On-Line Web Workshop
Presenting Web Documents in Class
There are several ways to present documents to students which vary from
a simple activity to a complex project which lasts for weeks.
The rules concerning the use of copyrighted documents found on the Web
have not yet been well defined by the law. If you consult the AATF
Web page you will find links to several references concerning copyright.
If you find a document interesting, always consult the Welcome page for
the site, because sometimes there are instructions concerning the use of
the documents found there. You can also do your own search using
a search engine and the word "copyright."
In general, it seems that the same rules which exist for print documents
prove useful: 1) ask the authors permission if possible; 2) always mention
the source of the document; 3) the use of a document for non-remunerated
pedagogical purposes is probably all right.
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If you are dealing with a text or even an image (illustration, map), you
can print it on paper in black and white or in color if you have a color
printer or on a transparency.
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If you have the necessary equipment, you can project the computer screen
to the class (on line or from a diskette).
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You can save files on diskette that students can consult off line.
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You can create your own Web page which contains links that you want students
to use.
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You can record sound files or video excerpts to play to the class.
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You can let your students freely explore the Web or according to an assignment/project
that you have given them.
Of course, all these options depend on the technology available, for example,
if you have one computer for the whole school, a computer or several computers
in the each classroom, or a lab where the whole class can work. It
is also necessary to have a computer with sufficient memory and a sufficiently
high-speed connection to make accessing large files feasible. Texts
generally are not a problem, but files containing images, sound files,
or video excerpts can be very large and take a long time to download or
to appear on screen. It is possible to shut off the function AUTOLOAD
IMAGES. Click on EDIT, PREFERENCES, ADVANCED and deselect AUTOMATICALLY
LOAD IMAGES. Images will be replaced by icons when AUTOLOAD IMAGES is no
longer checked. You can still view these images by clicking on each one.
Finally, it you have your students work on projects, be sure that the
activity remains a language activity where French is the language of communication
and exploration. The Web is a marvelous tool to enrich and motivate
a class to use French to communicate and to do research. It is too
easy for the activity to become focused on the technology in English, especially
since a lot of sites on French are in English or have English versions.
If you want to cite a Web site in a written document, I advise the following
format:
Web site author, name of the site (URL of the site's Welcome page),
date de creation or last update, date of consultation, URL of the document
itself.
Example: Abrate, Jayne. Commission sur la Compétence Culturelle
de l'AATF (http://www.siu.edu/~aatf/), modified 15 Jan. 1997, consulted
21 Jan. 1997, http://www.siu.edu/~aatf/geogf.html.
Pedagogical Activities
The Web, like any technical or pedagogical innovation, is only a tool.
It is an exciting and inexhaustible resource, but if Web documents and
Web exploration by students are not organized to fulfill a specific pedagogical
goal with all the necessary supporting information and acitivities, students
will become frustrated and not benefit fully from this enormous resource.
Here you will find links to several sites containing pedagogical ideas
and activities:
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Minitel Activity Pages
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Fiches describing activities based on Minitel services but which can easily
be adapted to Web resources.
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Minitel Service Pages
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Fiches describing the content and possible use of more than 100 Minitel
services. For information about subscribing to Minitel, consult the
Minitel
Web site.
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Cultural Activities with
the Web
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These activities are based on resources from the AATF
Commission on Cultural Competence Web page.
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AATF Teaching with Internet
Award Winners
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The six winning projects from this contest are described here with links
to the sites created.
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Le Quartier français
du village planétaire
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Lots of resources and links to other pedagogical resources.
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Page Pédagogique
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You will find ideas here for pedagogical acitivities based on the Web.
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Fédération ADEMIR
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Site of the Association pour le Développement dans l'Enseignement
de la Micro-informatique et des Réseaux with lots of ideas for activities.
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AATF Teaching with the Internet
FAQ
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Answers to your Frequently Asked Questions concerning the pedagogical use
of the Web and the Internet.
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Activités pour
l'enseignment de la civilisation
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Numerous review fiches for a course on French cultures with questions and
images.
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Intercultural E-Mail Classroom
Connections
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Site full of information concerning school e-mail exchanges.
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Franceworld
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Pen-pal service with correspondants of French, American, and other nationalities.
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Teaching with
the Web
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More ideas and links.
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Enseigner
le français avec Internet
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Other links..
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Enseigner au futur
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Technology and the Internet.
Use this fiche to note your ideas on the pedagogical
use of a Web document you have found.
Other Resources
Useful Sites in French and for French
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AATF
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Information about the association, practical information for teachers,
scholarship announcements from the French Cultural Services, links to many
Francophone sites.
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AATF Commission on Cultural Competence
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Useful sites and information for the teaching of French and Francophone
cultures established by the Commission.
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The Paris Pages
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A lot of cultural and touristic information on Paris.
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ClicNet
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Many French sites or sites on French listed by subject.
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Adminet
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Links to a lot of municipal, departmental, or regional sites in France
and more than 300 other countries.
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Le Quartier français
du village planétaire
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Informations on French sites or sites on French with pedagogical ideas.
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Tennessee Bob's
Famous French Links
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Le Centre Culturel Virtuel
de la Francophonie
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Minitel
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Instructions for downloading the necessary software to have access to Minitel
services via the Web and how to subscribe.
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Pariscope
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Information on activities and show in Paris.
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Agence France Press
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Links to many Francophone newspapers and magazines.
Official Sites in France and Quebec
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UREC
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CNRS site which lists Web servers in France organized by region.
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Ministère des Affaires
Etrangères
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Contains a lot of information on French government, politics, history,
economy, and culture.
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Ministère de la Culture
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Much information and many links to sites on French cultural heritage.
