E-portfolio part 1

This past friday, I did the first part of the portfolio with my students, I had them listen to their first recording and give themselves a self-evaluation, I also asked them to have one classmate listen to their recording and evaluate them. There were a couple of challenges:

first, some students had still not created an edmodo account - next time I will have them all create an account in class rather than leave it up to them because even though I gave them plenty of time to create one, they still had not created one.

second, some students had not done the recording, either because they had been absent or because we ran out of time in class to do this and they forgot to show up at lunch time or after school to do their recording.  I will try to have them all do a recording in class next time perhaps borrow the COWS and have a few at a time do a recording instead of just using my laptop and having them go one at a time.

third, The COWS[Computers on Wheels] at my school only has 15 laptops, I have 30 students, 15 of those laptops about 2 - 3 were not working well. This was a bit frustrating as I had not anticipated this, so I ended up giving half the class a short lesson on one of the concepts and then gave the other half the lesson. It was a bit of a struggle. I think next time I will have them do the listening/evaluating of their recordings when they are working on the exercises of the lesson, therefore I only have to teach the lesson once and I don't have to work over the noise of the students listening to their recordings. This was perhaps the most frustrating part. It also took a huge part of the day about 30 - 40 mins if not more.

fourth,  a number of students had forgotten their password, which was a minor problem and it was quick to solve as you can reset their passwords on edmodo.

However despite the problems that I encountered I think it was  beneficial for the students to listen to themselves as I heard a lot of them comment on themselves such as....I need to say more next time....I need to to speak louder or I need to use more vocabulary. We will try doing another one next week and see how it goes. Hopefully the second time around will be easier and quicker.

E-portfolios

As we start the school year, I'm thinking what my goal will be this year. I have used a number of Web 2.0 tools in my classroom, but there is something different I would like to do this year. I have decided that I will have my Spanish 9 students create an e-portfolio. Why? Well, this year I would like for my students to keep track of their progress in the course. I think that it's important that students can keep track and have some control of their learning. I'm planning to use Edmodo to be able to have my students post or send me information. I also plan to work with my department in order to develop a system for students to create e-portfolios. I would also like to survey my students in order to find out whether making an e-portfolio was useful for them or not. I hope that once I have developed an e-portfolio in Spanish 9 I can have my other grades 10/11 create or continue on a portfolio that they have created in grade 9. I look forward to another year of excitement and learning!

Reflecting back on my learning

As I reflect back on where I was technologically-wise and where I am now, I realize I have done quite a lot and I'm even amazed at myself at how much about technology I now know. I recall being somewhat reluctant at first, but thank goodness Nicole, our school technology teacher kept on believing that I would learn, she kept e-mailing me website after website for me to try until finally I decided to give one of the websites a try. Let's just say the first time there were a few barriers, for starters I was in the portable, the website I used didn't seem to work well, there were a number of problems when I was working with my class. Well I was about to give up on the whole idea of using technology in my classroom, it just seemed more work than anything else. But there was Ms. Nicole again, and so I decided to give it another try just for her sake and the truth is I'm glad I had Nicole because thanks to her I learned that it's important first to have an open mind and be willing to try new things and take risks. Having such a wonderful support system in which you are given the opportunity to learn and grow made it easier for me to give technology a chance in my classroom. For example Nicole was willing to teach me how things worked or to go to her if I had questions. I have used a number of websites with my students, many that have been successful, others that have had drawn backs. But in the end the learning experience has been amazing. I have learned that it's okay if you don't know all the answers and letting your students know is perfectly find. I have also learned to ask for help from my own students, some who are more technology savvy than myself. I learned to have a second plan just in case technology just isn't working well on that particular day. I've learned not to be afraid of technology and to show no fear and believe it or not the computers can sense your frustration. In this particular school year I have done various projects with my students using various websites, I have also created a twitter account - a fantastic tool!, I have also created a blog, which is helpful in giving me insight as to what has worked and hasn't worked for me and I have created my own website using webnode to communicate more with my students in terms of checking out homework, important events, etc... What I would like to work on for next school year: How to know how many of my students are using my website, as it's difficult for me to know how many students are finding my website useful or not. I want to make my website more interactive, in which students can feel comfortable providing feedback either to me or each other, as I have a section right now where students can write but nobody has written on it. Linking my website to the school website for easy access to my students cutting down on oral exams during class and having students record themselves and have them evaluate themselves Get my students to write or use avatars to post in spanish/french so that there can be more peer evaluation and they can improve the target language [in this case spanish/french] Difficulties: One of my difficulties has been updating my website, I often find it hard to update with videos, tips...etc....but perhaps next year this will be easier as I won't be starting from zero Engage students on my website Update my blog more often Students not having access to internet at home and be absent on the days in which the class works on projects

TOONDOO - making comic strips

I love using the following website www.toondoo.com for making comic strips. In fact I have used it for different grade levels and for different topics.


It's a pretty easy website to use.
Advantages:
- Students can create their own character - however I found that when using this feature for some reason sometimes their information wouldn't save or it would freeze, maybe there were too many of us using this feature at the same time. But the kids loved this!
- It has a lot of variety of characters, scenes and props that you can select from.
You can have students put all their slides into a book so that all the pages are easier to access

Disadvantages:
- Students have to create their own account, which should be done a few days prior to using it
- You can't view the students work progress
- certain page can't be used for the book [ I believe vertical pages, don't work for the book]



Spanish 11
Students were required to use reflexive verbs to describe an event.

mi rutina by spursmuymal | Make your own at www.toondoo.com

actitud positva by fbottley | Make your own at www.toondoo.com

SPANISH 10

Students were asked to describe clothing for each season as well as for a boy and girl.

estaciones by dlekhi | Make your own at www.toondoo.com

Spanish 9:

I haven't yet used the website with my Spanish 9, but I can't wait to use it! I'm planning to have them use it for when we learn adjectives. [stay tune to see examples]

Tell me another story....

This year I decided to do things a little differently for the end of the semester. In order for my students to review for their final, I had them do two things 1. work on a review package and 2. create a story using the concepts they learned in spanish 10.

I decided to use the website wwww.storybird.com

My students were a bit reluctant at first but once they got started they were very engrossed in their writing.

Advantages of STORYBIRD:
- you have access to the students account
- quick easy access to students' assignments no more filling up of your mailbox
- students choose set of pictures they want to use for their story


Disadvantages of STORYBIRD:
- students can't modify pictures which many of my students wanted to do, as well as use pictures from different sets
- you can't view the students' work process unless they publish the story, therefore making it hard to give students feedback before they do their final product.

The students came up with some incredible stories! It was fabulous!
This project worked really well because as I have mentioned before at my school there are only a few working laptops making it difficult to have the entire class working on the project at the same time.
So I ended up having half the students working on their storybird and the other half working on the review package. We did this for about a week so one day one group would have the entire class to work on their storybird and the other group working on the review package and vice versa until their stories were completed.
The students really enjoy their story writing, One student even commented "That was fun"


Here are some wonderful examples [I wish I could put all of them up]
One student was creative in that he decided to do his story as a diary entry format.

La Historia de Capitán Rivero by spanish1026 on Storybird


Un día como todos los días by Spanish1024 on Storybird