When I think of my personal “dream project“ in school, I probably would combine to subjects. Of course, the whole project would be done in English to learn to speak this foreign language more freely and to add new vocabulary to the existing knowledge of each student. This new vocabulary would contain many technical terms concerning the “Olympic Games”, therefore the second subject compared with my project would be sports, athletics and its disciplines in detail, e.g. high jump, shot put or javelin throw. This year the Olympic Games will take place in Germany and this would be a good reason to it out as central theme in class.

The students of my English class would be arranged in small groups to represent an expert-team of one of the main Olympic disciplines in track and field. Each group would have to choose one of those and then do a research on their individual topic. Printed material as well as digital information is welcomed when I would organize such a project. The expert groups should find some interesting information on their disciplines, concerning its technique, required equipment, its special practice and they should find some information on an athlete who is famous for his or her kind of sport.

In the end of this sports-project all groups should have prepared a PowerPoint Presentation to present their result in class and to inform the other students of their special kind of sport, naturally in English. Moreover, each group would have to design a blog, which should be constituted like a diary and which includes their presentations and all the other material they would have found during this project. Such a blog would make the information available for everybody in class and so the students could have a closer on all the results of the expert-teams.

I probably would organize a project like this in a 11^th or 12^th grade, shortly before they will do athletics in sports. It could be a good theoretical preparation for each student and the corresponding teacher could build on such a basis of knowledge.

Last Wednesday we visied the “Alfred-Wegener-Schule” in Kirchhain; concerning our field trip and the guiding tour I think it is quiet interesting in how far and in what way schools to adapt their way of teaching and their equipment to today’s society and life-style. In the following I’m going to answer the 2 questions I asked in my last week’s post.

(1)   The appropriate use of new media in school requires a competent knowledge of different types of media: how is this learning process realized by teachers as well as by students?

This school managed this problem quiet good because they established an information and communication course which takes 6 weeks and is obligatory for all students in grade 5. it is constituted like a crash course to learn the required basic knowledge like Windows, Word PowerPoint etc.. New media should be a part of today’s lesson; it should be seen as a matter of course medium in everyday-use. The technical and factual lessons should be connected with each other to realize this.

Apart from this there are also disadvantages which make it difficult realize. For example the class size of 30-35 students. The teacher loses the overview and they all do something different in front of the computer.

A solution for this problem might be a motivating task which activates and addresses all the students, so that they can do their tasks and learn the handling of the computer and the World Wide Web at the same time.

On the other hand the college and the teachers have to be educated or even upgraded. There is a “Fortbildungsbeauftrage” who organizes the “Weiterbildungskurse” at different schools.

Moreover colleagues help other colleagues themselves; so they offer to train other teachers and if somebody has a deficit in any special field he or she is able to be taught by colleague.

The most common problem is however, that especially senior teachers are overcharged with this innovation or they do not even want to learn the usage of computers in general. They leave this to younger teachers and continue with their alternative teaching method which can also be very effective if you teach your lessons in a appropriate way.

(2)   In how far or in what way have the syllabus or the curriculum to be modified or even renewed?

The “Kultusministerium” regulates that the schools do lesson-integrated training of computer science and they want the teacher to train the usage of new media during their lessons.

The schools need adequate equipment, new technology and enough room to arrange such a “high technology classroom” or something like an “Oberstufenarbeitsbibliothek” with new media or a “Lernwerkstatt” as we have seen in Kirchhain.

As far as I can see the syllabus has not to be modified in general, only some details need to be renewed or invented to achieve these goals. For example term projects could be put into practice more often or the topics could be changed to more up-to-date versions but all in all the curriculum stick to its form.

Finally I would say it is more time and effort to restructure the school concerning rooms and buildings to make use of new media than in any other sector but some day all we all will work in a “high-technology-school” and all the momentary and alternative tools will be replaced by new media devices!!

On Wednesday the 17^th of June our New Media course will visit the “Alfred-Wegener-Schule” in Kirchhain and these questions I’m going to ask during our field trip:

(1)   The appropriate use of new media in school requires a competent knowledge of different types of media: how is this learning process realized by teachers as well as by students?

(2)   In how far or in what way has the syllabus/ curriculum to be modified or even renewed?

