Top Ten Techno Tips For Immersion Teachers from the ACIE Archives

The ACIE Newsletter, May 2007, Vol. 10, No. 3

By John Peacock, Professor of Language, Literature, and Culture, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore MD.

wanji (1)

Gary Leatherman, Technology Specialist, L’Etoile du Nord French Immersion School, St. Paul, MN, recommends that small immersion schools with low budgets bring computer labs to students (rather than vice versa). Wireless iBook Mobile Labs, on a cart, have built-in LCD projectors for projecting the screen from the teacher’s computer set up exactly like the screens of thirty wireless laptops on the students’ desks. Use Mac OS X operating system to set up one laptop and NetRestore software to synchronize all the others. All the information remains on your Mac OS X server so that any iBook can be automatically updated or re-initialized by pressing a key. Reset all thirty computers in half a day rather than spend days installing discs on each one. Add subject-specific capabilities with special cart accessories. Immersion Learning, Unplugged, November 2004

numpa?(2)

Tony Erben, University of South Florida, Assistant Professor of Foreign Language Education & ESOL, recommends audiographics – net-based, real-time multimedia, data, and visual conferencing combined with audio capability for distance education and interactive learning. Share screens, send and store images and information from separate computers linked over a network. Information written or typed on one computer is immediately seen at all remote sites. Share software tools such as Windows and use them interactively. Make audio connections through the Internet. Import computer generated pictures and present them as video or slides. Monitor or allow students to use any or all of these facilities independently in order to see and manipulate writings and displays. An electronic white board lets teacher and students interact in real time, import and rewrite documents seen simultaneously by all participants. Anything written with electronic pens on either a white board or graphic tablet appears on participants’ computer screens and can be cut and pasted into a Word document. Not being face-to-face, participants cue each other more often, wait longer for questions to be answered, and signal when it’s someone else’s turn. Immersion Teacher Education through Audiographics, May 2002

yamni (3)

Terri Geffert, second grade teacher at Bridgewater Elementary Spanish immersion School in Northfield, Minnesota, makes user-friendly multimedia Hyperstudio presentations that students can view at their computers and use to compose a KidPix slide show with the help of digital and video cameras to document their research. Immersion Teachers in CoBaLTT, February 2001

topa (4)

Gloria Ruff, fifth grade teacher from Robbinsdale (Minnesota) Spanish Immersion School, uses the TrackStar website to organize web page assignments. She finds information on the Web, organizes it into her own TrackStar web page using models on the TrackStar website, and sets up the computer lab with her own TrackStar on the computer screen. Students use a word processing program to read the information and answer comprehension questions she has selected in the TrackStar window, and either print out their work or email their responses. Immersion Teachers in CoBaLTT, February 2001