Thing 23 - You Made It!

As I look back on the 23 Things, the biggest change in my thinking is how I view the classroom. The current model that we educators use is outdated, limits the inclusion of current technologies, and relies too heavily on the Industrial Age priorities. As I watched the video, 2 speakers gave me a great set of guidelines for the classroom. First I was truly inspired by one speaker's summary of 21st Century set of literacies:

• Do students know how to find information?
• Do students know how to validate it?
• Do students know how to synthesize it?
• Do students know how to leverage it?
• Do students know how to communicate it?
• Do students know how to collaborate with it?
• Do students know how to problem solve with it?

I also was struck by another speaker's summary of necessary skills for the future workplace. He stated that students "will being doing work that calls on their:

• artisitc abilities
• abilities of synthesis
• abilities of understanding context
• abilities of working in teams
• abilities to be multidisciplinary and multilingual and multicultural."

These guidelines rely upon Web 2.0 skills which are innate skills for my students but skills that I have to continue to learn, practice, and apply to my instruction and my students' learning. It is comforting to remove the mystery of the Web 2.0 and actually dig in to find useful applications in the classroom. Some of the most useful "things" for my Spanish language classroom include the use of podcasts for authentic language exposure and the social bookmarking as means to make all of my useful Internet tools available to my students. I also see potential in creating a blog about our classroom. Professional development with my peers will start with the Wiki I made for our textbook adoption, my del.icio.us bookmarks, and eventually our PLN. My challenge will be to find avenues to continue to discover the new tools as they develop in the digital world. I had no idea that some of the sites and resources introduced in this class existed. I am not sure how I continue to find out about all that is developing but hopefully my RSS feeds to the education technology sites will be a starting point. As I approach the halfway point in my teaching career, I am very invigorated to have so many new tools to keep me current, inspired, and relevant to my students.

Thing 22 - Online Video

In the past I have searched for videos for my Spanish language classes on YouTube, on TeacherTube, and on StudentTube. By far YouTube has had the most useful videos to use in the Spanish language classroom but it is blocked by a firewall at my school. I have tried to find ways to save these in another format to use in the classroom with little success. Now our district has a new video policy that requires that all videos shown in the classroom (that are not currently approved as a part of the curriculum) must have school board approval in order to be shown in the classroom. The short story is that it is very difficult to be spontaneous, current, and authentic with online videos in the classroom even though my YouTube searches have produced authentic native speaker videos. The TeacherTube and StudentTube sites usually have English-speaking student projects that offer some good ideas but do not have the authentic pronunciation that I am trying to use with video supplements. I liked the YouTube videos that I had found although the use of these required solid preparation and previewing. Despite the value that these offered, YouTube is banned in my building and it is very time consuming to appeal to the Board of Education to show videos in the classroom. For now I am using podcasts and the text approved materials.

Thing 21 - Twitter

Thank you Ron for the summary of Twitter. Your presentation was more thorough than the CommonCraft video and gave me more insight into microblogging.

All in all, I am not ready to use Twitter yet. Most of the tweets that I read seemed very mundane and too insignificant to dedicate much time to these updates. Twitter seems to remove all of the filters that eliminate useless information from my perception. There are just not enough hours in the day to give to these updates.

What I saw when I did my Twitter searches was the equivalent of an overload of reality television, too much of nothing worthwhile to me. The Google Reader that I have delivers updated headlines so it seems redundant to have Twitter updates of the news. Very little at work happens with such urgency that our current e-mail contact, my newly created wiki or phone calls don't address. I cannot abandon my love of privacy enough to use Twitter to post updates of my day-to-day activities. The only real opportunity that I see for using Twitter in the immediate future would be with my PLN but this is a new group who has yet to pursue Twitter as a primary means of communication. To date, my heart is not quite a Twitter with this Thing 21. It is good for me to know what it is and how it works but at this time I will be developing my use of some of the other 23 Things as a primary communicative tool.

Thing 20 - Bookmarking with del.icio.us

del.icio.us/mmorley127

This is a great idea but I could not set this up without a yahoo account and password. I did not see any mention of this in the tutorial videos but yahoo does own del.icio.us so that is probably why I need one more account. UGHH! I am closing in on maximum capacity for user names and passwords. But... it may be worth it as I see how easily I can save links on a single site. It was also helpful that del.icio.us provides default tags for each site that I opened reducing how much I had to analyze useful tags and how much I had to type.

All of my great Spanish sites for teachers and for students are now on my del.icio.us account. This is a convenient option. It is helpful that I do not have to set bookmarks at school and at home. It is convenient that I don't have to set up bookmarks for each browser that I use. It should be easy for my students to see all of these options and share useful sites with me as well. I still struggle with the privacy issues. I am learning how to separate personal bookmarks from my professional ones. I am trying to take advantage of sites others have shared. The greatest asset that this offers to my students and colleagues is quick access to useful sites to practice grammar, vocabulary, listening for a variety of levels and teaching resources for our professional development. This does seem like a site that will enhance my productivity because it reduces all of the places that I used to save significant sites into one saving zone. I am surprised that some sites that I value have so few people that have tagged the sites; perhaps I am in at the beginning of a new technology. YEAH! In the end this is probably one of the 23 Things I see myself using the most and again I am grateful for another gem in my toolbox.

