Infonews n°329 from 24/03/2008
Story of the Day
How different countries celebrate it
April Fools in world media
**Quizzes and Tests
Practical jokes and Pranks
Hoaxes
Links
*** Pastafarianism : is it real or is it an April Fool joke?
Audio tales to download
A teaching Unit about English speaking countries
Gaming motivates students
Debating Spyware as parental monitoring
Digital Age Assessment (flash cards and quiz maker)
Nouveaux programmes de primaire
L'APLV et syndicats demandent le report de l'épreuve de langue du brevet
Cyber-langues : appel à communication
This video is going round at the moment, and you
can find it everywhere. It features interviews of
people on the street in the US, edited so that
they would appear stupid and ignorant. Some
people find it funny, others just well edited for
a purpose. The whole report is a bit long and
repetitive, but if you keep only short segments,
you can use it even with beginners (as long as
you tell them the wrong answers were selected on
purpose). It presents stupid answers people give
to questions like : what religion are Buddhists
monks? (catholic?) Give the name of a country
starting with a U (Yugoslavia? Utah?) etc. (version with subtitles)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJuNgBkloFE
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/730204/stupid_american/
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x19aqw_americans-are-not-stupid-with-subti_fun
Video found on this page:
http://www.thethinkingblog.com/2007/04/top-10-april-fool-pranks-2007.html
Story of the Day
http://www.usemb.se/Holidays/celebrate/april.html
http://stockholm.usembassy.gov/Holidays/celebrate/april.html (the same)
http://wilstar.com/holidays/aprilfool.htm
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/aprilfools1.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fool's_Day (including several hoaxes)
short texts
http://www.bartleby.com/65/ap/AprilFoo.html
http://www3.kumc.edu/diversity/other/aprlfool.html
longer ones
http://www.snopes.com/holidays/april/aprlfool.htm
http://www.kidzworld.com/site/p593.htm
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/aprilfools1.html
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/aforigin.html
http://www.2camels.com/destination44.php3
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Pointe/5365/fool.html
(plus ideas of how to turn the prank on the kids)
How different countries celebrate it
http://www.calendar-updates.com/info/holidays/canada/aprilfools.aspx
http://holidays.mrdonn.org/aprilfools.html
http://homepages.tesco.net/%7Ederek.berger/holidays/aprilfool.html
April Fools in world media
The most famous: the spaghetti trees in
Switzerland, from the BBC. Here is the story and the clip:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6505837.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/avdb/news/video/86000/nb/86407_16x9_nb.ram
Several stories published in the papers,
described but no links to show the real thing
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/monitoring/media_reports/1254570.stm
April fool's day sampler, plus links
http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/weekly/aa040201a.htm?terms=April+Fool+Gags
A long list in Wikipedia with presenting 2007 April fools
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_1,_2007
Quizzes and Tests
A quiz about the history of the day
http://homeschooling.about.com/cs/hisholidays/l/blquizholapfool.htm
A written test : is it true or is it a hoax
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/tests/afquiz.html
A classic, but you have to write the test yourself
http://www.ilovethatteachingidea.com/ideas/010402_april_fools_day_quiz.htm
**The same, with the text of the mock test
http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/teachingandlearning/assemblies/index.cfm?mode=searchdisplay&id=34&history=keyword
Short funny online test : in two click, got ya!
http://www.virtualgravy.com/cards/aptest.shtml
Spot the language mistakes. very difficult. for advanced students.
http://esl.about.com/library/weekly/aa040198.htm
Practical jokes and Pranks
The Simpsons' April fool joke (available on
various sites, sometimes with poor quality)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6182783430158511464
Various suggestions :
http://www.kidzworld.com/article/1939-april-fools-practical-jokes-and-pranks
jokes for children, by categories, including the famous knock-knock ones...
http://www.scatty.com/
Hoaxes
A list of hoaxes ordered by year. See especially
the GM carrots, or the tax on pets, there is also a list of pranks...
http://www.april-fools.us/
The top 100 hoaxes of all time. Read about the
spaghetti tree, and some other hoaxes.
