Twitter #MFL #2

 Having now firmly signed up to the tweeting life, I am slowly beginning to learn more and more about what Twitter can offer. I have realised that unless I go on it every few hours, or at least once a day, it becomes almost useless as I will have missed a lot of information. In one way this worries me as I cannot spend all day on Twitter, and I cannot access it from a school computer. I can, however, check my updates via TwitterBerry and do so, if I have a spare minute or two, about once a day. On the other hand, most of the people I follow are in the same position as me and most tweets seem to come after 4pm, so in a sense I don’t miss out on too much.

Earlier in the week I watched the flashmeeting, organised by Joe Dale and other MFL teachers on Twitter. I would have been there myself if I hadn’t been watching the wonderful Derren Brown at the Blackpool Opera House, however, once I got home I was able to watch the meeting and I listened with interest to the things that were discussed. Some of the things that I clearly remember and wish to do more on myself include Wordle, Glogster and Animoto .

 I am also in the process of understanding what the enigmatic # symbol means in Twitter.# (also known as the hash tag) is placed directly before a key word by someone sending a tweet, which makes it easier to search for popular topics. Unfortunately, in the search for #MFL I came upon a whole load of weather and sea watch information but still…the intention is there. The updated website page of twitter.com now also has a search facility in the sidebar which could reduce the need for the hash tag, although I don’t tend to go directly to www.twitter.com, I prefer to use my TweetDeck.

Other useful tweets I have come across this week include:

1.  José Picardo’s MA dissertation on Vokis & Blogs in Education
2. A link to a video on thinking skills in MFL (something I think I have been doing anyway, but something I am interested in developing)
3. Using TL music in the classroom at the beginning or end of a lesson for cultural awareness (I also have a Year 12 form who are all linguists, so it is fun to play them Girls Aloud singing in French!)
4. More blogs from other interesting educationalists – see the blogroll to the side of the page. I will update this every time I come across a new one that I wish to share.
5. Finally, I have found out more about Wiki’s after having signed up for the flashmeet via Lynne Horne’s wiki page. Something I need to look into further though!

Talking of blogs, I now have my own International EduBloggers Directoy badge! Proud member no. 692. I just have to figure out how to put the badge on my blog……any ideas anyone?

 

Internation EduBloggers Directory

A new blog, a new beginning

So, this is my first post on this brand spanking new blog.

First, let me introduce myself. My name is Samantha Lunn, and I am Head of Spanish at a school in the north west of England. I am the webmistress of www.languagesresources.co.ukand I have been known in the virtual world of the TES, previously as SpanishSam and now, as LingoLass.

For the past three years I have taught both French and Spanish, and I try to actively seek ways of using ICT in the classroom to enhance both teaching and learning.

I enjoy working in partnership with the University of Cumbria (previously St Martin’s College – see our old group blog at http://stmartinsmfl.wordpress.com) , I am in the process of mentoring my first trainee teacher, and I am also completing an MA module on mentoring.

I have recently delved into the depths of Twitter and Delicious and really enjoy stumbling across other teachers’ blogs as I like to read what other people have to say (maybe I am just nosy!) and I thought that it was high time that I put my thoughts down on paper. I especially enjoy the blogs of Joe Dale, Jose Picardo, Isabelle Jones and many more. I hope to talk about these in a future post.

It is now getting a wee bit late on a school night for me to write much more, however, over the coming days I aim to give a brief account of what I have been doing recently both in the classroom and out, both with MFL and ICT.

For now, goodnight.