You tube isn't just for Ted talks

 

No, You Tube isn't just for Ted Talks...

As we close another year, and what a year it was ... Time to reflect on a few things.  When you are in summer mode or in the classroom, during the year Youtube can be a true ally in saving you some time and making you grow as well. 

1. Use YouTube in class

      I have used Youtube and Vimeo in class to show students primary sources videos, music clips and to access listening content that is more elevated than what you find in the textbooks. Videos accessible for free that you can curate into your library are available for all levels. 

French 5, for instance has benefitted, especially during the pandemic from watching videos (they loved the

Foufou videos) for instance, I also used videos from Québec and TV5 , to widden their lense. It is very important to make sure your classes are demonstrating diversity and inclusion at all levels. 

French 6 loved to discover French artists and started also watching some of the Learn with Alexa videos (I will explain more in the next section). While the 6 the grae was doing some writing or some notebook organizing they I would play various types of artists, rap, I discovered this year that I am a fan of Belgian music rather then French music. 

With French 8, I used a  variety of videos based on cultural exploration, from newsclips, weather forecast, but most importantly and useful, I used the Un jour une question videos, it has the tri-fecta: current events questions raised by kids, transcripts on their website, and some visual help. 

2. YouTube for homework and supporting students. 

Like many I have used Edpuzzle for assignments and there is a lot to be said about how easy it is for students and teachers to use the videos on there. Sometimes it is just easier to give the direct link to a video to our students. There are great examples of teacher using flipped classrooms. When I find my students can benefit from extended explanations or a different wording I would send them to watch a video or two- I have some go-to accounts that I look up first before anything else. 

- French with Alexa - I know the kids will remember to look her up before anyone else because....Alexa of course. Students can pause and play as they need, they benefit from the English, and as you know during the pandemic, and mask-wearing it was hard for the students to see our mouths and this provided a very good alternative. 

- Podcast Francais facile -another great tool especially for pronunciation - this time all in French 

- Atelier du Français - I like that they put everything in context- you can use their text and transcripts for listening practice and then have the students reflect and listen to the explanation in their own time. 

3. Youtube for PD

Have you attended PD through Zoom this year or the past year?

 It is quite possible that you have had to do this. Have you done YouTube searches for what you need to progress and grow inyour teaching life?

At home, we basically have given up on cable and we have YouTube on the Tv and we use it all the time. I get inspiration for cooking, dog grooming, traveling, and fitness and we youtube a ton before we buy anything for the house, for instance. 

But for school it is about the same. During the pandemic I wanted to try Genially, I used Youtube to teach myself. 

This summer - we are transitioning to Schoology. I used Youtube to familiarize myself with the look and how to use the platform, I looked up 10 tips for Schoology and ended up understanding a lot about the platform very quickly. I also figured that the way it looks "as-is" would not do it for me and my students, 

So I looked up how to 'juj it up' and now my course look so much more Middle School friendly. 

I often look up tips and hacks on Youtube. Sure sometimes I can also be going down a dangerous rabbit hole of videos so tbh I do this at the end of the day when I have to leave at a certain time to not miss my train 

Some CI teachers have channels and are worth looking into if that is what you are looking for. 

I know for most I have stated the obvious in this post but I feel there. has been a real shift in how people have been using youtube in the classroom and we shouldn't be ashamed of it. It is enriching our students's lives and honestly what else would we do on a rainy lunch day if we didn't have access to clean Just Dance !

I will have a couple more posts coming up this summer.  Stay tuned!

End of the year post... It's winter break!!! Ouf... (French for Phew) we made it! a post about how to adapt... and free materials

 

So... school ended and Christmas is done, and finally, we, teachers have a little time to reflect on what just happened... between September and this hiatus between Christmas and New Year. 

It is a strange year we are having, and after the chaos of getting to grips with online teaching in last year's Spring term, my school worked hard to allow us to stay, all but one day, in person. That one day was to give us enough time to get our post-Thanksgiving Covid test results. I am very fortunate that I work at a school that has the means and the willingness to keep us safe; that the kids comply with the Covid measures and that my teachers-colleagues understand the importance of being there for each other not just 'there' but also mindfully there. 

