Friday September 30th, 2011:  The France iTILT team conducted its 3rd training session, this one being held at the IUFM (Teacher training university) in Nice.  This group worked with the SMART interactive white board.  

Three of our participating teachers were present, two being already somewhat familiar with using IWB technology in their language classrooms, in particular the Professor whose students are comprised of future teachers.   Everyone appreciated the opportunity to test out iTILT resources and to exchange ideas, share experiences and tips regarding not only the SMART tool, but also strategies for organizing classroom time to promote interactivity using the IWB.   When one trainee expressed a concern over a perceived significant load of prep time devoted to learning and mastering the tool prior to using it in a lesson with students, another participant offered the perspective that the process of using/learning/navigating all the tools within the IWB can be turned into part of the lesson itself, thus promoting interactivity using communicative language skills.

The trainees were able to test the iTILT materials individually on their computers using the Notebook application and begin to explore its many features.  Those trainees already relatively at ease with the IWB delved into some functions that are more precise or little-known which exhibit very useful properties in the language classroom.

We ended the afternoon by ensuring that partipants left with a copy of the iTILT training manual.  Each trainee also picked a specific date for when our technician will come to their schools for the first visit to film their lesson and their student pull-out group.