Isle of Wight MFL Conference

Over 70 MFL teachers gathered on Friday and Saturday 12/13th October at Nodehill Middle School in the Isle of Wight for a Conference to reach out and accelerate the use of ICT across all aspects of the teaching and learning of languages. It was a truly multi-national affair with delegates from as far afield as Scotland, Wales and Portugal !

The sessions kicked off on Friday evening with a structured 'un-conference' show-and tell session in the Castle Inn in the centre of Newport. The evening began with David Noble from Fife setting the scene on the things he is currently thinking about. Have a look at his Future Lab interview on the subject. At 9.30 we tried a Flash Meeting with people from around the world ... New Zealand to USA ... the concept was great and it showed the potential of the medium but was let down by the speed of the connection.John Warwick was the man for Flashmeeting and he did a well visited presentation on Saturday. There were many interesting projects brought to the fore during a long evening the main thing coming through time and time again was the enthusiasm and commitment on the part of the presenters and the audience to quality education for young people. I finished off with a look at how Textease Studio CT could be used to read the page and record sound in different languages.

The Conference proper on Saturday had a host of presentation with many delegates really wanting to get to grips with blogs and podcasts and Joe 'keynoted' with a how to get started with podcasting. I know that there will be videos etc from him about all of the other presentations on his blog ( as soon as he and his wife have recovered from their organising efforts).

My session on the Friday evening provoked a good deal of interest in Textease Studio CT and the presentation stand had a great turn over of vistors wanting to know more. The Podium session attracted 15 or so who were looking to compare and contrast methods of podcasting before they dived into it. In using Podium I responded, in answer to a question, that ... 'Yes, it was a 'paid for' application' but felt that there was nothing that came entirely free and that people must judge for themselves about speed, simplicity, security and 'fit for purpose'. I also commented that it was up to those working across the educational arena to ensure that all colleagues and students had access to technology which fitted their learning and teaching contexts''

Keep your eye open for next year's Conference.