Thing 19 - Introduction to Social Bookmarking

Just when I started feeling overwhelmed with how to organize all that I am learning, along comes Thing 19 to put me back on top of my technology heap! My computer bookmarks are cumbersome (especially since there are multiple users on my home computer who lack an inclination toward organizing bookmarks) and my school computer bookmarks are eliminated each summer when the computers are ghosted. So just when I can't figure out where to put all of the sites that I want to return to, practice more, and keep for something I will need later...social networking sets up a practical solution for sorting it all out and accessing it at anytime from any computer.

Tagging seems like the missing element from my current single focus folder system of organization. Tagging lets overlaps occur for sites that serve more than one purpose for me, finds connections with other users' valued sites, and allows for quick access based on a content word. All of these are advantages over scanning my long list of bookmarks on my computer. It is important to think of the most succinct and complete words that describe my preferred sites in order to assign it a good tag. Noticing the tags of other users will probably help me to recognize useful and prevalent tags. Some disadvantages of tagging were made clear in the article stating 13 guidelines. Knowing the proper formatting is important and not innate for me. It looks like it will take some time investigating others tags to have a strong sense of how to tag sites. Working with a larger community also means that it is likely that I will encounter false leads when my sense of a tag's definition may not match another's definition. Finally, being a creature comfortable in privacy it is again a stretch to become part of a larger community but I am curious what others will find related to my "keeper" sites and I value the shortcut available by being connected to someone else's sites related to my tags. All in all this is probably going to be a great asset but it looks like I need Thing 20 in order to become more familiar with all that social bookmarking has to offer.

Thing 18 - Building Your Personal Learning Network

Looking through Ning, MACUL, and ISTE these professional learning networks seem like a good idea but too advanced for me right now. It is challenging to manage these new opportunities and right now a smaller contact domain seems more likely to serve my needs. When I set up my wiki I created a contact point for the Spanish secondary teachers in my district. My first focus will be to use this as a meaningful meeting point to blend our experiences adopting our new textbook. After I become more adept at this starting point for professional collaboration it seems more likely that I will be more adventurous to pursue a broader range of topics to enhance my professional development. Good idea; back burner for now until I become more adept at my current new technology lessons.

That being said, I did find a Ning resource that has piqued my curiosity. When I was searching sites I found www.nos-ayudamos.com ("Let's help each other") which is a question/answer site for those learning English and Spanish. I spent quite a bit of time reading through the questions and the contributed answers. I myself often am asking my colleagues for content help and this site significantly broadens the number of "colleagues" that can help answer my questions. I knew that sites like this probably existed and I am excited to continue to find similar resources.

Finally, this class has been a wonderful and eye-opening experience showing me many benefits available from these constantly changing and advancing technologies. This has a been a valued hands-on introduction not only to new technologies but to new ways to share and to create content that I can use to interact with peers, students, and even the world at large. This course has made me aware that I need to continue to find the new advances that are coming in the Web 2.0 world. There is so much here in these 23 Things that I knew little to nothing about and now I have a google e-mail account complete with a blog, I am using Picassa for my photos, I started a wiki, I am receiving daily RSS feeds, and I have visited more valuable sites than I can currently comprehend. What a month! As I continue on this learning curve, I am now aware that there is so much out there in cyber world that will be of great use to me. I need to learn how to access it and eventually I imagine that these PLNs will be my means to learning more, to having skilled users share new technologies of use to my instruction and to my classes. It is comforting to know that this is potential is waiting for me.

Thing 17 - More Web 2.0 Winners

The first time that I spoke to Ron about the 23 Things class I had no idea what Web 2.0 meant. He explained that instead of simply reading content an Internet viewer could also write and create content, interact with others on the Internet, become a part of a digital interplay. Now I look at the shortlist of Web 2.0 Winners (which is not so short) and am overwhelmed by the many ways in which people can interact with content and with others on the Internet. There are so many specialized areas that have these incredibly well developed, dense sites completely catering to people who want to create and share content in some certain way or around some specific topic. The Web 2.0 format truly empowers users to create and share. Now it is my time to determine how I can bring these offerings and skills into my classroom and how I can encourage students to continue to show mastery of content in such a rich and diverse format as the Web 2.0 arena. As if I haven't said and thought this enough in this course...WOW!

