International-virtual class conferences

In my dream project I’d like to establish a class room in which students could hold virtual conferences via internet with students from all around the globe.

The required equipment would consist of an internet conncetion, appropriate hard- and software, sufficient pc’s, keyboards and headphones, as well as virtual glasses by which students can chat with and see any student of their choice.

In such a virtual class, students might be able to discuss current topics (politics, private issues, school concerned problems,sports, etc.) with students from another virtual class somewhere abroad.

Some advantages of this international-virtual class conference are:
- information at first hand
- real face-to-face talk with
native speakers
- extention of knowledge
about other countries and
people
- quicker than other chat
opportunities(e-mail)
- you see exactly who you are
talking to
- etc.

That’s roughly how a project of my imagination would look like.
cheers pierre

Session on D.Beckham

Let`s suppose we are going to teach a advanced class of sports students in English. Our session would look as the following:

1.) We are going show a one minute video section on David Beckham (as the introduction)
-> what will our session mainly be about for today?
mind map – relating ideas to David Beckham
-> picture from Beckham – describe his outward appearance

2.)
hand out acticity one (numbers and dates related to Beckham)
-> podcard first listening

activity 2 – questionaire
-> podcard. second listening

3.) controversial discussion

Is not it that case that football players are overpaid (Beckham = $ 33 mio)
-> partner work
-> mixed groups

thanks

Questions for the field-trip

A) Is New Media sufficiently used in your school?

B) How could New Media projects be improved?

A: In the opinion of the two persons who were answering our questions concerning New Media projects in their school, both replied that all the available computer stuff is used as often as the oppotunity is given. All students work on the pc’s as much as they can whenever they have the chance to do so.

B: When asking them about improvements of the usage of New Media, they did not come up with many suggestions, except the esatablishment of a weblog, such as the one we are using in this seminar.

New Media in my old school

In my old school, New Media can be used by pupils in three different ways. 1st. They have the opportunity to work on computers(only 8-10) in the library during breaks, or in their spare time. 2nd. There are two computer-rooms that might be used, either by whole classes during lessons(if they receive computer concerned tasks by their teachers), or on their own during the 7th lesson(always under the control of a responsible person). 3rd. In the “Oberstufe” pupils have the choice of the subject “Informatik” in which they will be initiated in general computer knowledge, such as HTML, Word, or Excel.
The following link shows the whole “Informatik” programm of the “Oberstufe”(if someone might be interested): http://gym-neu.dyndns.org/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=71&Itemid=59

I think, that the given opprtunities in my old school are not adequate, especially in the library. Only 8-10 computers for over 400 pupils is not acceptable because it is quite hard to get a spot during the breaks and even in spare time. Unfortunately, the two computer-rooms could also be used more often. An hour of 45minutes per day is far too few time, and apart from that, do pupils have lessons when the rooms are open.
Pupils must be given more time and opportunities to work with New Media. In my opinion, the computer-rooms should be available the whole school-day and as long as the school is open. Assumed, that the rooms will be controlled by a teacher or another responsible person.
About the use of the rooms during the lessons did I not find out very much, but I know that we uesd these rooms very few during my school days. If someone was not much familiar with any programs, either by own experience, or by “Informatik” courses, it was very hard to learn something about New Media in school, or to extend one’s knowledge about it. Therefore, “Informatik” should be included in the timetable because it is nowadays much more important than it ever was, especially for pupils who will definitely have to have the general computer knowledge in order to get a job, because it is required in almost every application.

so far for taday,
cheers pierre

New Media in my old school

In my old school, New Media can be used by pupils in three different ways. 1st. They have the opportunity to work on computers(only 8-10) in the library during breaks, or in their spare time. 2nd. There are two computer-rooms that might be used, either by whole classes during lessons(if they receive computer concerned tasks by their teachers), or on their own during the 7th lesson(always under the control of a responsible person). 3rd. In the “Oberstufe” pupils have the choice of the subject “Informatik” in which they will be initiated in general computer knowledge, such as HTML, Word, or Excel.
The following link shows the whole “Informatik” programm of the “Oberstufe”(if someone might be interested): http://gym-neu.dyndns.org/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=71&Itemid=59

