I am a teacher... so what use am I in my classroom? (blog #6)

I am a high school French teacher seeking to become a 21st century teacher. This means primarily that I need to integrate "inquiry learning" in my classroom80. I am still wondering how to take my 10 chapter text book with its 80+ new words per chapter and turn it into a technology driven inquiry learning student centered curriculum. That's a really challenge! I am not 25 anymore, double that, plus! I did not grow up with technology. Until last year, I did not even know what web 2.0 tools were!

I guess I have to take small steps and allow myself to do it all wrong and redo it again. At least, I do recognize the existence and importance of changing the way we teach, of technology, of student centered teaching and of inquiry learning. Talking about inquiry learning, here is my understanding so far: DO NOT TAKE POINTS OFF FOR NOT HAVING THE FINAL PRODUCT! KEEP READING FOR OVERALL UNDERSTANDING!

I inquired for at least 2 hours on how to create a word cloud about inquiry learning. Of course I did my homework and read all the articles my teacher gave us to read and then I tried all 3 sites she gave us to experiment with and discover. I tried listing all my words: create, research, inquire, communicate, organise, teacher facilitator, self discovery, student voice ( I screamed in frustration!), continued learning (I tried 3 times), project, extend technology. Wordle refused to work on my Mac. Tagxedo let me do the cloud but refused to share or let me get it even after paying to get it and then I lost it again. As for Word Art, my assignment is there. I am tired of trying to embed it on this blog. At first I was upset thinking that I failed the assignment but after reflecting on this I see that I tried, inquired, experimented, communicated, researched and as my teacher mentioned that her favorite quote from this week's reading is “We are pioneers and explorers. We are testing the waters, we are giving ourselves permission tofail forward. There is no road map. Our only directions are: Learn - Reflect – Share", I will allow myself to say: "I win, I did it!"

Thinking forward about the mini lessons that I must create with the concept of inquiry learning, I am thinking about using our school eclass in a more extended manner. It already contains a blog and a drop box for the various activities given to the students and the students already have access to the whole system. It was implemented 2 years ago but I did not use it much not knowing what to do with it. I might have access to 3 or 4 laptops which makes me think about turning my classroom into some kind of workshop with different kinds of stations. I am hoping that this year, more students will come to school with their own device. This will be easier with my small classes of French 3 and 4 but the 36 students in French 1 and 2 will be a special and challenging task.

So what am I to do in the future as a teacher of French? I must keep on learning to learn so that I can keep on teaching to learn. My students' future depends on it!