From the short list, I first checked out the education winners. The #2, #3, and honorable mention winners were all language acquisition sites. Woohoo! The sites include: Mango Languages, SpanishPod, and Livemocha. Being drawn to language learning I was very curious about each one. They offer instruction, audio segments, and even live people to help critique your Spanish but all are fee sites. These offer a variety of languages to so many that they have tremendous potential to assist those seeking to learn languages. The downside though is that the fee would not be cost effective to use these in the classroom unless you could transfer the cost of texts to the cost of the sites. It is an interesting concept. I just went through a new textbook adoption and am curious what will happen in 10-12 years when we look to adopt again. Will texts still be the primary delivery system within a classroom or will we be evaluating online programs? Exciting!

Thing 16 - Teach Digital

I get it! I, the digital immigrant, am behind the learning curve of the digital natives I teach but I am trying to catch up (hopefully 23 things closer by the end of July!).

I hear the request to move beyond traditional instruction in order to embrace the technology that is so familiar to students both as a creative expression and as a communicative tool. I was fascinated by the university students who felt unprepared for the demands of the future when the mode of classroom instruction lacked the technology elements that they know to be integral to their lives and fundamental to their future jobs. I heard these students identify themselves as visual learners and beg for more than lectures, for diverse options to show their mastery, for collaboration with their instructors, and for relevant information grounded in technology. This is a great template for me to bring to my high school class.

Sir Ken Robinson stated that "education takes us into the future, a future that we don't know what it will be". This is thought-provoking. How does one prepare learners for an unknown future? I certainly wasn't prepared in college for the technology that I now encounter. Who could know that technology would be created so much faster than any period in our history? General skills of adaptability, risk-taking, interpersonal communication, problem-solving, creative perspectives, etc. take on new priorities when educating young people. He also said that creativity is as important as literacy. This took me a moment to take in but when he explained the history of education with its roots in preparing people to be skilled in the demands of the Industrial Age compared to the skills need to advance in our current society, I could see the value in his statement. Finally, I cheered when he talked about young children who are not afraid to be wrong. I tell my students that mistakes are not just tolerated but necessary in order to build second language skills. One has to use language, practice it, learn from it, in order to progress. I hope to avoid educating my students "out of their creativity" by including diverse means of instruction and application.

The last video was an enticing challenge to keep the instruction in my class relevant to where kids are going in the future. I too value moving to think, creating, sharing, and genuine communication skills with target language speakers. I agree that students cannot "create their future with the tools of my past" so I need to learn the tools that are here and taking them into the future. The 23 Things is serving a bridge for this transition.

Thing 15 - How to Use Podcasts in Schools

My first use of podcasts in the classroom would be podcasts made for students. The primary reason that I would initially seek to use podcasts in the classroom would be to expand the amount of authentic Spanish that my students hear. They become accustomed to my accent and pace and often need to have input from other sources, especially native speakers, in order to develop a better trained ear. An increase in the amount of authentic Spanish presented significantly enhances the students' listening skills. In my upper level classes the podcasts offer current events in Spanish. This synthesized audio content is real language that has not been reduced to the topic of a text chapter or the vocabulary of a specific story. Podcasts are current and not outdated as some of the textbook supplements may be. This unpredictable oral presentation triggers comprehension skills needed to understand native speakers in real life situations. Podcasts offer a tremendous boost to the development of listening skills in my Spanish language classroom.

Eventually, I would like to use podcasts made by my students. Currently, my students are required to present dialogs that accompany each chapter segment. These could be done in a podcast format. My upper level classes could make content review podcasts for my lower level students. Students could make podcasts about the artists, foods, cultures, countries, etc. that we study. I think the first podcast recording session that I would like to have would be autobiographical with the students describing themselves to me. It is hard to get to know all of the students in September. This could be one way to start to learn more about them. These autobiographical podcasts could be updated with the new vocabulary themes that we study.

I still need to learn quite a bit about how to have a class make and save podcasts but I work with some excellent staff members who are skilled in this technology at my school. I do not expect any pushback from my administration. Generally my administration values technology in the classroom. I found a few good resources (mentioned in Thing 14: www.coffeebreakspanish.com, www.NewsInSlowSpanish.com) but would need to search out more. Most of the Spanish sites on David Warlick's directory were not useful to me and some were not accessible. I anticipate that the highest interest would be students listening to other students that they know. Podcasts are a great match for listening and speaking skill development in a Spanish language classroom.

Thing 14 - Learn about Podcasting

Podcasting will be such a great asset to a Spanish language classroom. I found two great sites; one will work well for my upper level classes and the other will help my introductory level students.

The first site that I visited was recommended by a fellow teacher, www.coffeebreakspanish.com. This is a site of podcast lessons starting at the very beginning of conversation development and progressing through a variety of vocab themes and grammar topics. It is created in Scotland with Scottish speakers which confirms how important pronunciation is by any speaker of any dialect or language in order to be understood by native Spanish speakers. The preferred delivery of these podcasts is iTunes which I believe most of my students access for pleasure... and now for class! This seems like a great way to warm-up at the beginning of class, to supplement review at home, or to encourage advanced students to move ahead with audio guides of new content.

