org.uk/14to19/ict/helston_video.htm

HCC go to Malaga

2008-11-30T21:10:00.001Z

Andalucía courtesy of Animoto

2008-11-01T18:00:00.000Z

Animoto offer a great free service that enables you to upload photos and mp3s to create videos. Pupils can use the service also free of charge. Read the details at www.animoto.com - education. Check out the one I created below. I hope that my pupils will be able to create some using photos from their visit to Andalucía next month.

2008-08-28T08:35:00.000+01:00

Let you create free educational games, activities and diagrams. You can host them on your own blog, website or intranet! I particularly like the random name generator/word picker and have used this to select pupils at random - adds an element of suspense to class games, quizes, and tests. The only disadvantage is you are reliant on their website being up and running. It doesn't seem to be possible to save the games/activities and run them from your own computer.

Create your own web site with Web Builder

2008-08-26T20:07:00.001+01:00

Web Builder is a WYSIWYG (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get) program used to create web pages. WYSIWYG means that the finished page will display exactly the way it was designed. The program generates HTML (HyperText Markup Language) tags while you point and click on desired functions; you can create a web page without learning HTML. Just drag and drop objects to the page position them 'anywhere' you want and when you're finished publish it to your web server (using the built in Publish tool). Web Builder gives you full control over the content and layout of your web page. I've used this program to create my own site:

www.jimmyp.me.uk and I can honestly say that after trying lots of other software this was the first to really work for me. The software is cheap (about £20) and there are lots of extensions which let you insert mp3 players/video, embed video etc.

Task Magic 2 - learning through games

2008-08-21T12:21:00.000+01:00

TaskMagic is a suite of authoring tools for creating interactive exercises. It is a really quick and easy way for teachers to create a whole range of presentation and practice activities in just minutes. It can be used to create exercises for French, German, Spanish, etc. for all levels of ability. Students really like the games element of the activities which can test and drill vocabulary and grammar. Two programs make up the TaskMagic package: TaskMagicCreate & TaskMagicPlay. The teacher creates games and exercises using TaskMagicCreate and saves them. Anyone who has the TaskMagic software installed can then access these games and exercises using TaskMagicPlay. We have the software installed on the school's network. Students can download a free 'home use only' version of TaskMagicPlay so that they can access TaskMagic files from my website or from any of the many sites which have them available. Click on the above links to access these sites and for more information about pricing and downloading the software.

Languages on Line authoring material

2008-08-18T16:03:00.000+01:00

There are free downloadable templates to create you own multimedia language games and activities available from Languages Online. Use your own text, pictures or voice recordings. Suitable for all languages! The State of Victoria (Department of Education and Early Childhood Development) has also made available lots of ready made games. A brilliant resource.

Hot Potatoes - an excellent authoring program

2008-08-17T21:08:00.000+01:00

The Hot Potatoes suite from the University of Victoria includes six applications, enabling you to create interactive multiple-choice, short-answer, jumbled-sentence, crossword, matching/ordering and gap-fill exercises for the World Wide Web. Hot Potatoes is not freeware, but it is free of charge for those working for publicly-funded non-profit-making educational institutions, who make their pages available on the web. There are lots of exercises readily available and some very useful tutorials. There is also a useful range of clipart available to be used in the exercises if you wish.

Learning and Testing Vocabulary

2008-08-06T17:27:00.000+01:00

Interlex is a free vocabulary testing tool that lets you compile your own lists of words to be tested in whatever language you wish. You can test from English into the target language or vice versa. There are also a great many word lists available for free download. The software can be installed on to individual pcs or onto a network.

Languages games for teachers

2008-08-01T11:03:00.000+01:00

Another great source of free authoring software is from Stuart Davies at Sandfields Comprehensive School with such things as Dictionary duel, Conundrum, Bingo Lingo, Wheel of Fortune, Flip Flap, Pairs, Millionaire etc etc. There are even some really helpful video tutorials.

Great authoring resources for teachers

2008-07-31T21:02:00.000+01:00

Contentgenerator.net by Andrew Field is a great site with a number of different pieces of authoring software. Some are free such as half a minute (an anagram quiz) and teacher invaders (a vocabulary space invader game) others are quite reasonably priced and available individually or as part of a suite of software. Most vocabulary games require a certain minimum number of questions/answers before you can create the flash game in the form of a .swf file. Pupils particularly like the penalty shoot out games and fling the teacher. These games are not subject specific and can be applied to any subject.

Providing a series of web addresses to students

2008-07-29T08:25:00.000+01:00

Use jogtheweb.com to set up and provide a clear visual path of websites to follow. This could simply be a list of favourite sites as below for my Spanish ones, or a list for students to work through completing activities as they go.
http://www.jogtheweb.com/reader/index.php?trackId=212
Many thanks to Marie-France Perkins for sharing this resource.

Using video for creativity and motivation

2008-02-04T20:30:00.001Z

El rap de las chicas = Year 8 pupils creating a rap based on a song from ¡Mira! 2
¡Enhorabuena chicas!

This was first recorded using a camcorder, the video clip was digitised using a TV card in a pc and the clip then imported into Windows Movie Maker for editing.

Make reading easier - use cognates

2008-02-03T17:26:00.000Z

Cognates (words which are the same in different languages) and neo-cognates (words which are very similar in different languages) can be a great help in developing our understanding of texts.
There are hundreds if not thousands of 'shared' words e.g. in English words which end in 'ible' tend to end in 'ible' in Spanish so 'possible' is 'posible' in Spanish. This is an example of a cognate.
Words which end in 'tion' in English often end in 'ción' in Spanish e.g. nation = nación. This is an example of a neo-cognate. For more examples of cognates and neo-cognates in English and Spanish click on the following link. Cognates-Los cognados

Tips for Successfully Learning Vocabulary

2008-01-03T07:49:00.000Z

We all know that one of the difficulties that language learners face is overcoming the hurdle of the sheer amount of vocabulary that they have to remember. Here are some hints and tips that will hopefully make the task of learning vocabulary a little easier! Click on the link and try them out.

Vocabulary learning