eLearning Laura

I recently wrote an article jointly with the Principal of Berkhamsted School, Mark Steed, on ICT as a catalyst for change in pedagogy. It was published in the ISC Bulletin, 29, June 2012, pp.30-34.   ‘Each change in technology in schools makes us revisit and re-evaluate how and why we do what we do in the [...]

iPads are fantastic for creating what we could call ‘digital output’, ie. a product of learning that is more engaging, dynamic or sophisticated than putting old fashioned pen to paper. I firmly believe that allowing students scope to create a product which is more tangible than just evidence, eg. the answers to an exercise, is [...]

Getting students writing isn’t always easy, especially in a foreign language. My search for writing apps for the iPad has been focussed on clean, unfussy experience and an emphasis on productivity without frills that distract in the classroom. Here are the results of our roadtests in MFL classrooms. Here’s my pick of the best writing [...]

Looking for iPad apps that really work in the classroom? This is the first in a series of posts designed to share the results of my roadtests in the MFL classrooms at Berkhamsted School. For Modern Languages, apps that effectively allow students to work with audio are tremendously powerful. Here’s my pick of the best [...]

    “All change please – the Internet is coming!” I attended my first ISC ICT conference this week, which was hosted at Berkhamsted on Wednesday 7th December. It was a fantastic day and I felt very privileged to speak about the work I am doing in my department on colaborative learning using iPads. Click [...]

My Year 10 boys did what they love best today. They managed to take our lesson about French regions off on a complete tangent and we got talking about our iPad project in MFL. The animation and excitement in their entire demeanour when talking about the iPads was an absolute pleasure to see: they literally [...]

As any number of blog posts will tell you, iPads are great educational devices. They are also great fun to play with, but for now the majority of teachers across the UK haven’t been able to test-run iPads and associated apps in languages classrooms. The expertise  on what you actually do with them, week-in, week-out in [...]

I will admit that until last summer I was an Evernote sceptic. The app had languished unused on my various Apple devices and it wasn’t until this autumn that I began to appreciate the power of this tool. I had spent last year trying to escape the chaos of multiple paper and electronic systems by [...]

It’s no secret with my students that I like it when they use digital media to make learning more interesting. Anything that helps grammar rules to stick is a good idea in my view, so I was really pleased when one of my Year 10 students made this video about the Perfect Tense in French. [...]

I really enjoyed this TED talk from Patricia Kuhl about breakthrough scientific studies of how language is acquired by babies. The broad theories were one of the background reasons why the Labour government decided to develop foreign language teaching in primary schools, as younger children’s brains are more receptive to second language learning, especially before [...]