The second site that I visited was a gem although to fully access it would require a paid subscription. I think it would be worth the price to access all that they offer. As the title suggests,
www.NewsInSlowSpanish.com, offers current event news podcasts in a S-L-O-W(er) speaking format. This is a great idea as it provides authentic spoken Spanish delivered in a format that allows second language learners more time to process what they are hearing. The podcasts are presented by native speakers with authentic accents but with enough "think time" to aid comprehension. The site was an enhanced podcast that showed the scripts of what was said, offered grammar activities, flashcards of vocabulary used in the podcast, pronunciation practice, and cultural supplements. The demo only allowed access to a portion of each program but it was enough to entice me to consider the subscription. WOW! What a great idea and a great classroom teaching tool!

Thing 13 - Empressr slideshow

Thanks Ron! It worked!

Thing 13 - Sharing Your Vision

This is a YouTube video that provides an audio and visual interpretation of the poem that we read in Spanish 4, Oda al tomate by Pablo Neruda. I love this video; I hate that I can't access it from my school server because YouTube is blocked.

My real thrill with Thing 13 was how easy it was to embed the YouTube video using Slide. WOW! A simple copy of a wickedly long address and BAM! it was in my blog. YEAH! It worked like a dream and anything this easy and this useful surely has great potential in my classroom. The problem is that I still can't view this on my school site. UGHHH! I have found some gems on YouTube that would significantly enhance my classroom lessons but have so many limitations about accessing these during the school day. When I tried to view my blog through the school server, it said that I needed a plug-in to view my video clip and that I do not have permission to access the plug-in. Frustrating. On the upside, grandma who lives out of state will love accessing videos at one simple site.

I also made a slideshow using Empressr. I tried Empressr first because I was attracted to their self description as a storytelling tool and this seems like a perfect match for a Spanish language classroom. Making the slideshow was fairly simple even adding the photos right from their import options; I used Flickr. The master slide worked well but I didn't quite figure out how to make text be a part of the master formula. This is something to pursue. This was so much easier than what I have done in the past with PowerPoint which makes adding photos time consuming. I tried to add an audio clip but had no luck opening anything so this is another avenue to continue to practice. Overall, everything went very well with Empressr until I tried to embed it into this blog. I am working with 23 Things staff to resolve this hiccup. I look forward to using these in my classroom and these could be great visual prompts for students when they have to make their oral presentations. I have tried to eliminate "note cards" and instead require all visual prompts. This should be great especially if I fix my audio problem and they can record right onto their Empressr project. Hopefully, my Empressr slideshow will be up soon.

I liked what I saw on the Zoho site and noticed that many of the students in this class have used it. It offers more text, bubble, and clip art options than Empressr but I like the photo ease available with Empressr. Zoho looks like a useful tool and a definite step up from what I have done with PowerPoint. I did little with the 4th site Slideshare. The other 3 offered easier access to help/learn features and I found that Zoho, Empressr, and Slide met my needs for presentation programs.

Thing 12 - Productivity Anywhere

Like a moth to the flame I visited Remember the Milk faster than I could click the mouse. My house is filled with "to do" lists. Although I love the focus and organization a "to do" list offers, rarely do I finish everything. Left-over lists reside all over the place. I can't throw them away until I compile the tasks onto a new list. I can't always remember where I put my list. I do not always work from a computer list because the file isn't portable unless I print it (and then I probably leave it somewhere). It is an imprecise solution. Remember the Milk is a pretty handy way to organize, reference, and refer to a perpetual but single list. It has subcategories for different types of tasks: work, study, personal, etc. It has calendar and priority elements. It connects to my gmail account. I am happy to continue using this site as it seems to give me a central location for the things that I need to do. One more habit to pull into my routine that should be a shortcut from my current practices.

After playing with this for a while, it seemed to fill more of a personal need than a professional one. I visited all of the other blogs in our 23 Things class and liked what I read about bubbl.us so I created an account there as well. This has more immediate uses in my classroom and marries very well to the new textbook that we are adopting. I have used Inspiration software before for mind-mapping activities but it is definitely a single user piece of software and I've had difficulty formatting the printing to ensure a single page student document. I have had limited practice with Inspiration but find many of the features that I like are on the bubbl.us mapping tool. The sidebar that explains the symbols in each box is very helpful, the color coding is attractive, and the ease of organization is good. I liked that I could invite friends to collaborate. I have not tried printing yet but hope to see how that looks soon. As I stated this is a useful supplement to my new textbook. Each chapter's assessment speaking and writing activities encourage the students to start with a mind map in order to organize their ideas. This is a handy tool to assist in identifying that they have included all of the elements required by their rubric. I need to investigate more how easy it is to set up accounts for the students; my guess is as simple as it was for me. This could be a strong addition to the classroom for grammar summaries, creating thematic vocab units, and culture/country brainstorming images. If the export is manageable this could be a nice supplement to the wiki pages we create.

