#ililc2 - ICT and Languages Conference, February 2012

I returned last night from the ICT and Languages Conference which was held in Southampton this weekend.  Last year's conference set the bar really high, but in my opinion this year was even better.  I'll blog in more detail about the talks I went to and what I have taken away from them at a later date, but I thought I'd post my presentations now as people have been asking about them.


Firstly, from Saturday: I do and I remember - tricks of the primary trade and active learning techniques 

I do-and-i-understand

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Here are the links to the resources that I used in the presentation:


Ferris Bueller "Boring Economics Teacher" clip - everything that active learning isn't!


All the Barbapapa videos you could ever want (can't find the one I used!)


Months of the year dominoes


Months flashcards, with an explanation of the images


Human dominoes


First year of Spanish shape puzzle


Trash or treasure? (If you'd like the original Publisher document to edit to another language, please contact me)


¡Zas! vegetable card


¡Zas! fruit card


¡Zas! colours


¡Zas! Publisher template


Paf! colours


Le grand cerf (towards the bottom of the list)






And from Sunday: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle - adapting a model for independent writing

Reduce Reuse Recycle #ililc2

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Both sessions were audio-recorded, so when I receive copies of the recordings I'll embed the audio to give you a more complete version of the presentations and a better idea of how to use the resources.




Something that wasn't recorded - I HOPE - was my performance of Le Navet Enorme at Saturday evening's Show and Tell.  The script is resource 7.2 and here is the PowerPoint:

Navet Enorme

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Sellotape

Today I was reading about the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were discovered in many pieces.  The first people to work on them decided to use a new wonder-product - Sellotape - to join the pieces together.  The only problem is that the Sellotape was far more destructive to the Scrolls than they could ever have imagined, and much of the current preservation work is spent trying to put right the wrong done to the delicate parchments by the Sellotape.

This made me think of the use of technology as a magical remedy for the improvement of language teaching.  It may improve things in the short-term, but then we may spend a disproportionate amount of time later on trying to put right the wrongs that it has done by its improper or careless use.

It also brings to mind what Gove is doing with education at the moment.  Using new wonder-solutions, the latest trendy ideas, to stick together the pieces of a system that needs improvement.  But for how long are we going to be painstakingly cleaning off the residues of this botched attempt?