More Spanish

Power Up inservice for FL teachers

Next year our high schools will be encouraging students to bring their own device (laptop, iPad, tablet) to school for educational purposes.  This is a very big step for any district, and can be very daunting for everyone involved. Tomorrow I will be sharing what I have been doing in my class with my colleagues.  I have been writing about my own journey with technology in my Spanish classroom since 2009, and I have picked up a thing or two along the way.  

• Technology should enhance and not distract from the lesson.
• Web 2.0 tools & devices allow students to collaborate from multiple locations & with different schedules.
• If the tool is not user friendly, it's not worth using. However, all technology has a learning curve, and the teacher needs to incorporate this into his/her expectations.
• Technology allows for differentiation in the classroom, but this doesn't mean we get rid of methods or lessons that work without computers or devices.
• Learning a language takes time and practice.  The Internet is filled with resources that will support a language learner to develop fluency.  It's our job as a language educator to expose our students to those resources, but the students need to actively engage in the language to actually learn it. 

Here is the Google Doc I created to share resources and student examples.  I am thankful for a great group of students over the past three years who contributed to this document by producing quality work. Please feel free to view, and add your thoughts about language learning and technology in the comment section.

Some thoughts on digital natives in my classroom

Thanks to Ant McNeill for photo via Flicker.com

Many believe Generation Z children seamlessly manage technology for a variety of purposes.  The kids who grew up with the Web, MP3 players and cell phones have been exposed at a much younger age to technological tools that have drastically changed the way we complete tasks.  These same technologies have also added a plethora of entertainment options.  Despite the exposure these children have had to these digital tools, they still compartmentalize entertainment, their social life and “formal learning”.  I believe that students will develop skills that will allow them to navigate more fluidly between each of these compartments, but I have to continually remind myself to be patient about the process. 

As some of you have read before I am fortunate to have a classroom set of netbooks. Many, many things have changed about the way I run my classroom since we have had access to them, but I am surprised every year by the time we spend in class learning or reviewing some very basic digital skills.  These are a few things I took for granted my students knew how to do:

-Email a document to themselves

-Trouble shoot a frozen screen

-Set up a user name and password that they could remember easily the rest of the school year

-Retrieve the password and/or user name if they forgot it

-Find and use a web site’s help center/support

-Embed a link

-Load an image online

-Use a web site’s navigation menu to find specific information if it is not the first thing that pops up on a site

You get the idea... To be fair, many of my students negotiate these tasks and are a huge help in class as they troubleshoot issues with their peers. However many students who successfully use Facebook, do not transfer over the skills they use on that site to similar tasks needed to do work for Spanish class.  This is one example of compartmentalizing.

Here is another example of compartmentalizing outside interests with educational goals. Toward the end of the school year my students had an option to self-select a topic of interest to them and work on it over the course of two weeks.  (I’ll describe the project in more detail in a later post.)  When given the opportunity to select any topic of interest to them and use it Spanish class, many kids really didn’t know what to pick.  Several wanted to do fall back on a traditional report & posterboard.  Not only did they have problems considering their hobbies and outside interests as a viable topic, but some still wanted to print out and paste images to card-stock despite having experience and exposure to several multimedia tools. 

This was not the highlight of my week.  Thankfully I talked to my colleague and Art teacher Rod Vesper (you can read his blog here). He had just visited some students in our district that were part of a 7th grade pilot program that allows students to bring their laptops to school. He was very impressed with the learning and the manner that these kids used digital tools to learn.  Seamlessly.  He also had experienced some of the same issues that I had been working through.  And he reminded me to be patient.  

Our students revert to what is comfortable to them.  They are well acquainted with reports and posterboard visuals.  They are accustomed to teacher-directed activities.  It will take some time to shift this mindset.  Student need to be exposed to digital tools that can be used for learning as well as personal enjoyment.   They need to have the opportunities to develop digital skills to perform tasks for learning.   They need to understand that digital skills and tools are not exclusive to entertainment and chatting with their friends.  These tools can also be used in the classroom effectively. I look forward to having those 7th graders in my classroom in the next couple of years. Until then I will remind myself that I am doing my part to shift that mindset in my classroom. 

If you use digital tools in your classroom, how do you work in the learning curve into your lesson plans? 

 

Netbook Journal: California Dreaming Pt 3

California Dreaming Pt 3

Leigh Murrell and I have organized a cross-country collaborative project between two of our Spanish 3 classes.  You can read more about this project here and here.

Our students finished working on their collaborative Voicethread a couple weeks ago, and all classes have taken a survey on the project so we have some very specific feedback for future collaborative efforts.  