Questions:
1. On the bubbl.us site I clicked on the beta 2.0 version. What does beta mean?
2. It requested that I allow it to store 1 MB of content on my computer. Do users allow this? I have never seen that message before.

Thing 11 - Online Productivity Applications

Google Docs is yet another thing that I knew little about let alone that I had an account with Google Docs when I created my gmail account. The Google site is just loaded with all kinds of treasures. Thank you 23 Things for showing me so many great opportunities to improve my classroom!

Little did I know that I had already been using a Google Docs type of application when I saw that this feature includes the Google Calendar. My family did not buy a paper calendar for the first time ever this year because we all refer to the Google Calendar to be sure that we are all using the same updated version. It is a handy reference for multiple people. I imagine that I will find similar convenience and ease with the other Google Docs options. I see the word processing feature serving as a mini version of the wiki that I just created for the secondary level Spanish teachers in my district. Where the wiki will hold multiple resources edited by multiple users, this word processing option holds more singular content edited by multiple users. It eliminates the disorganized and sometimes hectic communications that occur with e-mails and attachments. There seems to be a strong opportunity to promote collaboration here yet protected enough for security because you can invite the collaborators who will work together. I frequently find that I have exceeded my allotted space on my district's share drive; this may be another option for sharing/collaborating with more access to memory space.

To date, I am very accustomed to MS Office and barely familiar with Google Docs so it is difficult to imagine MS Office being replaced. I do think that Google Docs will complete well with MS Office. I like the compatibility of working from different platforms. I like the collaboration right down to working together at the same time from remote sites. I like the accountability especially as it relates to students. It seems that if my students invite me to be a collaborator then all of the following are possible: I can give edit suggestions, I can view their work, we can avoid the delays that result from printers that didn't work or flash drives that get misplaced. Students can complete work at school even if they do not have a computer at home. Yet again... I am curious about another "thing" and anxious to play with it some more.

Thing 10 - Create Your Own Wiki

I did it!

This "thing" that took me so long to work through is now a valid and useful tool ready to go. It took much longer for me to learn about wikis, their uses, read examples, etc. than it took to make my own. It was very easy to make a wiki. I am not sure how much time it takes to manage a wiki but making one was not hard at all. My district is adopting a new Spanish 1 textbook in the fall. I created a wiki for all secondary Spanish language staff in my district based on the new textbook. I organized the wiki with a page for each chapter, personalized the appearance, and invited all of the Spanish language teachers from the three high schools in my district. I created a private wiki. Ideally, we will use this site as our main contact for collaboration instead of trying to send e-mails to the 17 teachers involved. If all of the teachers can work through the learning curve that I am processing this wiki will:

• Allow us to share our ideas for this new text
• Report on successes with its adoption
• Advise about any pitfalls we experience.
• Keep our best practices available to all Spanish teachers
• Eliminate isolation
• Ensure that the same education is available to all students in our district

I plan to start with a staff oriented wiki, learn how to manage it, and hopefully transfer these skills to wikis that I can use with my students.

Thing 9 - Wiki

This Thing 9 has been a labor intensive and time consuming "thing" and I am not sure that this is the best platform for my classroom...yet. I was most impressed with the classroom possibilities present with the wiki but disappointed with the number of actual samples I could reference. This may be part of my problem... it is difficult to find wikis for the Spanish language classroom (which means that I don't know how to search the wikis well yet). The wiki resources that showed surprising promise for me immediately were directed toward the professional development of the teacher.

When I tried to search for Spanish language classroom wikis, I used a few education wiki sites but am most interested in returning to
http://educationalwikis.wikispaces.com/Examples+of+educational+wikis. This was one search tool that had world languages as a category but lacked examples. The site stated that they are working on this. I will follow-up.

As I worked through the overview information provided by the 23 Things, I found great ideas for using wikis in the Spanish language classroom. I am intrigued about the use of wikis to create the following:

• study guides summarizing the semester for exams
• study hall format for the Spanish classroom
• FAQ about the class/grammar/projects/etc
• vocabulary summaries
• story starters that students continue
• group story writing that uses new vocabulary
  
• peer editing that uses note tabs to make corrections and suggestions
• literary analysis for upper level literature units
  
• character resumes
• travel brochures
• art gallery of Hispanic artists that we focus on in level 3
• musical styles, instruments, songs and lyrics of Hispanic cultures and artists
• Hispanic recipes
• a day in the life of a teen from a Hispanic country
• and teacher resource center as we work through our new text series

Yet for all the ideas generated by the information about wikis, I found few strong examples of these in use in the classroom. I am curious but still looking. I am intrigued by the student ownership but the appearance of the wikis I have investigated are primarily text and could use more photo/video/audio support of the language. Some wikis are great language resources like http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Spanish/Contents which summarizes general Spanish language content. Although the information and resources are useful, I find the review pages in the back of the our student textbook and the online text support offer a more user friendly and visually appealing summary of grammar. I plan to keep an eye on the development of http://sraburden.wikispaces.com/. She has a blog and wiki directed toward 8th graders. I am returning to the instruction of Spanish I next year and may find some inspiration from this site.

