The New Virtual Classroom

I recently listened to a podcast presented by Dr. Ann Kwinn on Designing for the Virtual Classroom.  The podcast offered insight to teachers who would be using podcasts in their classrooms.  The speaker has recently published a book, "The New Virtual Classroom", and this podcast was based largely on the principles of that book.  I learned some useful tips that I could use in my own classroom with podcasting.  For example, if your students are listening to a podcast at home, the teacher is unable to see the nonverbal cues that the students are showing. This may range from a confused look, a happy face, or looking just plain bored with the lesson. How does the teacher know if the student understands the material that is being presented?  This podcast advises that a teacher adds features to the podcast that allots for the students to be assessed while the podcast is going on, like having the students click on a smiley face if they understand or a sad face if they are confused.  This podcast also advises teachers using podcasts to use a vast amount of visuals and realistic examples to help captivate their audience.

This podcast also discussed the advantages and disadvantages of asynchronous learning vs. synchronous learning, which I thought was particularly interesting since we completed one mod on this topic.  The author suggests taking your time as an educator in deciding if your students are going to be allowed a vast amount of freedom in working with technology (asynchronous) or if your lessons will be much more structured and focused on deadlines (synchronous).

I enjoyed this podcast because it dealt with aspects of using podcasts in the classroom that I will need to know should I decided to podcast in my own classroom.

Podcasting

Hi everyone, I posted an episode to my podcast, jela2678s Podcast.

Click this link to check it out:
First podcast

- Lisa

Podcasting en español

The podcast that I found online can be found at http://www.rojasspanishpodcast.com.  This site was created by Luis and Joan Rojas, and their goal is to present audio and video in Spanish for the Spanish language learner.  You can watch a podcast about a particular topic (I watched one about music) or read about the topic in Spanish.  If you would like to practice your speaking, the site provides a transcript for the learner, so that they may practice speaking after hearing a native speaker say the word or they can say the word at the same time as the native speaker while simultaneously reading the transcript.  The site is specifically for intermediate to advanced Spanish language learners and can help them sharpen their reading, listening and speaking skills, while also reviewing aspects of food, culture, music, dance, etc, in the target language. 

One more thing...

For the Global Cooperation mod, I have to say that I could easily incorporate the tool WiZiQ from Mod 7 into the website www.epals.com from Mod 8.  WiZiQ is a virtual classroom that brings members together from different backgrounds and subject areas.  The main idea is that both educators and students can share ideas on through PowerPoint or other slide show methods based on information surrounding their subject area.  I feel this is a great tool for professional development as well as a means of differentiated instruction for students.  I could show the slides and presentations to my students in hopes that explaining or viewing something in a different way may help them understand the topic better.   

Global Cooperation

Global Cooperation is important in education for many reasons. To be educated is to understand a variety of subjects on a variety of levels. Perhaps the most important key to becoming educated is having access - now more than ever we have access to countless opportunities as educators and as students. These opportunities allow us to communicate with classrooms from around the world and share ideas with each other. They allow our students to participate in a non-traditional style of learning, where sharing language and work with students from thousands of miles away is as easy as the push of a button - literally.

The first website I explored was http://www.epals.com/. It is ideal for teachers who want their students to communicate with students from different places, be it around the world or just around the nation. I created a profile about myself and entered information about who I would be interested in linking my students up with. I currently teach level 1 Spanish, so I wanted to find a classroom of native Spanish speakers from Chile that would be interested in exchanging emails with my students, in an effort to improve their writing and comprehension skills. However, after inputting my information, I received a list of ESL teachers in Chile that were looking for native English students to share emails with their Spanish students who are learning English. Not exactly what I was looking for, but when I mentioned it to the teacher that I share a room with at school (who happens to be an English teacher), he LOVED the idea of his students writing these emails to the Chilean students. As I tried to continue my search of finding a match for what I wanted, I encountered a few site errors: when I would click on certain things it would say, "Internet Explorer cannot open this page...". So I moved on, and I did find links to setting up email, blogs, forums with detailed lesson plans from teachers, and culture activity/project ideas. Overall, I would go back to the site, work out the kinks, and definitely use this as a tool in my teaching style and curriculum.

The other site I explored was http://www.iearn.org/. This was a fantastic international resource tool - especially because I chose to use the Spanish version. I clicked on Argentina and got TELAR - todos estamos en la RED. This means "We are all on the Internet" in Spanish. TELAR promotes the pedagogical use of new technologies of communication and collaboration of national and international projects for students (http://www.iearn.org/). There were tons of project ideas on the site for Spanish teachers. A few of my favorites:

1.) Mi escuela, tu escuela - students search for information about the school systems of a foreign country and compare and contrast the different aspects to their own school.

2.) La familia - students exchange information with another student from a foreign country about family life and present a report about the similarities and differences to that of their own.

3.) Ositos de peluche - This is a creative writing tool for the students, but it takes some effort on the part of the teacher. One class gets a teddy bear and inserts messages from each student inside. The teacher then sends the bear to the cooperating classroom (ideally in another country) and that teacher opens the bear and the students read the messages. The students then send responses to the first classroom back, and the bear acts as the messenger.

