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.