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/aprilfool/
Urban Legends and Virus Alerts
http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Technology/virushoax.html
Et vous pouvez envoyer vos élèves sur ce site
français qui repère les hoaxes : cela leur
évitera de transmettre à tout leur carnet
d'adresse des messages qui ne font qu'encombrer
les boites et sont en réalité du spam. La
dernière en date ( deuxième adresse) concerne des
messages à envoyer par Instant Messenger, un
logiciel que nos élèves utilisent
beaucoup...voyez aussi ( troisième adresse) cette
info sur "mobile phone shock horror" qui présente
en anglais le message annonçant les danger de
téléphoner avec un téléphone en charge.
http://www.hoaxbuster.com
http://www.hoaxbuster.com/hoaxliste/hoax.php?idArticle=64006
http://www.hoaxbuster.com/hoaxliste/hoax.php?idArticle=65128
Links
http://www.2meta.com/april-fools/links/
(humor sites and newspapers, etc.)
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/weblog/categories/category/April%20Fool
and don't miss the excellent addresses on Michelle Henry's site :
http://www.ac-nancy-metz.fr/enseign/anglais/Henry/april.htm
*** Pastafarianism : is it real or is it an April Fool joke?
Discover the Church of the Flying Spaghetti
Monster. What is this Spaghedeity? Do Pastafarians really exist?
presentation by the BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A18740559
the official site of the church
http://www.venganza.org/
presentation by wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster
a short article about Bryan Killian, a boy who
was suspended from his school because "he follows
the Pastafarian religion, and that as a crucial
part of his faith, he must wear 'full pirate
regalia' as prescribed in the holy texts of Pastafarianism."
http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/article.html?in_article_id=43272&in_page_id=2
some more explanations
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,311925,00.html
a debate
http://www.wired.com/culture/education/news/2007/11/flying_spaghetti_monster
Audio tales to download
From Candlelightstories, you can download
traditional tales to use as bedtime stories for
your own children, or in class. The stories are
availalbe in MP3 and you are invited to burn cds
of your favourite. You can listen to : "three
little pigs", "Snow White", "Tom thumb" and a few others.
http://www.candlelightstories.com/soundstoryblog/SoundStoryBlog.htm
A teaching Unit about English speaking countries
Our colleague Nathalie Cadot from Martinique
share with you a complete teaching unit she
created for her A2 students (classe de 5ème). The
lesson plan and the directions are in French. the
students will also have to work online, with
hotpot exercises to help them get on with their work of describing a country.
http://cadot.over-blog.net/article-17552088.html
This lesson plan can be transferred to other
levels. the students can find information about
the countries on the CIA World Factbook or on BBC Country Profiles:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/country_profiles/default.stm
and you can train your students to the final game
"Who wants to be a millionaire?" by playing
online. Choose the first game, just to get the
right vocabulary. The second game (the new one)
starts with a long advertisement and is not
interesting if you didn't know the recent contestants.
http://www.millionairetv.com/playonline.html
Gaming motivates students
Read this article from 21st Century Connections
and discover how Power Up, a new free game
designed by IBM can motivate students to study sciences and engineering:
http://21centuryconnections.com/node/448
and here is what you can read on the website of the game :
"Teachers, do you dream of a learning resource
that will grab your students’ attention and
engage them as thoroughly as the video games they
play at home and on their mobile phones? Are you
looking for a classroom resource that will
motivate your students to apply science and math
concepts to real world problems? Would you like
to spark your students interest in pursuing a
career in Science or Engineering?
Enter the world of PowerUp, a free, online,
multiplayer game that allows students to
experience the excitement and the diversity of
modern engineering!" (copied from the site)
http://www.powerupthegame.org/
"Playing the game, students work together in
teams to investigate the rich, 3D game
environment and learn about the environmental
disasters that threaten the game world and its inhabitants.
Players meet Expert Engineer characters and
experience the great diversity of the field.
Conversations with these experts and engaging
interactive activities allow players to explore
ways engineers design and build systems to
harness renewable energy sources as alternatives to burning fossil fuels.
Players take on the role of Engineers, working
together designing and building energy solutions to save the world.
The Teacher's Guide is designed to be a classroom
companion to PowerUp, providing background
information for teachers and lesson plans that
give students opportunities for more in-depth
exploration of science and engineering concepts
addressed in gameplay. " (copied from the site)
http://www.powerupthegame.org/teachers.html
[ the game is free, and the teachers' pages offer
several engineering lesson plans about
alternative energy. Excellent for all students
level B1 or above, interested by engineering and video games.]