As my learning stands at this moment, I see the most immediate use of the wikis as a joint effort for the teachers in my district who are using our brand new textbook next year. We have three high schools in my district which means that many Spanish I teachers will be working through the adoption of the Spanish I textbook next year. Instead of progressing through this learning curve in isolation of the other high schools, the wiki seems like a great way to blend best practices and help each other avoid pitfalls. Ideally I would like to create a dumping ground to foster communication, create a unified approach to instruction and assessment, and share our "lessons learned" together. As an element of professional development on this teacher textbook wiki I would like to add a link to http://technospan.wikispaces.com/. This was my favorite wiki of all of the ones that I investigated. It is a summary of technology resources for the Spanish language teacher. The organization was very clear and user friendly, the content was useful, the site was very direct. I am anxious to explore this more. All in all, the wiki seems like a good idea but I am still trying to imagine where I want to end up with this technology tool.

Thing 8 - Locate Feeds That Interest You

I love the RSS feeds and the Google Reader! After I set this up yesterday, I checked in several times. I have found it both easy to use and a more densely productive use of my time. It is like I now have a shortcut to the sites that I am interested in and the new material produced by the site has shifted to the top focus. It is a treasure of a discovery that I am finding very valuable. I have taken a big leap into productivity. I used to bookmark sites but the list was long and I rarely chose to visit each one to see what was new on the site. I didn't want to forget the valuable sites that I had found but I didn't know what else to do with them except to bookmark them. The Google reader keeps my high interest sites organized in one place with all new material highlighted for fast reference of new content. This is a very useful tool! I have easy access to news and blogs that I value but spend less time scanning for this content than ever. YEAH!

The Google Blog Search tool was the easiest to use and gave me the best results for the Spanish language classroom at the high school level. There were not as many matches as I had expected which means that I probably need to find better key words for my search. I was frustrated by the range of blogs listed as matches to my "Spanish teaching high school", sites for other languages and random high school topics. The recommended blog sites on the Moving Forward's List of Education Blogs gave me the most useful blogs for my content area. I could not find any matches on the Technorati's list site. We are adopting a new textbook series and I went to the list of recommended website resources and found myself disappointed when I did not see the RSS symbol as this is the fastest way to add new feeds to my Google Reader. Great Things - Things 7 and 8.

Thing 7 - Learn about RSS

An hour ago I knew nothing about RSS. Now I have an account with 4 news feeds and a blog feed. WOW! It is spectacular to learn something brand spanking new! And compared to some of the other 23 Things that I have been working on, this one was fairly simple to learn, use, and adapt. YEAH!

What I like about the RSS and newsreaders is the simplicity and straight forward delivery of headlines sans ads and distractions. I love how only new headlines are listed saving me the trouble of rereading things that I have already seen. The process for adding feeds to my Google reader was very simple. It was so simple that I added my favorites quickly one after another. I anticipate that this is going to be a technology aide that I refer to frequently. It seems simpler than running through my bookmarks and checking each site for updates. I like the image on the first video where the arrows were redirected to the subscriber; I now have my favorite news sites sending me the information instead of seeking these stories. There is a mental adjustment for me though in simply marking things "read" versus deleting them. I am accustomed to a clean slate meaning tasks are done; it is strange to leave every headline in a long list but this seems to be the format.

I will use this technology in my personal life for quick access to the current headlines. In my professional life I am anxious to access blogs that enhance my professional development. The RSS seems like a simple way to receive updates from professional education sites. The news feeds and blogs can provide supplemental content to my lessons reducing the time it takes to find valuable resources on the internet. I can share in someone else's success in a search for valuable content if they post this information in their blog. I can receive news feeds that send current events in Spanish making it very easy to add this content to my classroom conversations. I am still trying to decide how to have my students independently use this but I probably just need to ask them. My guess is that they use this more than I do.

Thing 6 - Copyright in the Digital Age

Fair use is a new element of the copyright policy that I have not investigated prior to this class. For the most part my understanding of copyright policy is its restrictions. Namely, if I am not the creator then I cannot use material without copyright infringement. My exposure to copyright has always been what I am not allowed to do versus what is considered the range of fair use. The districts that I have worked for have tended to be cautious and restrictive in guiding teachers about copyright rather than open to exposing the permitted zone of use encouraged by fair use policy. Yet with media technology changing so rapidly and becoming such a prevalent means for accessing information, it is logical that this fair use aspect would become an entry point for pulling this information into the classroom.