In the following report I will inform you of a teaching project which has existed for 7 years now. The “Geschwister-Scholl-Gymnasium” in Münster has invented this new type of teaching a foreign language and their project is called “Fremdsprachenwerkstatt” ( just have a look at it if you want). The school equipped a room with new media and all technical devices needed to start this project. Lessons in foreign languages, especially English, are structured in such a way that the students get to know different forms of communication and are able to work with them. Different ways of communicating are essential in nowadays’ international communication; therefore the students have to be aware of their usage. This project is “learning by doing” -orientated so that the students can learn and practice almost on their own. Theatre plays are composed; they write letters which are published online and the students give presentations in pairs, which can be videotaped, afterwards analyzed and corrected and then they can perform it in class.

Concerning this “Fremdprachenwerkstatt” the project has been extended to other subjects, for example politics. Students from an 8^th grade had the idea to prepare presentations and then publish them online to make them available to a majority of interested people. The students had to decide which person they want to pay their attention to and finally present online.

Besides the use and knowledge of new media, the students had to work in teams and had to corporate with other classmates which strengthens the coherence in class and encourages the students to learn English in different ways.

This class applied for an advancement award named “Unterricht Online 99”and finally won the second price for their project.

I personally really liked this way of teaching foreign languages in relation to new media. This project is a very good innovation in schools and I would also use such a project when I will work as a teacher. It is a perfect alternative to our ordinary frontal teaching method; moreover the students have fun and learn in a more motivating atmosphere!!

So, I really recommend this online report to you, it is very interesting and you gain a quiet good insight into a teaching project.

Here you can have a closer look into the project itself!

In general it is a very positive and also more effective way of learning when you, as a foreign language learner, make use different kinds of learning. Information and material that has been learned can be better stored in your long-term memory when you learn with or through different strategies. One of these alternatives is the learning software which tries to expand the learner’s knowledge concerning vocabulary, grammar and general text and language comprehension. Apart from the conservative way of learning this might be a more attractive and more up-to-date manner because, as we saw in our first blog task, we live in an electronic-supported society and new media is increasingly used in school. Thus young people, especially students, might learn more or even better than before.

I analyzed one software which is suitable for students at the age of 9 -12 years. It is structured like an adventure game, the user has different locations which he/ she can enter to follow the tasks. The children are thought in a playful and animated way which might be an argument for young children do use this program. They learn through exploring the material and thus addresses the four skills: listening, reading, writing and speaking; which are the basis of good and effective learning processes. But no clear structure is recognizable and the overwhelming amount of possibilities is really confusing for young learners of English. All in all, it could be a recommendable learning software, if the navigation through the different levels would be more transparent and more clearly arranged.

The second program I analyzed is useable for students in secondary school or even at vocational schools (age group 18 – x years). This software is quiet well structured and you can navigate quiet easily. For its target group it is an appropriate program but has some negative aspects concerning content and variation. Every level is organized in the same way; the four main skills are addressed and the students are expected to reproduce and to transfer the information in a visual and auditory way which focuses on the behaviorism learning-theory. These are arguments for such software but here are also same negative aspects to mention which make the program less recommendable. According to every task solutions are available; this program contains incorrect and wrong answers which is very confusing and not appropriate for learners of a foreign language.

In general, this program has some positive aspects but I personally would not recommend it because it contains wrong answers and it is not designed very attractive.

Finally, I would use such a software in school as an alternative to conservative lessons and to open this ordinary structure. A way of using it could be in competitions with the whole class or as some kind of individual team work, whereas the students can ask questions if necessary but generally work on their own.

I chose the poster on the “skills we have to have” when we want to master our lives and which are influenced by new media either in foreign language education or in every other branch of our lives, private or professional.

The use of new media and the knowledge of its techniques become more and more important. Thus, especially students have to learn and to acquire this knowledge. It is essential to learn it while you are at school because more and more schools take part in this innovation and some of them even become media-schools. So we can say that it is a “knowledge for life” which determines your future professional sectors, either in a positive way or in a negative way depending on the level of knowledge.

Apart from this digital comprehension we, as expectant teachers, also have to have a basic state of knowledge concerning general and factual knowledge as well as social and practical skills. Our media competences influence all these branches and mostly support them or even expand them in understanding. The poster shown below describes and visualizes this influential characteristic of new media in general very well, I think. Different colors picture the main and basic competences and a big sign is put below the skills to show and to clarify the great influence computers and new media have on our lives.

All in all, I would say, this poster visualizes the importance of new media in society very well and shows the effect it has on our competences in a clear and easy way of understanding.

This is my  blog on the our course “New Media in Foreign Language Education.

Come in and find out some interesting stuff about the course….

Feel free to comment on my blog entries and have fun!!

Yours, Christin