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Ministère de l'Education
Nationale
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EDUTEL
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ONISEP Office national d'information sur
les enseignements et les professions
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Ministère de la Jeunesse
et des Sports
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Information on sports and the Francophone Games
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Coupe du monde 1998
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Official site of the World Cup 1998
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Centre d'information et de documentation
de la jeunesse (CIDJ)
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Centre national de la documentation pédagogique
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Centre national de l'enseignement à
distance
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Assemblée nationale
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Sénat
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SNCF
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RATP - Transports parisiens
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Délégation
Générale de la Langue Française
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Site officiel du gouvernement du Québec
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Office de la Langue Française
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Fédération Internationale des
Professeurs de Français (FIPF)
Sites about Francophony
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Agence de la Francophonie
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Francophonie Canadienne
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Web dép@rt
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Links to many French sites in Quebec.
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Liens
Acadiens - Cajun
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African News
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Arab Net
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Maghreb Net
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Africa On Line
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Site officiel du Secrétariat
d'Etat à l'Outre-Mer
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Réseau canadien d'information
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AUPELF-UREF
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La Belgique
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Le Sénégal
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Ministère de l'éducation
nationale du Sénégal
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La Suisse
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Education
en Suisse
Embassies of French-Speaking Countries
Canadian Consulate in New
York
French Embassy in Washington
French Embassy in Ottawa
Embassy of Madagascar
in Canada
Swiss Embassy
Other Resources
CIA World
Fact Book
Detailed descriptions of all the world's countries, in English, with simple
maps.
City Net
List of sites organized by country, region, and town, generally touristic
sites.
Lonely Planet
Travel guides in English pour may Francophone countries which contain more
in-depth analyses than typical tourist information.
Virtual Tourist
Premiers pas sur l'Internet
Site pour des enfants.
Vie pratique en France
FLE en France
Foreign Language
Periodicals
Links to international newspapers and periodicals created at MIT.
Webovision
Links to the media--press, radio, télévision--in may countries
and languages.
National Foreign Language
Resource Center à Ohio State
Much information for teaching foreign languages with links.
National Foreign Language Resource
Center à Hawaii
National Foreign Language Resource
Center au Minnesota
National Foreign Language Resource Center
à San Diego State
National Foreign Language Resource Center
à Michigan State
FLTeach
URLs
It is sometimes useful to understand the structure of a URL to try and
correct URLs which do not work or to find a file which has perhaps changed
place or name. URLs can be very long and contain numbers, letters,
certain characters, and punctuation. Let's take the following URL
as an example:
http://www.siu.edu/~aatf/helpf.html
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The URLs of files written in HTML always begin with http:// although
it is no longer necessary to include this when using a browser. Sometimes
authors of articles omit the http://. You can also access other
parts of the Internet, gophers, for example, whose address does not begin
with http:.
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Then you will find the server address, that is, a computer which houses
a lot of sites (a university generally has several servers). In our
example, it is www.siu.edu, a server at Southern Illinois University.
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The server address often begins with www . This is not always
the case, but if you have a URL which does not work, you can try to add
or eliminate www at the beginning to see if that corrects the problem.
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At the end of the server address, the last letters indicate the type of
server:
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.edu - university
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.com - commercial
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.net - company which offers Internet access
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.gov - U.S. government
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.us - servers in different U.S. states
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.au - Australia
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.fr - France
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.ca - Canada
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.ch - Switzerland
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.be - Belgium
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.uk - United Kingdom
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.lu - Luxemburg
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After the server name, there is a slash. The other sections of the
address represent different directories that may be on the server, separated
by a slash. In the example, we find the directory of the AATF
which contains many files.
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The URL can end with a slash and you access a default file which is called
index.htm(l).
But often the URL ends with a specific filename, as is the case in our
example. The file which represents the first page of this site is
called helpf.html. The file can end with .htm
or .html
depending
on the system used to create them. These extensions are nevered folowed
by a slash.
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Images can have several formats, the most common being .jpg and
.gif.
Sound and video files end with other extensions, for example,
.wav.
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If interior links exist, the extension .htm or .html can
be followed by # name of link.
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A tilde (~) often indicates a personal site on a server.
As with all sites, the user should carefully verify the quality and content
of a personal site. Likewise, sites maintained by an individual risk
disappearing more quickly that an official site of an association or organization.
URLs must be exact. Because of their length, it is easy to introduce
errors when retyping a URL. For this reason, if you create your own Web
page with links, it is strongly advised to copy and paste from a bookmark
list rather than copying URLs by hand and retyping them. In any case,
links should be verified before being posted on line. Unfortunately,
Web page creators are not always careful with this and, additionally, links
disappear. Therefore, from time to time one finds links which do
not work. Sometimes you cannot enter the site because there are too
many users or because the server is down, but if you receive the message
that a file or server do not exist, here are a few suggestions to try:
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Search for misspelled words (ie., frnech instead of french).
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URLs never have a blank space, except rarely in an internal link extension
(for example, #tech info).
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Capital and lower case letters count. Check them.
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It is easy to confuse:
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.htm and .html
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_ and -
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. and ,
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0 and O
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1 and l
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2 and Z
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5 and S
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If the URL does not end with .htm ou .html, add or delete the slash at
the end depending on the case.
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Sometimes Web site creators change a file's name or eliminate it completely.
If this is the case, you can often find the site again by shortening the
URL by a section, that is, up to the preceding slash.
In our example, if you type
http://www.siu.edu/~aatf/
you will find the AATF site at the university. If you want to
test your knowledge again, click on the following title to try your luck:
Created: January 3, 1997
Last update: May 25, 2000
Dr. Jayne Abrate, Southern Illinois
University