I realize there are lots of websites that offer teachers project ideas such as this one, but I liked ilearn because of 2 main reasons: 1) it offers loads of project ideas in Spanish and 2) the wesite promotes peace, humanity, and working together as a means for doing the projects with your students in the first place. I would definately use this website in the future.

Overall, I was extremely satisified with these 2 websites because I really took something away from each of them, and I would definitly use them with my own students.

Differences between Twitter and Plurk...

After using Twitter and Plurk, I have determined that both microblogging tools basically offer the same thing: you can create a personal account and quick message back and forth with friends. Twitter is used to stay in touch with both "friends" and public users. You can stay up-to-date with who is working on what at that specific moment, and it also allows real-time conversation between people. Plurk offers the same objective, except it always seemed like there was much more chatter going on while using it. There is also a "timeline" on Plurk - it scrolls left to right, with the most recent data at the left. The messages are arranged in chronological order, and because sometimes people send messages at the same time, this view also let's you easily read a large number of messages at the same time. Personally, I felt Plurk was much easier to navigate through; at times Twitter was overwhelming to me. The design of the Plurk site allows the user to sort through which messages they wanted to read, which was also appealing to me. I would have to award Plurk the prize in the category of Twitter vs. Plurk.

Microblogging in Education

Here are the links for 2 useful sites in which explain how Microblogging can be used in education:

http://teachingall.blogspot.com/2008/07/microblogging.html  

http://www.edweek.org/dd/articles/2008/06/24/01twitter_web.h02.html

With Microblogging, you are able to view or write about simple things you may be doing at that particular moment.  It's a shorter, quicker version of Blogging.  Microblogging would be a great technological tool for ELA teachers in the mid-elementary to middle school years.  Microblogging would allow students to write simple sentences about the events going on in their lives throughout a day.

As with many online communication devices, the notion of privacy weighs heavily in importance.  We are, after all, talking about children and their safety and privacy from online predators come first.  Teacher-controlled accounts can exist, but the teacher must be dedicated to always staying on top of the privacy issue.

A Plethora of Review Games

The post that I read was off of http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com/ . It was called "A Plethora of Review Games" and talked about different ways to review in a middle school class. I am a middle-school teacher, and so from the beginning, when the author said "as a middle-school teacher..." this post caught my eye. I think if you are a good teacher, you can find ways to adapt many games or means of review to your content area. I try to "beg, borrow and steal" whenever I can, regardless of the subject the idea originates in. Great post - check it out:

http://21csyers.blogspot.com/2008/09/plethora-of-review-games.html

http://edubloggerworld.ning.com/

http://edubloggerworld.ning.com/

The above is the social networking group that I chose to visit and briefly explore. Originally, I tried to find a social networking group for teachers of Spanish, but the ones that I looked at didn't seem like they had recent activity, so I decided to nix them. I like this group because it appeals to all teachers, and with quite a bit of emphasis being put on interdisciplinary skills in the district that I am working in, I think it would be useful for me to search for ideas on how to connect material in my class to other subject areas. I currently belong to professional organizations for LOTE teachers, however I feel Edublogger offers a peek into others' classrooms, no matter what the subject or grade level.

A learner is like....

A learner is like the planet Earth - standing still is not an option. I use this analogy to describe today's learner because today's learner cannot and should not be satisfied using only the knowledge that was learned in college, or any other sort of required schooling. Siemens says in his article on Connectivism that "Learners as little as forty years ago would complete the required schooling and enter a career that would often last a lifetime. Information development was slow. The life of knowledge was measured in decades. Today, these foundational principles have been altered. Knowledge is growing exponentially. In many fields the life of knowledge is now measured in months and years". To paraphrase, one cannot simply function in today's technological world without an open mind to learning the new technology that can be used for both personal and professional purposes. Siemens also says in his article, "Our ability to learn what we need for tomorrow is more important that what we know today". To learn technology is to prepare for and succeed in the future. A good learner is not satisified with knowing "just enough to get by", but rather is always standing on the verge of learning what's out there.

Feeling a little old...

I must say that learning new teachnology can be overwhelming and confusing, but in the end...fun!

1st time blogger

This is my very first blog entry ever - yea!!! It is something that I said I wanted to learn more about during my interview process with the school I am now working at. I am interested to learn more about the process, and also to see how I can use blogs in my foreign language classroom. I did participate in a professional development day that focused on technology, and one session focused entirely on blogging. Many English and Social Studies teachers use blogging as part of their curriculum quite frequently, and so I am hoping to be able to take some ideas with me for my classes.

First, I think I could definately use blogging in higher level Spanish classes because it would be a great way to post prompts for writing about topics related to the material being covered in class. The students would need to post responses in the target language, thus enhancing their own writing skills. Also, I think I could use a blog in any level Spanish class as a tool to post pertinent class information. Students who were absent would then be able to view the work that is due next class, or parents could even have access to the material that their child is currently doing in class. Finally, once I get real blog-savvy, I could use my class blog as a means of linking up with another class blog in a spanish speaking country somewhere around the world. My students would be able to communicate with other native students in Spanish, discussing similarities and differences between both cultures.