That said... All this time in school and with the kids has made it more difficult to create new resources time is pretty tight between helping colleagues with coverage and co-teaching (with a zoom only teacher) which is new and so rewarding, but oh so time-consuming, there is only time to get creative on one level for me this year...

Enter ...GENIALLY

If you read the posts from the start of this blog, you will see that a lot of the material that I had created pre -Covid were handheld, printed sometimes even laminated ( luxurious, I know). Now I don't want kids to share anything... we work hard enough to have 6 ft between all of them and all that. So what can I do? This summer I started researching, ( big fan of YouTubing stuff here, and for genially it was great I could do some Spanish listening and at the same time get tech PD), I joined a group for WL teachers tech on Facebook and some teachers were posting these really cool games and  I felt maybe that would be the way to go and to adapt some of my favorites online. It takes time to create engaging materials as it is, and to adapt them online also, but here are some examples of what genially offered me to keep students, socially distant and either work independently on multi-activity boards or to work as a group and play a board game together and recreate the group closeness a board game would foster.

1. The Interactive picture. My Spanish students learnt about dia de los muertos by clicking on the various objects- You can animate and add other objects to a picture and add links to several pages with different activities. In this activity students were tablet o work on listening, reading, and vocabulary in an independent lesson that still worked for students who were working remotely. 

Dia de los Muertos

2. Presentations example:

Dobble (French and Spanish)

I painstakingly created Dobble/Spot it games for my topic-specific classes and with Genially students are able to play as a class through this presentation.

3. Board games 

Full disclosure you need the premium version to do those but here is the trick if you simply google search Genially + whatever board gave you are looking for on grammar, for example, there is a good chance you will find something that works for you or at least some inspiration. This game on the template Jumanlly is about stem-changing verb sin Spanish. The class got divided into 4 groups and the kids got really excited playing this on the smartboard. I think with a bigger room, those who have a good set up can probably have the kids playing on one computer amongst 4 students and play the game that way too. Jumanlly Stem changing verbs

4. Break out rooms. 

While I will be totally honest and I am not the most creative with those. Genially has great ready-made templates and I have also found some great teacher made templates that can be reused ( yes there is such a thing as creating a copy and editing it as you own. Of course, always credit the people who created the template!)

So here is a link to my Halloween themes Season, months, and dates topic related breakout. (French)

So, while I may not have been as productive as I once was in this first half of the school year (sound like a self-report card 😂), I tried to find a way to continue inspiring and engaging my students given the current conditions.

I hope you get some inspiration and look up the wonders and breadth of Genially.

If you read the post on tic tac toe, I have also managed to make this interactive for the kids to play in class recently and that was a hit. 

So here is to the end of 2020, hopefully, better days to come more freedom, and hopefully back to traveling too. 

I wish you all that took the time to read this post a very happy new year and a wonderful holiday season!

Liveworksheets last post how to upload video and audio and insert links

In this example of a book review, I demonstrate how to create links within the worksheet which really creates a different dimension different from a paper worksheet. 

First I demonstrate how to insert weblinks (link), then how to insert a youtube video ( it embeds the video within the worksheet) and finally mp3 recordings. (playmp3) Video#4

This really adds another dimension to the worksheets you can create especially for us language teachers

I recorded the audio with Quicktime and converted the files with 

Zamzar, it took no time to convert the files.  Video #5 (playMP3)

Listen and Speak on Liveworksheets

Today I show you how to create a listening tool and a speaking tool on Liveworksheets in this video.

I made this with a created worksheet on Canva (again!) and di not really edit this so if I were to edit I would add a loudspeaker icon as in this example students need to hover the mouse to find where to click to listen...

When you create such document, make sure that you do not overlap the various commands boxes otherwise you will only be able to do one or the other, hence why this worksheet has the listen and speak outside the complete the gap box.

Also, I am no native English speaker and the speaking tool is certainly tough to please, I had trouble on the penned word!!

One more thing, the speak command only works with Chrome so fra, Listen works on Chrome and Safari. 

The next post will be on how to upload into a worksheet and insert into a worksheet.

Liveworksheets.com video tutorials: The interactive commands

In his section, I will cover the drag and drop, drop-down menu and the match up functions in Liveworksheets.