Some of the "discoveries" that I have made is that there is more permissible use than I had understood. I am not required to seek written permission for all media literacy used in the classroom if its use in the classroom has social/cultural benefits. I was surprised to see fair use defined as "flexible". I had believed that there was a formula of tolerable use and this is not the case. I took from the reading that excessive caution is not what fair use policy recommends. I am learning that thoughtful use of media for curriculum development and implementation is probably permitted by the fair use policy.

As I look ahead in my teaching, I need to do more research regarding fair use policy and photos/images. When I or students want to add images to projects is this considered fair use for educational purposes? Is citing the source of the pictures enough? What about images on share cites like Flicker? I also want to investigate the use of target language songs, audio clips, and podcasts in the my classroom. Once upon a time, I had to travel to a country for "realia". Now, I have access to more authentic resources than I can ever use in a classroom. Fair use policy suggests that I may have more legal access to this and its use in my classroom than I previously knew.

Thing 5 - Photo Mashup

Instantly I was excited to see the ID badge. At the beginning of each school year I try to learn each student's name and the Spanish name that each one chooses for the year. There are a lot of names to learn in September. The ID badge connects both the English and Spanish names and their picture. It would assist me and the students to learn and recognize our IDs. These would be fun for the start of the school year, great for "names in a bucket" (throw all of the cards in a bucket and draw out volunteers), and pen pal prompts for in class writing assignments. We could add vocab noting the interests of each student, ages, birthdays for conversation starters. This is a fun way to start the year. We could also use these as our ids for our VoiceThread and blog activities.

I am also interested in the trading cards. These could be a great way to visually supplement our culture lessons by making cards for significant Hispanics, by making cards for the people/occupation vocab in our chapters, and even cards of the famous artwork that we try to recognize when we study Hispanic artists. I need to learn more about what access I have to images regarding free use images versus copyright images.

I love all of this manipulation of images and content but the learning curve is very steep for me right now. I am so far from skilled at this. I am trying to work with the Picasa program but am struggling with rookie issues. I am unfamiliar with how to navigate through this program, how to find my images to select for uploading to the Big Huge Lab site. I need more time with the tutorials and practicing the Picasa program. It is hard to be a novice but this seems to happen frequently with me in this course. I am yet again empathetic with my students as they face the challenges of new content in our Spanish courses. I am reminded how valuable it is to have a good teacher to guide me through tricky acquisition of new knowledge and skills.

Thing 4 - Photo Sharing

New ideas.

I am wild about images as a tool for learning but in the past have kept the images limited to clip art. It is new for me to think about photos as the primary image resource to connect English and Spanish but there seems to be great opportunities to do this. I try whenever possible to connect new Spanish vocabulary to a concrete image, to skip the English word translation step, to try to mimic first language acquisition by creating flip-up flashcards that show the Spanish word and underneath an image. My mind is shifting this skill to a tech flashcard that uses a photo sharing site like Picassa. Having recently gone through a new text adoption, I know that the online supplementary content for new texts have flashcards on line but I am excited to have the kids go find our vocabulary, take pictures of them, add them to a photo sharing site that our class can access, and have this as a study tool. If I were to use these photos on a power point site like Voice Thread, the kids could add audio using these new vocab words in sentences or brief stories depending on the level. I can see incorporating the photos into digital storytelling, journal prompts, conversation warm-ups, and in the creation of a classroom dictionary online.

As a learner it is new for me to learn to navigate the possibilities of these technology options. I do agree with the video clip supporting the strength of images in learning and want to incorporate this into my instruction. As I progress through this course I am constantly trying to decide how I blend my content knowledge with the technology medium so innate to my students. So as they are learning the Spanish language content, I am learning interactive technology.

23 Things - Thing 3

Great inspiration and motivation to learn something new...like Web 2.0!

These 71/2 Habits of Lifelong Learners remind me how to be a learner aiming for success. It was wonderful to see so many adult learners share their comments on the VoiceThread presentation. I felt like there were many others accepting the new challenges present in trying to adapt to and teach within this Web 2.0 world.

The easiest habit for me will be Habit 7 1/2 "Play". I am curious about these new skills and anxious to explore what is available for my classroom. I have a thriving passion to always adapt and improve my teaching. My classroom has some technology aspects but these Web 2.0 skills lend themselves so easily to a world language classroom. When I plan with the end in mind, I want to enable communication in another language. The Web 2.0 creates a meaningful audience for my students to use their communicative skills. There is an opportunity for real communication in the target language instead of the artificial form of the past. I love to try new things in the classroom, especially ones that are so relevant to my students. Making mistakes with technology in the classroom is easier because my students tend to be both forgiving of my errors and very willing to help me over a hurdle. It is interesting to hand over the role of "expert" to my students. I am the expert with the content; my students are the experts when I integrate new technology. I always learn something from them. I am excited to tinker with new methods that enhance their communication skills.

