Final thoughts

This course has taught me a lot. Some of the more valuable and relatable items that I will be taking from this course are as follows:

VoiceThread – I’m not sure that I would have come across this had it not been for this course. I love this tool, as I did my RUP on it. I plan on using it in my Spanish classes as well. Hopefully I can even talk some of my Spanish IV students into commenting on my RUP.

TedTalks – So, I knew these existed, but even since we had to watch several for the course I have become hooked. 

Symbaloo – I will be using this on both a personal and professional level.

Curation tools – This is a useful idea that I had never come across. I plan on incorporating assignments in which I have curated resources for the students into the classroom most likely with cultural activities. 

Blogger – I loved using this, and I would love to find a way for students to use it as well. (blocked at school)

PLNs – I am encouraged to work on building my own, and I plan on using the step-by-step article to help me to accomplish that. 

Overall, although I don’t teach an online course this class was very applicable. I really enjoyed the chance to learn about incorporating technology into the classroom.

Facebook and Twitter in the classroom?

Social media in the classroom is an interesting subject. While I haven’t used it for class instruction, I have used Facebook to communicate with students regarding a Spain trip that I planned. This worked incredibly well for me and gives me hope that my new summer Twitter account will work as well. I plan on using Twitter (still waiting to be approved) as a means of communication in Spanish for my upper level students during the summer. Essentially it would start out as discussions and those wanting to participate could. I think that using social media in the right ways makes complete sense. How cool would it be if my students were reading through Spanish tweets and adding their own thoughts throughout the summer? I highly doubt that they will take the time to watch movies in Spanish or read in Spanish, but if they have regular tweets coming right to their phones the convenience might win out. I think that in order to use social media in the classroom you have to have a strong plan. You shouldn’t go into it without researching exactly what to do, for example- how to make your profile private, how to accept only the followers (aka students) that you want to accept, etc. I think from the viewpoint of the student Twitter and Facebook offers them a convenience that they cannot find with My Big Campus or Moodle. While MBC and Moodle try to be appealing to students, truthfully students don’t spend their free time on them like they do with Facebook and Twitter. Even I am constantly on Facebook. From the administrator viewpoint, I think that teachers should have to communicate exactly how they plan on using the social media tool in the classroom, and they should have to be able to answer the hard questions before being allowed to use said tool. As a high school teacher I don’t deal with students under the age of 13, but I do think that if federal law states that they can not have an account then they shouldn’t have one, plain and simple. As a parent I wouldn’t want my child using social media in the classroom or in general if it was breaking Federal law.

To sum it up I think that these are both great tools for the high school classroom if used correctly and if the work is put in to understand how to use them correctly. If you can’t answer questions like “What will you do to be sure that non-students do not enter into the discussion?” (if your school is concerned with this), then you probably shouldn’t be using them yet.

Week 7 - curation tools

When sifting through the variety of curation tools that my online colleagues reflected on, I came across one that I immediately felt would fit very well into my classroom. Here is the example: Pearltrees example. This link comes from Nikki, and could be used for a lesson on the Paris metro. I particularly like the cleanness of Pearltrees and that much useful information was grouped so nicely together for her students. She included images, videos, basic information, and additional resources that would help her students gain an understanding of what the Paris metro is really like without having been there.

I could do a number of activities with this tool. So many cultural ideas come to mind immediately. Perhaps one of the most helpful uses would be using Pearltrees to introduce a project to my students. I created a more simple collection of useful information for students on tapas that I could put into this format as use as an intro to a tapas themed project combining research and presentational elements. Here is my example: http://pinterest.com/leticiaclen/tapas/. I much prefer the look of the Pearltrees curation tool to that of Pinterest for a classroom setting. In pearltrees I could curate links that would provide students with websites and videos that I chose to help guide them through the project. If my ultimate goal was to have students present and cook a Spanish tapa of their choice, providing basic history to go along with the presentation in Spanish, I could send my students directly to language authentic materials avoiding all the non-authentic or unrelated information that they tend to find. They would have access to the videos that I chose instead of trying to gain an understanding on the theme but not knowing where to look.

I think I will definitely be using a curation tool in the future to help direct my students through projects. This information learned will be very useful in my classroom.

Aimed application - thoughts from week 6

There are several applicable components from this course that I could see myself incorporating into my classroom. First of all, this class has opened my eyes to a number of new tools, and really the idea that I need to stay current with tools. I am going to take the challenge of learning and incorporating at least one new applicable tool into my classroom per semester and repeating this each year. Starting with VoiceThread (truthfully, I am enamored with it) I will seek out ways to connect my students more socially to the language. I think that the tools section of this course really did give me a lot of new, good ideas. As an educator, I need to stay current with technology…I don’t know why I wasn’t really doing this before. I guess I just wasn’t challenging myself in this way. There are so many things that we as teachers need to accomplish on a day-to-day basis that by the end of the year we almost have no room to breathe. I will need to force effort to accomplish this, but I know that I can do it. Really, I just needed to be introduced to these tools.

