Dozens of technological tools for the French class

During the last AQUOPS conference, the teacher Patrick Poulin presented several technological tools relevant to the students of his French courses in high school. Free and collaborative for the most part, they have been brought together for ease of reference. 

Patrick Poulin is a teacher at 1^er secondary cycle and ICT manager at the Deux-Rives school, at the Beauce-Etchemin school board. Over the past few years, he has experimented with a variety of tools in his French class. “15 years ago, we had little choice,” he begins. Today is different. You have to find the time to appropriate the tools and choose the best. I built the workshop as I would have liked to receive it. It will be a buffet formula where everyone can make discoveries. "

It has served as an "entry" to the resources it considers essential. Whether it's Moodle, Google Classroom or the free part of ChallengeU, he suggests using a platform to deposit capsules to facilitate the study. Among the reference tools, his preference goes to Antidote, which he uses at TNI. “It's not just a proofreader,” he tells his students, “he's a co-pilot. He will make proposals and you will decide if that makes sense. »Mr. Poulin wants his students to trust each other, not necessarily that they write all their text to pass it to the corrector at the very end. "I want them to question their doubts and use the corrector and the dictionaries integrated into the software for their particular needs," he adds.

He also suggests that his students create an account on Hello teacher to obtain results according to their level of education, to search the “gold mine” of validated resources of Education hub and consult the BDL (linguistic assistance bank) of the Office québécois de la langue française. This part of the workshop was supplemented by his suggestions for link sharing tools: Pearltrees, Symbaloo and Diigo.

Several useful tools made up the main course. “There are a multitude of possibilities for questioning students,” he observes. “You have to go there according to individual tastes and needs. Google Forms and its extension Flubaroo, Socrative and Kahoot are among those he tested. The latter was also used to check who, of the sixty participants present, would manage to find the answer the fastest in the competition. @ 1faultperday of the Voltaire project. Energetic climate guaranteed!

Some of his favorite presentation apps include Prezi, Powtoon, Voki and Moovly. In his classroom management, does he impose them for the realization of a work or does he leave the choice to the pupils? “That's a good question,” answers the teacher. As a professional, you don't have to wonder whether you are thoroughly familiar with all the tools. Young people are happy to teach them to others at TNI. For my part, I present the project and I ask the students which tool they have chosen. Otherwise, it wouldn't make them independent students. "

It proposes the use of grammatical, this web application that allows students to understand grammar by analyzing sentences. Even if there is the possibility of creating one account per student (paid), it offers the original use of this tool with the help of a single account to pit boys and girls against each other in their understanding of grammar. It also invites them to use Padlet to disseminate links and Crocodoc to share their annotations and strategies online.

As a “dessert”, to continue the metaphor, Mr. Poulin presented several resources, including Thinglink for its many possibilities in terms of active images, Mind42 for the storms of ideas, Etherpad to work on a text with others and BAnQ for its large reading inventory.

Facebook and Twitter are used for Patrick Poulin's professional networking (including these 30 Facebook groups to follow in education). He experienced Edmodo for exchanges with his students and ClassDojo for his classroom management. He also promises to explore ClassCraft soon.

Patrick Poulin teaches French in a computer lab where each student has their own computer. For him, free access, web access and the possibility of co-building sum up the characteristics of a good tool. Why did you choose tools whose interface is in English? “Yes, I am a French teacher who uses certain tools in English,” he confides. “It is certain that I prefer tools offering an interface in French. However, for some needs we have no choice. "

To consult all the resources proposed by Patrick Poulin during this workshop at AQUOPS, consult: Monurl.ca/atelierticetfrancais