Week 11 - Reflexion on "Emma on the seaside"

Today, we had to watch Emma on the seaside, a story by our classmates : Charline, Lucy, Léa and Chloé. And we had to give our opinion on this story and give ideas to make it better.

First, we noticed that the pronunciation is perfect, as Lucy is English. She insisted on important words such as colours and adjectives, which is the pedagogic aim.

Talking about the recording, we heard some noisy exterior sounds sometimes but we like the sounds of train, waves, insects...

Then, few drawings could be improve as the cake in which some flowers are not coloured but they are all very nice and are focused on the important colours.

On the pedagogic side, the story is focused on colours, which is a good thing to teach for children, and on vocabulary of holidays. Simple words are used so it makes the story understandable.

However, the fact that Lucy is almost the only talking is a shame, the group should split up the voices more, but it is just a detail.

Week 7, 8 and 9 : the final stretch ! ( By Emilie)

During the last three weeks, all students of our class included us had to record their voice on voicethread which will be the support of the story telling for the teacher, and had to have finished the activities that will be proposed to children in different classes of our region.

It is important to say how Maylis, Louise-which are the member of my group- and I split up the work. All of us thought of the eductional activities, so each of us drew the different slides and agreed the exercises would be a multiple choice questions for the first exercise, and an association of words with theirs corresponding picture for the second one.I drew the labyrinth which is the playful activity.

In class, we watched the story tellings of all the other students and could comment on them, pointing the positive- for instance the content, the story, the voice- and the negative aspects- which could be a mistake of pronounciation, or a drawing which could be improved- of each story. It was a necessary step to make us realize our mistakes and improve our story. After class, we had to take the remarks of our teacher and the sudents into consideration so as to make a second voicethread recording.

We could say it was quite difficult for us to use Gimp, as we had to be really precise when it came to colour our drawings. The second little " problem" was each of us did the drawing by our side, so we had to match the colours of the trees and backgrounds when we met at university, as we didn't necessay used the same green to colour the trees, for example. Finally, we had to record many times before we could get an acceptable recording. 

To finish, we all had to focus on questions we wanted to ask the teacher about our work, and he or she is supposed to tell us what he or she liked or disliked. The questions had to be quite short. Let's see her answer, hoping we did a good job !

Week 6 : different tools for our story telling ( by Emilie)

This week, our teacher showed us how to use two softwares. One was called voice thread. Voice Thread is a multimedia tool which allows us to create an online discussion with the teacher or with other students on a topic, picture, or video. The teacher also showed us how to create an account, upload a thread, and make a comment on it.

Our teacher introduced us “Wordle” as well. The concept is easy : you tape a word and  you can tweak it with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. It is very nice to make a story or anything you like, and I think it is more captivating, more fun, playful.

After having been presented these softwares, Maylis, Louise and I tried to get familiar with them.

Then, we kept on thinking about our story project, and shared out the activities we will propose to the children. We finally agreed that Louise will keep on creating the characters of the story, Maylis will think of the backgroud we will use for the first slide of our story, and I will create the “game” which will be a labyrinth.

 Being a teacher is not easy, and we have to be adapt to children, according to what they already know, their age, what subjects could interest them more than an another one. In a nutshell, three words : let’s be thoughtful, creative and adaptable. (This is when it comes to prepare a course, then, when it comes to teach… patience also must be required !) Although it is not that simple to create a story, I prefer doing it than only reading a story which has been written. We don’t during the course, (too many things to wonder, to prepare and when you like what you do, time automatically flies!

Week 5 : Writing the story (by Maylis)

In the last lesson, we began to define the number of pages according to what will happen in each slide and we thought of what activities we could link with our story.

-> I think learning how to write a story is something important if we become teacher because it is an other approach of story than story telling.
- We talked a lot to find exactly the point of view that we all imagined. Furthermore, working together lets us correct each other and we learn from the other too.

We thought of what could interest pupils and how to make a 'living' story, a story which children will like, understand and a story with teaching objectives.

This week, Louise began to imagine the characters and we all thought about different exercises and activities linked to our story. I like doing that and I think it is easier thanks to our collaborating work.

Week 4 - Writing the outline (by Louise and Maylis)

This week we wrote the outline of our story.

To begin, we chose a character. We wanted a girl, and first we thought about a princess but then she became a simple girl. Soon we chose that the story will take place in the United States even before they were the United States. We are very interested by the Native American culture so we chose a background linked to that culture. We decided to tell the story of how the girl get her name. The Native Americans are also very closed to nature and animals and children usually like those themes, so we tried to incorporate them to our story.


What we learned :
- new vocabulary, especially animals and words linked to the Native American culture
- that is very difficult to create the "perfect" story

Difficulties we faced with :
- pronunciation of this new vocabulary
- match our wishes with the reality
- find a subject which pleased to everyone in our group (especially because Emilie wasn't there and we wanted to do something she might like too)

Week 3 - The importance of Storytelling in Teaching (by Louise)

This week we saw that one of the best way to teach something, especially to children, is storytelling. In that purpose, we studied an essay by Melanie C. Green called "Storytelling in Teaching". This essay starts by a sentence which is, in my opinion, a perfect summary of what should be a storytelling in education : "Tell me a fact and I'll learn. Tell me the truth and I'll believe. But tell me a story and it will live in my heart
forever." - Indian Proverb

Indeed, a children learn more from a story than from a "classic" lesson for several reasons.
First, a story creates interest, it allows the child to dream and escape reality, by doing that he/she feels concerned.
A story can also create a special link between the reader (the teacher) and the listener (the student) and make the communication easier.


But to do all that, the story must have some basic ingredients :
- an heroic character with simple attributes, mostly cliché
- a basic scenario with some twists (but not too much)
- simple words and sentences with repetitions
- a happy ending

Knowing all that, it's now our turn to create a great story !

Week 2

- Language improvement :
We learnt vocabulary about technologies at school and we discovered that technologies have always been very important for children education.
We also watched a cartoon about a fox and a turtle as an example of which kind of video we can make.

- Pedagogy :
We have to choose an interesting story for children but also with educational purpose. We have to use technologies as a fundamental tool for education.

- Use of technology :
Using technology today through computers, lap-tops or phones is normal and kids are used to this teaching aid.
We have seen different videos using different supports and we have to choose the one which seems the most easy to deal with and the most useful for education. And it will be difficult to choose because we don't know the softwares.

- Collaboration :
We always do everything together, we talk a lot to prevent difficulties and to find THE story.
We were friends before and we were accustomed to work together so we don't have difficulties collaborating with each other.