This week, the focus on authentic assessment has also touched me. I know that I have a very enjoyable course that produces well-prepared students, but I don’t know if I would call all my assessments authentic. As we start our book adoption process, I am going to keep this in mind. The more authentic and real life I can find, the better. Essentially we will be rewriting the curriculum soon, so now is a perfect time to make sure that I structure my assessments and projects to be less traditional overall and more authentic.

Some concepts would be harder for me to incorporate. Mostly, I am hindered by many of the educational tools being blocked at the high school where I teach. Pretty much anything social related is blocked including forums. We do have some ways to use forums but they aren’t as appealing as blogger for example. I also still cannot see myself teaching an online course in a foreign language. The oral communication is such an important component, and I know that perhaps Skype could be utilized for this, but I am still not completely sold. I would be really interested in seeing what universities that teach online language courses do to address this component. I feel like leaving it out would not do the language (or the student) justice. Overall though I do have a lot of good ideas that I can take away from this course and apply to the classroom.

Where do I fall on the Technology Integration Matrix?

Click here to see the Technology Integration Matrix

I would like to preface this first by stating that there are so many activities that I would love to do with my high school students that are currently blocked at school. Anything that can be classified as social media or blogging cannot be accessed. I’m hopeful that this will change, and the examples on the Technology Integration Matrix have given me a lot of ideas. I also only have access to computers and a language lab once every two weeks. Other than that, I just have an LCD projector in my room, so…

It’s difficult to rate myself on this rubric because I spend so little time in the lab. It’s also difficult because I have done activities that fall into almost all of these categories. I would say that I am more consistently on the adaptation level, but again I do have some projects that could be rated higher. For example in the active section I would rate myself as adoption because many of my activities are still heavily teacher led. In the collaborative section with some projects I could rate myself very high. For example I have a video project at the end of the year in which students create a product via their choice of technology.

I would say it would be easier to rate myself on this scale perhaps if I taught a class that used project based learning. Then I would have a more consistent idea as to where my teaching generally falls on the scale. By the end of this year, I don’t really see much of a change happening due to finals. Essentially in the month of May we can’t evaluate our students because they have so many standardized tests. Having said that, I do think that this scale is valuable and could be a great resource when designing projects for future years. If (and when) I gain access to the appropriate technological tools to make some of these activities a possibility, I would not hesitate to give these ideas a try. I’ve been dying to have my students create a blog that features podcasts or short videos. I even really liked the idea of Padlet, but today when I tried it at school it was blocked. That could be so useful in my classroom.

In order to make growth happen (without adding more technology or access), I would really have to sit down and modify a number of my projects with this scale in mind. It’s difficult with limited time in the lab, but I do think that some of these more advanced ideas could be possible. I loved the examples given in the Technology Integration Matrix, and they have given me a lot of ideas for future years.   

rating: Active - adoption, Collaborative - adaptation (sometimes infusion), Constructive - adoption to adaptation, Authentic - adaptation, Goal Directed - adaptation

From the brick and mortar to online

     Are barriers broken when a student steps from the traditional classroom into the virtual classroom? I think yes…and then I also think no. I think the answer to this question depends greatly on the student. Some students quite honestly are not comfortable in public situations or are too shy to communicate or speak out in class. I think these students could greatly benefit from an online course, because they may not be afraid to post, blog, or speak out on a discussion board if they can’t see the direct reactions from their fellow classmates. One particular student of mine comes to mind. He is bright and gifted student in Spanish, but he is so shy at the same time. When he writes pieces for me they are incredible, but he never volunteers to speak out. I bet he would love an online course and would thrive in it as well. Other students flourish with face-to-face interaction, which I suppose could be achieved in an online course through video conferencing and synchronous learning whether in a blended class or a virtual class.

     I do feel that an online course has a way of leveling the playing field in format alone. When I look around and see teachers that are older (and naturally oh so wiser) than me or see someone carrying themselves in a negative way (body language, etc), I am sometimes intimidated or put off. I can appreciate the way that an online course takes physical attributes out of the equation in the same way that many students would appreciate it.

     Then the outgoing student comes to mind. What about the student that thrives on face-to-face interaction? How could they be properly served by a virtual classroom? I can see a blended course working better for this type of student. Again, another student comes to mind. He is so motivated by direct interaction (and nothing else so it seems) that I would imagine that he would struggle in a virtual classroom. This is why I think that the student is such an important component in this equation. I hope to learn ways to create sufficient engagement for this type of learner via e-learning.

     On a side note, my opinion is really changing towards online courses just by learning the little that I have learned thus far. My bad college experience with an online course really left a negative impression on me. I have every hope that this negative view will lift through the course of this class, and I already see signs that it will.

Blogging?

I've attempted blogging once before but have never considered myself gifted at conveying my thoughts in an interesting manner. This will be an interesting task for me, but I am fully ready for it. Collaboration via blogging for me is relatively unknown territory, but blogging is something that I have been interested in incorporating into the classroom. I'm ready to learn!