These three interactive features are really useful, as I demonstrate here with a worksheet on time made with a template from Canva.com (I edited it for the purpose of this video.)

Video #3: interactive commands

First I demonstrate the drop-down menu (choose) as briefly demonstrated in the last video of the previous blog post on the simple commands. See blog here.

Then I quickly show the command for the match up (join) and the command for drag and drop. 

To find the quick glance infographic I use in this video click on this link 😃

Liveworksheet tutorial simple commands

I have really loved working with Liveworksheet. 

I am posting multiple video links on my blog this summer on how to digitalize your worksheets depending on what you are looking to do with it. I am using worksheets from Canva to show you the various tools available. 

I am breaking up the infographic available on my TPT in these videos. 

I hope these help!

*these videos will show you how to create our worksheet after you have created your Liveworksheet account.

This post encompasses the simple commands section of the infographic.

Video 1: Uploading a document to digitalize, drawing a box, including answers for autocorrect and saving the document for private use. 

ALL videos will also show how it will look to your students once they click on the link.

Video 2: creating check boxes ( a tick mark/checkmark will appear in the correct boxes ), self correct multiple choice boxes and a drop down menu ( in this example a simple yes/no answer).

More tutorials to come soon!

3 top Distance Learning resources and some thoughts for next year

It is the end of the year for me, I have stopped by school to collect the 3 month old dirty cups, cleaned up my desk that was left in a hurry in March, and now I am ready to chill for a bit. I am not sure about your schools but here, we are not quite ready with a plan for Fall and understandably it is hard to tell what the situation will be in September so, we continue on the Distance Learning series and the top 3 resources I planned my lessons around during the Spring term.

At # 3: Lingt.com. I must have posted about Lingt before, if not here on my IG @laclassedemademoisele. Lingt is free, if you have small classes, you need to pay to have a larger amount of student accounts. I use the free version and delete some content as I go along. The students get URL a bit like Edpuzzle or Flipgrid and that is all you need to tell them apart from the class name.

On your end it is very easy to create content, you can record yourself and have then repeat, like atailored language lab, you can write and they can write also,  I am attaching two examples of tasks I created by adding text, then pictures, and asking the kids either to write or to speak and often both. I then log in to the system and I can see the kids work and give them feedback so long as they provide an email address.

At #2 Learning Apps. www.learningapps.org 

This website allows you to create a variety of games for grammar or vocabulary, there is also a search engine and for example, on one day my kids played a game on routines that I created and loved it so much I told them to look up Rutina in the search engine and they found a bunch more tasks to do.

You can record yourself as well which allows you to create listening games in any language. The folder system allows you to organize your resources and you can embed the links to your made games in your website or online platform. Here is an example of the recap task I gave my 6th graders on questions and answers on school. They just had to drag the question and answers, these are not timed so kids can also take notes as they do the task. 

At #1, liveworksheets.com. A real lifesaver during these dire times. If you want to go green and skip printing worksheets this is the way to go. Let me be clear, it is a little time consuming digitalizing your worksheets but totally worth it. Plus there is a ton of resources already available, you just don't know how the autocorrect will work if you don't try the worksheet yourself at first.

 

Liveworksheets has it's own code which you will learn two ways:1. watching the how-to videos on their website or youtube. ( I am hoping to sit down this summer and write a little code key to share before the fall, 2. you can find various worksheet switch different types of exercises and click on how did they make it and you will see the codes they used. 

I have reservations with the pre recorded voices, I did a task with my nephew who is learning English, we are both French ( this reminds me, I should probably do an introduction post), anyway, the voice was barely recognizable, but I do believe you can upload your own Mp3 files into the worksheet.

I used Liveworksheets to create quizzes, homework tasks, checking for understanding in class and just for fun. 

what you can do: gapfills, match ups, true or false, you can enter the answers and also leave open answers spaces. 

I have not used the workbook or entered students but I am definitely thinking I will next year.

Now for the next post, I will try to share the resources I plan on using next fall, if we are int he classroom and I cannot get the kids around a boardgame I must find another option and this seems to be Genial.ly. So the next post will be about how I can move a powerpoint board game to Genial.ly.