My thoughts

I really enjoyed working with another teacher, and Leigh was the icing on the cake.  She is very organized, creative and willing to explore all possibilities.  I appreciated hearing and seeing student work from California mirror what I see in my classes in Ohio.  Most projects tuned out very well, but some were exceptional.  You can tell so much about a student’s interest and motivation from something like this, even if they are not in your class.  Although the project was time consuming,  our students used language in context with a purpose, and picked up some information about the culture on the way.  I believe that was well worth the time and energy spent. 

Next time we do something like this, I would liked to monitor the collaborative efforts better.  Some groups did a very nice job working together throughout the project, however other students interacted with each other, but they really didn’t work cohesively as a group.  These are skills that need to be practiced, and don’t come naturally even when the kids are sitting next to each other.  Next year, we will set up smaller exchanges between the kids leading up to a collaborative project.  I also want to encourage more peer editing between the students, so we will put an activity in place that will require the students to look at each other’s work and give/get feedback before a final copy is produced. 

Student feedback

Most students used Google Docs to communicate despite having a Ning forum.  This surprised me because this is the “Facebook generation”.  I thought that type of communication would come naturally to them. Many wanted to text with each other, but based on the survey it doesn’t seem like any did. Only one kid used email. 

Although most students rated their work as excellent or good, and most thought they should get an A, 64 % of the students spent “just enough time/effort” to get the assignment done as was necessary.  37% did not go back and listen the group Voicethread when the project was finished.   I find discordance in these results. Why would a student think they deserve a ‘A” if all they did was the minimum work possible?

My students’ favorite part of the assignment was working and talking to the California students.  Several enjoyed learning about new music.  Rachel said “I thought it was really cool that we were working on a project with kids on the other side of the country that we've never met, especially on the Googledoc when we were all 3 editing it. I also really enjoyed reading about Spanish music.”

The most challenging part according to my students was communicating with the California students.  Ian said “Dealing with expectations of homework, especially at night with the time change, because a good time for them to start their homework is time for me to go to bed.”  I think the best work came from the students who got a chance to work together in real time.  I assumed my students would use the Ning when they couldn’t work in real time.  Next time, we will provide an activity that allows the students to feel comfortable using the forum to communicate with each other. 

Here are some of my favorite Voicethreads: 

Flamenco, Pop en Español, Bachata, Merengue. 

Thanks again to Leigh & her Spanish 3 classes! 

Netbook Journal: California Dreaming Pt 2

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.

Leigh Murrell and I have organized a cross-country collaborative project between two of our Spanish 3 classes.  You can read more about this project here and here.

My students were very excited to meet their group-mates on Skype Monday morning.  This is the first time I have used Skype with these classes, so the novelty created much excitement and nervousness.  Typically my students revert to the most basic Spanish  when they are nervous, and this was no exception.  Each group of 2-4 students introduced themselves and made Spanish 1 chitchat for 2-4 minutes, and then they went to the Google Docs Leigh had set up for the written portion of the collaboration.

You can read the directions for the second part of this assignment here.  

The students have been working on this portion of the assignment off and on all week.  By the end of this weekend they should have a draft of the written section complete.  My hope is that the groups will peer edit and proofread their work, and by the middle of next week, will start work on the Voicethread. 

The highs:

• My students’ excitement when they met their California group mates was fun to experience.
• Some of Leigh’s students are very good writers, and a few of my students want to rise to the occasion and do a nice job on their end.
• My more proficient writers are using multiple tenses correctly to express themselves without any prompting, and doing some fabulous work.
• Collaborating with Leigh has energized me professionally.

The lows:

• Some of the kids are not getting to meet their California partners via Skype because of the time difference.  
• Most kids still feel awkward using Spanish, and want revert to English for the planning process.  Maybe I just need to accept this at this level?
• I think the assignment would be easier to complete if the kids had more time to collaborate in real time, but due to schedules it is hard to do, so most of their work needs to get done using Google Docs, email and Ning. 
• Most of my kids are only using class time to work on the project and not spending much time outside of class on it.  

 

Netbook Journal: California Dreaming Pt 1

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.

My Twitter friend and colleague, Leigh Murrell (who lives & teaches in sunny California) and I are very excited about our first student collaborative project. Two of our Spanish III classes are working together to learn about different music genres heard in Spanish speaking countries. We started planning our hispanic music collaboration in January. We talked about mutual goals we had for our classes, and came up with a three part assignment.

