A screencast might be better to show my students how to manage this website...
Friday, July 20, 2012
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
My classroom is about to FLIP!
I'd like to share a little secret. Every now and then I have my friend Mr. Jordan come into my beginner level classes and teach "for me" as I tell the students. I most often allow him to come in AFTER I've already taught the basics of a lesson just to give my students another perspective, but now that I've read The Daily Riff and The Flipped Classroom Defined it looks like I've been going about it backwards. I'm most definitely going to experiment with this simple FLIP and have him do the teaching while I'm thinking up ways for my students to verbalize the mechanics of what they have learned and then put it into practice.
Here meet Senor Jordan:
Were you distracted by his shirt? He wears a different one in almost every video.
Here's Paralee. In the past she was only available to my classroom in the afternoons for my upper level classes but again, I think I'm going to ask her to meet with my students when they aren't in my class.
ISTE/NETS Standards
1. Creativity and Innovation
This is what I constantly strive for in my classroom. As a language teacher, once the basics of the language are taught it's simply practicing for communication. Since almost everything we do involves communication it isn't difficult to incorporate projects using technology into lessons and assessments. Spanish and the language are a skill that can be put to use with any aspect of technology.
2. Communication and Collaboration
I chose communication and collaboration because again, this is the essence of what I teach. It is essential that my students both communicate and work together in order to practice what they have learned. At the upper levels when isn't so much about the mechanics of the language.
One of the best days of teaching was when my class had a skype call with a class from Chile. I acted as a facilitator by searching for an appropriate contact and making the initial call. The students were inspired to make a list of their own questions in the days leading up to the call. They were both nervous and excited during the call but afterwards they all had positive comments about the call and their own personal communicating experience. The students were able to learn so much in that 40 minute call that I couldn't possible give them by myself. Inspiring for all of us being able to meet face to face.
3. Research and Information Fluency
This is important in my classroom as students look for and present cultural information. Since everything they find might not be authentic or useful.
4. Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making
I chose this most importantly because when using technology you always have to problem solve. Something always goes wrong- as we have experienced in this class and we must work through those roadblocks and find our individual detours to get the job done. This is especially important during video production and editing and usually the problems cannot be foreseen.
5. Technology Operations and Concepts
We have been introduced to many web 2.0 tools this week that I plan to use with my classes. Live Binders, and the podcasts, which I have yet to explore, are two applications where students can easily transfer their current knowledge to learning of new technologies. And as I said above, they will most likely need to do some amount of troubleshooting during their usage which overlaps with #4.
Common Core Use In My Classroom/ Informed Opinion
There are many pros and cons to the Common Core initiative but in this post I will focus on some of the positives that apply to my teaching area.
As the International Club sponsor here at school I have the unique opportunity of inviting, meeting, and socializing with groups of exchange students from all over the world. In the springtime we have a question and answer panel sessions with the kids and the one thing that alarms me as an educator year after year is their view of the American school system. Time and time again the students comment on how easy their classes are in comparison to what they were doing at home. The more advanced students often express how they feel like they were going backwards and would have to catch up when they returned. One comment that especially struck me was a German student who said that she felt that she was never made to think and that back in Germany they spent far more time critically thinking instead of memorizing things.
From my understanding common core right now I can definitely see how students will be asked more often to problem solve, reason, and use higher level thinking skills. In the article What-Are-Some-Pros-And-Cons-Of-The-Common-Core-Standards.htm it states that students will no longer be allowed to come up with the right answer because they will have to state how they arrived at their answer and be able to defend it.
Over the years I have slowly incorporated more technology based projects into my teaching as a way for students to use what they have learned. It seems to me that with the countless resources that the internet brings that this is a natural way to incorporate the standards. I teach the basic skills in class in a more traditional way and most often back up my lesson with something from the internet as well as a web 2.0 based culminating project.
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