The most difficult habit is to "View Problems as Challenges", Habit 3. Problems tend to enter my perception more as a crisis than as an opportunity for learning. I prefer to be well prepared but I am trying to be more flexible when resolving unexpected problems. Budget cuts are increasing the size of the student population in each class... problem or challenge? Knowing that there is not enough time to work with each student as I have in the past but trying to maximize the time on task that each student spends in communication requires a shift in instruction. I hope that access to native speakers, comments to blogs, wikis, and everything else that I learn in this class will make students use more real life communication. I want these interactions to motivate students to interact with others in the target language for communication instead of just with me for a grade. I hope to get better at viewing problems as challenges by looking for different ways to teach instead of additions to my current load. Using technology to aid communication will be a change but should reshape my classroom and my effectiveness as an instructor.

23 Things - Thing 2

After searching through some content specific blogs about Spanish language instruction, I have 2 equally strong reactions. My first is a huge sense of "WOW!". My second is a complete lack of time.

Starting with "WOW!"... There is so much out there that can significantly enhance both my instruction and my students learning. In almost no time I had gained access to a professional development module intended to improve language instruction in 12 key areas complete with online video access based on application of the methods in real classrooms. WOW! I found a teacher's blog that required student writing to be posted on the blog where others can view and comment on the pieces. WOW! I am craving techniques to create a wider audience base for my student's writing and this seems to be a great opportunity. I found readers in Spanish for all grade levels. WOW! I am glad to be on the verge of summer to return to these resources as I plan for next year. And that brings me to my second reaction... how is there enough time in the day to find these sites, learn new things, and how do people have enough hours in the day to create these blogs? I am awed by the time it must take to create and manage a blog. Lot's to think about but definitely a vision of where my instruction will be going.

Thing 2 asks for an assessment of a good blog. The blogs that I preferred were specific to my needs and interests, had hyperlinks to their recommended sites, were appealing visually making them easy to read with a user-friendly layout, and to-the-point entries. In general the blogs were very generous in highlighting good sites/resources that the bloggers had found, sharing instructional successes, and keeping a focus on language learning. I left many of these blogs anxious to visit again which answers my question about how do blogs get a following. Based on my actions, if you are interested in the bloggers topic then it is worth the time to read the blog and to return to it. I now have several bookmarked as I am anxious to return. So a good blog matches a topic of interest to a reader, offers valuable content in that interest, and leaves a curiosity about what the blogger will add next.

Thing 2 asks if blogs could enhance my existing school web site. The answer is definitely "yes" but time still seems problematic. I need to learn more. I could add daily summaries of class content to help lift the load of student absences and catch-up. Would students read the daily summaries? Does it become simply a matter of training and habit that they would reference the blog? I see potential for student writing to become a part of the blog. Can I train myself to shift from correction mode to response mode? Is that enough to ensure improvement and development of strong language skills? I see a lot of potential but need to visit more blogs to find the most advantageous elements to add to my web site which is mostly a calendar with useful links.

Thing 2 asks if blogs are an easier way to self-publish. Students could have amazing opportunities to write for real people, write to real Spanish speakers, and have real people other than me respond to them. Yes, it is an easier way to self-publish but I do not yet know how to manage it all. I am strongly attracted to the student audience aspect as I think that students value this broader audience, make a better effort when their peers are involved, and could benefit from the peer feedback. Here I believe that the peer responses are going to be more valuable than the peer editing we do in class. Students live typing messages to each other; blog responses would be a very natural technique for real second language use.

My instruction in the future will be different than my instruction of the past. The Web 2.0 world gives me a more interactive style and I have to learn to incorporate these elements into my classroom. My students now how to navigate this world. I have to shift to a delivery system that works with these elements. I can see glimpses of where I am going but I need more knowledge. So, Teach me! Teach me! Teach me!

23 Things – The First Thing

Teach me! Teach me! Teach me!

I want to evolve as an educator. I want to provide meaningful and engaging instruction that helps students connect to my content, stimulates their interest, challenges them to grow, and sends them into the world ready to participate as globally connected citizens.

Where I am today and where I want to be able to take my students are separated by my lack of knowledge about so many technology tools. So teach me! Teach me! Teach me! I want to learn how to create and manage blogs and wikis to give my students real audiences for their writing instead of an audience of one, me. I want to bring authentic second language access to the class and I want to improve the quality of my authentic language samples by using podcasts. I don't have time to search all of the sources that are out there so I want to learn to use the RSS mentioned by David Warlick, to connect to other Spanish language teachers, and to have more interaction and communication within my building.

I want to provide meaningful education to my students who will one day use their Spanish with real people in business, medicine, law, education, travel, and so many other forms of communication. They have access to the world and I want to learn how improve the quality of the access.

I anticipate that a paradigm shift is necessary for time management. I can't add more to what I do but I can change the way that I do things in the classroom. I hope to learn how to make this shift.