Debating Spyware as parental monitoring
The New York Time offers a lesson plan based on
the article "The undercover parents" By Harlan Coben,March 17, 2008:
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/featured_articles/20080317monday.html
The lesson plan starts with a class survey about
what type of parental monitoring the children
find acceptable, then they move on to studying
the risks and writing a chart about what they
think their parents can monitor or not. An
interesting lesson plan for students level B1+ or
above, where you can also organise a debate.
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/lessons/20080317monday.html
Digital Age Assessment
Read this article in The March Issue of
Technology & Learning about Digital age
assessment. You will find new ways to assess your
students, through quizzes, surveys, digital logs and spread sheets.
http://www.techlearning.com/story/showArticle.php?articleID=196605062
Through this article I discovered a new site
offering a free quiz maker and lots of free flash
cards. A free non-commercial site to bookmark:
http://www.proprofs.com/
Nouveaux programmes de primaire
Les nouveaux programmes pour l'école primaire
sont en consultation sur le site du ministère:
http://www.education.gouv.fr/pid146-cid21006/reforme-ecole-primaire-presentation-des-programmes-soumis-consultation.html
Pour l'anglais, quelques lignes p17 (CP, CE1) et
p22 (CE2 à CM2), qui soulignent que les
programmes détaillés pour les langues sont déjà
parus dans le B.O. Hors Série n°8 du 30 aout 2007:
http://www.education.gouv.fr/bo/2007/hs8/default.htm
Les collègues de l'APLV Joëlle Aden et Laure
Peskine signalent une inquiétude : le
récapitulatif des horaires a oublié les langues vivantes.
http://media.education.gouv.fr/file/02_fevrier/24/5/horaires_ecole_primaire_24245.pdf
Espérons que cet oubli sera réparé dans la version finale...
L'APLV et syndicats demandent le report de l'épreuve de langue du brevet
"Nous exigeons que l’attestation du niveau A2 ne
soit pas prise en compte pour l’obtention du DNB
2008. Nous proposons que, en cohérence avec la
mise en application des programmes de Langues
Vivantes rénovés, cette mise en place ne soit pas
effective avant la session 2010". *L'APLV*, une
association de professeurs de langues vivantes, avait
lancé en janvier une enquête sur la connaissance
des épreuves au brevet, à la suite de laquelle
elle a demandé début mars un moratoire sur ces épreuves.
Une nouvelle étape a été franchie le 8 mars.
L'APLV a rencontré les principaux syndicats
(Snes, Snalc, Unsa, Sgen). A l'issue de cette
réunion une déclaration commune demande le
report. L'APLV justifie cette demande en arguant
de la confusion créée par les termes,
"l’évaluation des activités langagières est
continue et ne doit pas donner lieu à la mise en
place d’une épreuve ponctuelle particulière. En
LV1, le contrôle continu effectué en cours
d’année vise le niveau B1 du Cadre Européen et en
LV2, le niveau A2 est en cours d’acquisition pour l’obtention du DNB.
Comment évaluer en continu ce niveau A2 pour
l’obtention du DNB à raison de 3 heures par
semaine ?" et de "l’absence d’une vraie formation
des professeurs à ce dispositif".
paru dans l'expresso du Café Pédagogique et
signalé sur e-teach par Remi Thibert et Dominique Varela:
http://www.cafepedagogique.net/lexpresso/Pages/2008/03/05032008Accueil.aspx
http://www.aplv-languesmodernes.org/spip.php?article67
Cyber-langues : appel à communication
Voici un message de l'association Cyber-langues:
Vous le saviez déjà, le prochain colloque
Cyber-Langues se tiendra à Dijon, du mardi 26 au
jeudi 28 août 2008. Il a pour titre cette année :
"TICE et langues : de l'expérimentation à la
généralisation". Vous souhaitez venir présenter
quelquechose, faire part d'une expérience, animer
un atelier ? Il vous reste jusqu'au 30 mars pour
renseigner un formulaire de proposition en ligne à:
http://www.cyber-langues.asso.fr/spip.php?article39
Vous voulez en savoir plus sur l'association, le
colloque à venir et les colloques passés ?
http://www.cyber-langues.asso.fr/
Ceci est un message de la LISTE INFONEWS
réalisé par Christine Reymond
lycée Blaise Pascal, Rouen, France
E-Mail: Christine.Reymond@ac-rouen.fr
Les commentaires et réflexions entre [ ] ne
reflètent que mon opinion personnelle.
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