I had decided a couple of weeks ago that I would report on the monthly newsletter I send out in connection with my French website. The website and newsletter have been going for about six years and with a wealth of really excellent learning websites coming out in the past 12 months I really begin to question whether there is much point in continuing. However my website has always been a hobby and experimentarium rather than a professional place so the comparison is not really valid.

The purpose of the newsletter is first and foremost to draw learners of French to authentic francophone websites but I also include a more pedagogic link as well to dictionaries, other language tools or learning websites. The idea is to remind people of the reason for learning French by highlighting intrinsically interesting websites and giving them a linguistic exercise based on the content. I first got the idea from Tower of English which does this for English language websites. The newsletter goes out once a month and for June I had decided to feature a website I first learned about through Graham Attwell. The site was bilingual which I always think is interesting for learners. It was pedagogic but not in the direction of language and it was interactive, almost immersive. Ideal! I was clicking round and started looking at the conditions when I found this:

“Moreover, the creation of hypertext links leading to the Site shall only be possible with the written and prior authorization of XXXX "

There began a long email correspondance with the sponsoring company about my wish to feature the site in the newsletter. I had to give exact URLS and the text I proposed to use. Some additional text was suggested for inclusion which did not fit at all with my reason for featuring the website. I did not for example see any reason to explain how many languages the site is available in since the newsletter is only about helping people with French. And at the time of writing, the ball is in the company's court. I am waiting for a reply to my latest email supplying the additional details they requested. I must admit that I have pursued this just to see how far this would go. I realised long ago that I would have to give up and find another link for June. I find it incredible that a large well-known company expects to have so much control over something which they have put into the public domain. I thought that the whole idea of the internet was to link. I know that Google got into trouble for basing a service on links but in general moderate use of links I thought was accepted practice. I just wonder how many people even find this small print.

So this month's link is a blog of cartoons, Le Blog Krobs, because these are stories which work mainly without words and I thought it would be a good exercise for learners of French to write their own stories in French to describe what is going on. If they feel brave they can record their stories on the Voicethread of my blog. There are many different stories on the blog and so users can choose the story which appeals to them or which they think they can talk about with their current level of French.

The pedagogic link is to one of those websites which I mentioned above which make me ponder the wisdom of continuing. The site is French Pod run by Ken Carroll who has proven his approach with Chinese and Spanish. I like the site because there are lots of free short podcasts which are categorised according to level. The podcasts are short and for the lower levels include lots of repetition. The site also includes guides to grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation. You pay for transcripts and exercises if you are a serious learner. What I particularly like about the site is the community of users which it facilitates so that learners can support each other. This is a feature of many of the sites which I find exemplary at the moment.

I also added a third link this month which was to a Collins dictionary widget which you can embed in your website and which I have now added to mine. In fact I have also embedded a podcast feed from French Pod as encouraged by the website. So two very different business models, one of which will make me very careful to read the small print in the future.

Added June 23: I got permission to use the link!

Below are the details for joining a free online session which I am leading on Friday. I am very pleased to be given this opportunity by the EVOLVE project to outline some of the ideas which we have developed in the VITAE project to date and I look forward to receiving some constructive feedback.

Date: June 20

Venue: Elluminate

Time: 12.00 GMT (13:00 UK, 14:00 CET)

It was the digital native and digital immigrant cliché which inspired the intercultural approach of the VITAE project to ICT integration in adult education. A significant proportion of teachers are still hostile to the integration of ICT in everyday practice even though this means that they miss out on opportunities to enrich and engage. If this hostility is re-cast as a culture clash then maybe an intercultural journey led by mentors is a way of smoothing the path. My session will take you on this intercultural journey giving you a taste of how mentoring could help by concentrating on the pedagogic benefits of ICT integration.

Not sure how accurate the map is but this is as addictive as free rice. Find the places on the map. For every right answer it is alleged that water is donated to those in need. It's the Google Ads which turn up on the right hand side which bother me.

Use of the word Europe implies that there is a common Euuropean outlook. While this may be true to a certain extent there are still many differences between countries. For example in the latest Absolutely Intercultural show we hear from a Greek student spending time in Germany and surprised that students do not smoke in the classrooms or that the library is a quiet place. On the other hand we hear from a German student visiting Greece and having an eight hour lesson. Even personal space is different with Germans needing more than Greeks.

It's not every day that there is Royalty in the classroom so the students at the University of Applied Sciences in Koblenz were especially curious about a German engineer, Mr Michael, who was made king of a village in Ghana after contributing to its development over some years. Was there any protocol involved? Of greater interest to the students was to find out about effective development aid. The key to success was motivation rather than the involvement of large organisations.This was an event management exercise.

The show ends with the effectiveness of personal improvement plans in English as a way of giving responsibility to the students for their own learning outside of the classroom.

I was invited by the EVOLVE project to do an online session to present the VITAE project. The EVOLVE project is described as follows:

The Evolve project is organising a series of international on-line events and seminars.

The objectives are:

• To provide a space for participant driven discussion and debate
• To promote critical inquiry and discourse
• To allow for the presentation of ideas in progress
• To share expertise, ideas and future thinking around common research agendas

My own session was entitled 21st century skills and mentoring and was an opportunity to test out the ideas developed in the project so far to a wider audience. I had planned the session to be a presentation followed by a workshop in which participants tried out for themselves responding to the mentor questions which form an integral part of the VITAE training approach. I guess that the workshop element did not work so well and there could be two reasons for this. One could be that the mentor sessions are not good enough and do not elicit responses. The second option (which I want to believe) is that much more time was needed for reflection before answering the mentor questions and especially that the course tasks needed to be attempted before proceeding to the mentor questions.

It was undoubtedly a good exercise for me as project coordinator to have to set out my stall in this way and although we did not follow the mentoring questions too closely there were some interesting discussions, which after all, is mainly the point. It was also interesting to learn about another ongoing European project which could have a great deal in common with VITAE in a complementary fashion. This is the MUVEnation project which is also using the peer to peer teaching idea but which is more closely focussed on the use of multi-user virtual environments as learning tools.

 

The link to the archive is http://elluminate.jiscemerge.org.uk/play_recording.html?recordingId=1213208486375_1213960145754 You will need audio.

As well as presenting the project another main objective was to present the VITAE community of practice which has just been set up as a Ning community at http://vitaeproject.ning.com The Ning space is designed primarily for the participants in our forthcoming training courses but we would love to see anybody who is interested in the project as well so that we can help each other along the way.