I spent the weekend in Whistler at a French teaching conference, which was hosted by APPIPC, which is a specialized association for French teachers in British Columbia (BC). Their goal is to promote and expand French teaching in BC. This work directly aligns with my desired final Masters project as I want to merge and discuss French teaching and technology in a post-secondary French Education context.

I went to this conference with the new French PDPP program cohort at UVic. Learning alongside the group and talking about my future project has made me excited about my Masters. French in the context of BC is a minority language and it is challenging to be fully immersed in the language. In Whistler village, it was wonderful to hear the French language fill the village. We all took the opportunity to be a community and speak French the whole weekend. We can say it was a FRANCOFUN experience where everyone was able to set goals and take learning risks.

Something I value in education is that we are all on our unique learning journeys. Therefore, as we set goals they may be different. This also aligns with the BC curriculum where we help students set goals and report on them throughout the year. However, in a university context, these goals are often not recognized. They can be self-monitored and accomplished, but no official recognition is awarded. Accordingly, I have been working on this idea of motivation and recognition through a digital badging project that I am hoping to grow and launch for my Masters. My overall goal is to possibly create an application where students can be awarded badges for risk taking/ goal setting as well as many other initiatives.

To provide you a sneak peak of what I have been working on. Here is a glimpse of two digital badges related to risk taking and conferences. There are others in development.

Designed and Created by Brittany Johnson
Designed and Created by Brittany Johnson

For now, I have started to use BADGR to assign badges to participants and eventually this may lead to some digital pathways where you receive an overall badge once you complete a certain amount of initiatives.

Throughout the conference, there was an emphasis on student motivation and with this project and what I envision I hope to all help create that amongst current and future French teachers. I learned some valuable resources and tools within my conference sessions and among our presenter Samian (who is French and Algonquian artist who shared some inspirational dialogue about identity). This idea of community and collaboration is thus reinforced. Ultimately, it is my hope that these badges will motivate more French speakers to participate in various initiatives and feel recognized for their participation and personal achievements all while building a community.