I think, that the given opprtunities in my old school are not adequate, especially in the library. Only 8-10 computers for over 400 pupils is not acceptable because it is quite hard to get a spot during the breaks and even in spare time. Unfortunately, the two computer-rooms could also be used more often. An hour of 45minutes per day is far too few time, and apart from that, do pupils have lessons when the rooms are open.
Pupils must be given more time and opportunities to work with New Media. In my opinion, the computer-rooms should be available the whole school-day and as long as the school is open. Assumed, that the rooms will be controlled by a teacher or another responsible person.
About the use of the rooms during the lessons did I not find out very much, but I know that we uesd these rooms very few during my school days. If someone was not much familiar with any programs, either by own experience, or by “Informatik” courses, it was very hard to learn something about New Media in school, or to extend one’s knowledge about it. Therefore, “Informatik” should be included in the timetable because it is nowadays much more important than it ever was, especially for pupils who will definitely have to have the general computer knowledge in order to get a job, because it is required in almost every application.

so far for taday,
cheers pierre

E-mail project between schools in Japan and Finland

The project between pupils from Finland and Japan was planned as a two to three months project and took place in 2001. During this period 8 pupils from Finland, aged from 14 to 15, stayed in contact via e-mail with 6 Japanese pupils, aged 17 to 18. Both groups were writing in German. The Finnish group had already 7 years of German experience in school, whereas the Japanese group only had 3. The topics that should be dealt with were concerned with tourist attractions of the respective home country, special recipies, holidays, public holidays, etc. Apart from the time on the computer at school, the pupils had the oppotunity to talk about personal interests in an established discussion forum. Every participant was also supposed to write a diary about the happenings and contents of their conversations.

Despite problems like lack of proper sentence structure and word choice, grammer, or expressing thoughts, both teachers, the Japanese and the Finnish one, considered the project as a success because of the following reasons:

- pupils get to know a new area in which they can communicate with people from different countries

- pupils can test their linguistic abilities

- pupils learn about other cultures( for example by doing quizzes)

- pupils learn to compose text on their own( diary)

- pupils sense success, if the writing partner understands the content of their mail

- creating the opportunity of establishing a personal contact to someone abroad

- pupils might lose constraints, which they have in front of the whole class

- feeling of great motivation( developing a website about the project, on which the pupils can look back to it, or show family and friends what they have done)

I personally agree with these arguments and think that it is at least worth to try such a project in class. Even though, there might be complications, such as different ranges of learning, or technical problems, the advantages and improvements pupils will get from such a project should motivate every techer to find a suitable partner abroad in order to make an e-mail project a success as this one.

cheers pierre

Internet Communication

I personally like the idea of ‘Internet Communication’. In my opinion it constitutes a good oportunity for students, or other groups, to get to know something about other people at first hand. It is also a quick method of exchanging information, if you are communicating with reliable persons. Especially e-mail friendships can be very fruitful for all involved participants, if everyone is willing to keep them alive. If you are writing to people from abroad, you’ll probably learn more about culture and region than in school. Apart from that, you will definitly extend and improve your knowledge about writing in a different language, assumed, you have agreed with your  writing partner on writitng in English for example.

Addiontionally, you will also improve your typing skills because the more and often your write the better it’ll get. Extending and developing knowledge of different communication possibilities, such as discussion forums, joint projects, and synchronic and asynchronic communication methods, are also involved in  ‘Internet  Communication’ and are good methods/ ideas in order to make students familiar with Internet technologies.

Even though, disadvantages like connection problems, no face-to-face situations, or less background information about the participants( which in my opinion is supposed to be established), I think ‘Internet Communication’ should be used, especially in school, because it is way more interesting to get information from native people than from teachers or other experts.

cheers pierre