This week marks the end of the first part.  Our students self-selected a music genre that interested them and researched the genre’s history and artists that represent it.  They summarized their findings and linked two sample songs to our Ning. Although I am a huge music fan, my students taught me a lot about online music sources.  They started sampling music from Internet radio sites like Pandora, Jango, and Blip.fm. They found specific songs to link or embed to the Ning on sites like Last.fm, Rhapsody, Lala and Actualidades.  Unlike California, Cincinnati does not have a radio station that plays hispanic music, so my students have been exposed to a significant amount of hispanic music just doing research for this project. 

I am very impressed with the depth and quality of writing coming from Leigh’s students, and seeing such good work from other Spanish students has been great for my kids.  I have some very strong writers, but many students wrote their summary directly on the Ning without any peer editing or revising. My students were very impressed with their California peers, when they read what they had posted on the discussion threads.  I took the opportunity to talk about the importance of editing and taking pride in what was published.  I hope this will encourage them to proofread their work before posting it next time. (Here is the rubric for part one.)

I love how some of my more reluctant Spanish students are so engaged in this project because of the music content, and I think it is safe to say that after this project Ricky Martin will not be the only singer that pops into my students’ head when Hispanic singers are brought up. 

Monday, we Skype!  The kids are very excited to meet their partners, as we embark on the second leg of this project.  I bet that my students will ask them about their sunny California weather, as they complain about our snowy winter days.  Several have already requested a field trip. Please read what Leigh has to say about our collaboration.

Netbook Journal: Tic-Tac-Toe Choice

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. 

The Netbook Journal: Integrating web 2.0 apps in the classroom

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. 

My students and I had our first full week with the netbooks in Spanish class.  

It has become apparent that my students are not familiar with or do not know how to use web 2.0 applications despite what many experts say. Other than word processing, email and uploading photos, many of my students are not comfortable and/or knowledgeable using technology for educational purposes.  

One of the activities my students did in class this week required them to create a hyperlink for a GoogleDoc presentation on our class Ning. I explained the process as I projected the steps on screen.  In my first period, class only 11 out of 24 students were able to do it without additional assistance. I was sharing this with my colleague Thea, and she pointed out the obvious.  Students learn better by doing.  Active learning trumps passive every time.  

Next week I plan on using Voicethread.  The application is fairly easy to use, but has its quirks. Rather than showing the kids how to produce a VT, I will first have them do a listening activity with a VT that last year’s students created. This way they can see what the application does, in context of the language learning.   I will then give them a short assignment to complete in their cooperative groups on VT.  My hope is that with each other as a resource and the opportunity to work hands on with VT, they will be able to figure out how to use the application. I will of course be available to facilitate and answer questions. 

How do you teach web 2.0 applications so that you maximize your class time?

Netbook Journal

 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. 

 Our first activities started at the end of this past week, after a bout with a stupid cold. On Thursday and Friday I combined traditional instruction and self-paced work online to help students learn how to use the present perfect and review verbs that use indirect object pronouns. I gave students a quick explanation of how the present perfect works in Spanish, and then assigned a couple of workbook activities for practice. No questions. The students then moved on to a self-paced game on www. quia.com over the same material. The interactive activity tells them immediately when they make a mistake. Most of the kids figured out their mistake, but a few needed my help figuring out how to use the reflexive pronouns with this tense. These same kids must have made the same mistakes on the workbook activity, but either didn’t notice their mistakes or didn’t ask for clarification. I really like how quia practice gives kids that direct feedback, and doesn’t let them complete the activity till they correct the mistake.

 After the grammar practice the students moved on to a listened activity. Thanks to Zachary Jones’ site, they were able to view and listen to an Argentinean pop song that used the verb gustar over and over. They filled out a clozed activity and answered some comprehension questions about the song. The kids were able to go at their own pace when they used the netbooks and headphones. Some students understood most of the lyrics the first time around, and others needed to pause and rewind the song a few times to understand what was being said. When we get back on Monday, my students will work with their partner in Spanish to talk about what they liked or disliked about this pop song, and that will transition into other verbs that follow the same pattern as gustar. I like how my students can work at their own pace, and all students were actively engaged when they were online. Some students finished very quickly, so I am brainstorming open-ended activities that these kids can work on while their peers complete the original lesson plans. Any suggestions are very welcomed.

New for second semester

Monday morning these were waiting for me in my classroom.  My students will have access to online resources and tools on a daily basis.  I'm still trying to figure out the logistics, and we are waiting for a cart that will charge the netbooks, but I AM EXCITED!  I'll be writing more about how I plan on using the netbooks in our Spanish classroom, and will share what our short term and long term goals are soon.