Blogging to Learn: Academic French

I have been wanting to use the web 2.0 tools to undertake independent learning and would like to demonstrate how to make use of my blog as a self-regulated learning tool. With the help of OneNote, Word 2010, Google Scholar, and Google Translate, I am able to combine the tools to engage in active learning. This post documents my collection and learning processes.

I first needed to find French blogs online, and asked for some help from Claudine Delire, a French language instructor from Ontario, Canada. She pointed me in the direction of a number of French directories which I am exploring. From that brief review, I got the keywords I needed:

“blogue”(blogging); l’enseignement (teaching);

I also used Google Scholar, and went specifically to google.fr and entered the keywords.

I was able to find the following resource to start off with:

Integration des outils du Web 2.0 dans l’enseignment – blogue – University of Montreal

http://www.ebsi.umontreal.ca/clip/web2_blogue.html

I then went to Google Translate and copied the French text to see the English translation, side by side.

In this case, I used Word to copy the two selections of text. I then highlighted words and phrases in yellow (academic keywords) and blue (useful words and phrases), and added comments in the margins noting errors or uncertain translations for follow-up.

I saved the Word document in 2010, and have also included a 2007 version as well.

Voice Notes: (MP3): reading_french-1

Annotated Notes (Word 2010 version) : web2_blogue

Annotated Notes (Word 2007 version): web2_blogue1