Main Project: Explore the Francophone resources in Vancouver (using Blogs and Twitter)
Activity:
- Students chose a place (restaurant, coffee shop, cultural centre, chocolate shop, movie, etc.) to visit.
- They left a tweet the day before the outing and a comment on the class blog to announce to the class where they were going (others could join in if they wanted or if they hadn’t found a place to explore yet).
- I posted an example of my “Francophone outing” and interview on the class blog to give students an example.
- Students went on outing (alone or in groups), took photos and interviewed a Francophone.
After the outing:
- Students created a blog post with pictures to share their experiences, reviewed them (recommended it or not), and shared the interviews (in a sound recording or video). *Students who were not able to find a Francophone during the outing could share this in a separate blog post (a change I had to make during the project, creating 2 separate projects for some).
- Students read each others’ posts and left comments and questions on each others’ blogs.
Like other instructors, I wasn’t sure if students were going to be engaged by this project, but they impressed me with their work. Here are few examples:
http://courseweb.langara.bc.ca/angela/?p=79
http://courseweb.langara.bc.ca/mcon2000/2011/10/15/exploration-de-la-francophonie-vancouveroise/
Second project: “Ma passion”
Students created a guide to reading about their subject “Ma passion” in French (a topic about which they were passionate). They posted the guide on their blogs and also made in-class presentations in which they were required to use new vocabulary specific to their topics. (One of the requirements of the in-class presentation was that all students had to be engaged in actively using the new vocabulary. This requirement made for some very creative activities, where all students participated.)
Again, students amazed me with their work and taught me a few new ways to present material to the class. Here are a few examples of their posts: http://courseweb.langara.bc.ca/tesslafeuille/2011/11/01/jai-une-passion-pour-jouer-de-la-guitare/
http://courseweb.langara.bc.ca/initiallyyours/2011/11/29/le-projet-final-ma-passion/
http://courseweb.langara.bc.ca/emmadevin/2011/11/28/ma-passion-la-mode/
http://courseweb.langara.bc.ca/lorieanne/2011/11/30/mon-voyage-a-paris/
Unfortunately, I did not videotape their class presentations, but a brief recap of the activities can be found on the class blog: http://courseweb.langara.bc.ca/2011french1118/2011/12/08/merci-encore-une-fois-pour-les-presentations/ and http://courseweb.langara.bc.ca/2011french1118/2011/11/30/presentations-en-classe/
The blog was a great resource to have as an extension of the in-class presentation and encouraged students to write and read further about things that interest them, even after the presentations. Students left web links for others to consult if they wanted to know more about their topic and a few students posted videos with more information (one individual left song he wrote in French, an someone else left an origami demonstration in French and yet another left a video with how to make a chocolate mousse).
What worked:
- I would do this again; I was incredibly impressed and motivated by students’ work. They put a lot of effort into these projects and seemed to get a lot out of them too.
- The blogs provided a platform for “authentic” communication, which created interest and the desire to read each others’ work and leave comments on them, all in French. Most students engaged in an exchange of written comments on blogs (questions and replies).
What didn’t work or worked less well:
- Students needed more instruction than was expected. It was necessary to take them to the lab to set up a blog and to learn how to make their first post, first tweet and leave a comment. This took a lot of time (at least 3 or 4 classes in the lab) and created a bit of anxiety for students. The first assignments were late for a number of students because they didn’t know how to post. The platform, WordPress, was not as intuitive and user-friendly as it could have been. Many settings had to be tweaked simply to allow others to read posts, leave comments, etc.
- Twitter: this was not as useful a tool and most students told me didn’t find any need for it. I might be able to find better ways of using it, but it seems that students were busy enough (not to say “overwhelmed”) with learning how to blog.
- Most students eventually got used to leaving blog posts; however, about 3 or 4 students still did this task with much reluctance. I would like to explore the reasons why it was not such an engaging activity for them.
Even though I was not able to incorporate a heavier use of mobile devices in the class, I think that the project was a success since students were engaged and the new tools helped to spark enthusiasm and creativity into their learning. I think the fact that my course is a regular “in-class” section contributes to a lack of need for the mobile device, however the we did could have been done through a mobile device if students wanted to (and in fact videos and photos were taken using mobile devices). My main discovery was how motivating and energizing it can be to use an online tool such as blogs.
What I would do differently next time:
- At the start of the semester, I would hold mandatory sessions in the computer lab where we would set up a blog and twitter account and learn and practice the basics, preferably with support from someone in EdTech more familiar with these tools than I am.
- There would also be several sessions on how to type in French (change the input language and keyboard) and exercises to become more comfortable and proficient at typing in the accents.
- Regarding course content: I would incorporate more grammar into blog posts, guiding them with more specific requirements, for example, have them do a piece to describe their “hypothetical future lives and selves” in French (using the future tense), a piece on what they would do if… (using the conditional tense) and on what they did in an imagined past life (using the past tenses).
These French blogs are a digital portfolio of their French knowledge and “know-how”. I hope to emphasize this a bit more. Perhaps in the future I would allow students to come up with their own post, whether it be an important message they want to share, or further development of something we had studied in class.
I believe that through the use of blogs, students became more engaged and accountable, knowing the other students will read them, not just the teacher, and motivated, as the platform allows them to share their personal interests and experiences with multi-media.
Thanks for such a clear report. I’m planning to use Twitter in my English 1108 course (second semster ESL) and I would love to talk to you about this sometime.
This project strikes me as an excellent and imaginative use of mobile devices to further students’ interest in learning French or any language taught in our dept. The report on the project was very frank and helpful. Everyone in the Dept. of Modern Languages should read it.