Earlier this year our school district offered high school teachers an opportunity to submit a proposal to “Re-imagine the 21st Century Classroom” . I, along with two English teachers - Tricia Buck and David Lunn - were awarded 30 netbooks and an opportunity to introduce technology driven activities to our curriculum. We are being supported by our district’s Instructional Technology Specialist, Cary Harrod. I am thrilled to discover what my Spanish students can achieve when they augment their studies with technology on a daily basis.
I have been trying to figure out a way to give those students who finish their work quickly and well some challenges that will also meet our curricular goals, and I think I figured out how the netbooks will allow me to give my high achieving students enrichment opportunities.
I modified an alternative assessment tool, based on a Tic-Tac-Toe gird, to fit my class. My students will be challenged to complete three out of nine web based activities in a row. Since I want to make sure that my students practice listening, speaking and writing skills, I made sure that with the exception of one row, all rows will include a listening/speaking/written activity. I want the specific topic within each activity to be open ended, so that the individual student can self- select the theme and apply the language skills/practice in that manner.
I still haven’t rolled this out with my classes, but I hope to do so soon. I am curious to see how it is received by my students, and I’m interested to see the quality of work that is produced. I have rubrics in mind for the activities, but I would like to have the student co-write the rubric if possible. We’ll see how this all comes together.
