Technology in my Future

Although this year is winding down, I'm getting all wound up over technology.  I'm excited about incorporating more technology in my new job this fall, and doing so mindfully.  There is so much work to be done, and the more I try to clarify what I know, the more expansive my search gets.   Class Dojo leads me to Twitter.  Edmodo leads me to Schoology to Haiku Deck.  Each gem I uncover is attached to an entirely differnent universe-sized mind-map of new information.  I'm getting buried.

Evernote for organizing, note-taking, sharing, digital-portfolio building...

Schoology and Edmodo for classroom learning systems, online discussion, online quizzes and assignment submission...

Class Dojo and Student Action tracker for behavioral data... motivation

Twitter... I'm still stuck on Twitter.  I have no idea how to use it or why I would, why I should, and the harder I try to make myself care about Twitter, the less interested I am in figuring it out.  Ugh.

Answer Underground for networking regarding real-time help requests and digital collaboration...

Flipped Classrooms


So many ideas to dive into this summer.

Lessons from Édith Piaf

To French IV students:

What was the personal message you got from watching the film "La Môme"?

• The message for me was not to regret small things, and to love all people because you don't know how they got where they are.
• The message for me is that the mistakes in my life don't have power unless I give it to them.
• A lesson in the film is "you have a life" because it is her message the entire time she was sick.
• The message for me is that you can destroy a life with too much love, you must have a life with more than one important thing in it.

Le Monarque idéal

This years's round of monarch symbolism projects... They came out pretty well!

Self-imposed road blocks

Overcoming the obstacles I've created for myself in my classes is wearing on me.  I want everything prefect.  My goals of teaching French in context are extremely difficult.  They require so much more planning, and in the end, I much prefer my courses in this style than simply when following the book.  However, I find my struggle to break away from the book is increasingly difficult when it comes to scaffolding students.  They need the book.  They love the structure of it.  After 2 years of following page by page to get them to their third year, they are reluctant to leave it. 

We start each day with 90 minutes of class.  Although I haven't used the book for all videos and quizzes, I've relied a lot on the worksheets and book exercises to help learn the language and grammar concepts. 

The students are working on the ideal Monarch project.  I need to blog about this later, how it's going and how I'd like to change it.


Things I'd like to create:

• Est-ce que je peux posters for all conjugations.
• Est-ce que je peux poster for various locations

Things on the agenda this year:

• Teach 6th graders French
• French Wedding reception for the Personal Finance Class
• Read Les Misérables in English

Scatterbrained

There are so many things that I want to incorporate in my upcoming classes that I can't keep it straight.  So I've decided to compile a list here to keep my ideas in one place.  Even though I have a hundred apps for this exact thing, such as Evernote and Mindmapping software, nothing beats making a dang list.

French III Honors

• Context: Louis XIV, French Revolution, Napoleon.
• Text: Les Misérables annotated edition from Barnes and Noble
• Literature Circles on Fridays
• Text: Chapters 1-5 for grammar points and vocabulary building, but NOT for context.
• Using Technology to support instruction and encourage self-directed learning
• Edmodo? (create online quizzes about verb conjugation that are automatically graded)
• Evernote?
• Googlesite for the entire class
• Epals?
• Kidblogs for online portfolio
• iPad apps for instructional uses
• iPhone/Android apps for student support
• Common Core: Multiple Sources
• Les Mémoires de la Marquise de la Tour du Pin
• Daily News reports
• Radio France portions
• RFI for audio with transcripts

French IV Honors

• Context: Studying French through film analysis
• Text: Discovering French Blanc (Nouveau!) for grammar and vocabulary resources
• Using Technology to support instruction and encourage self-directed learning
• Edmodo? (create online quizzes about verb conjugation that are automatically graded)
• Evernote?
• Googlesite for the entire class
• Epals?
• Kidblogs for online portfolio
• iPad apps for instructional uses
• iPhone/Android apps for student support
• Common Core: Multiple Sources
• Daily News reports
• Radio France portions
• RFI for audio with transcripts
• Film reviews and texts relating to film

French II Level 1

• Context: Qui suis-je, et pourquoi?
• Text: Discovering French Bleu(Nouveau!) as curriculum basis, chapters 3-6
• Using Technology to support instruction and encourage self-directed learning
• Edmodo? (create online quizzes about verb conjugation that are automatically graded)
• Evernote?
• Googlesite for the entire class
• Epals?
• Kidblogs for online portfolio
• iPad apps for instructional uses
• iPhone/Android apps for student support
• Common Core: Multiple Sources
• Daily News reports
• Radio France portions
• RFI for audio with transcripts

The New Challenge: Technology

I spent this past weekend at the NHAWLT conference in Meredith, NH.  It was incredible!  The focus of my conference choices was technology, of which plenty were offered.  I'm losing the interest of French I students after the first two weeks, which makes me sad.  I am tired of teaching "J'ai faim, tu as faim?" and seeing their eyes glaze over...

After sitting in front of my laptop, and trying to mindmap digitally, on paper, in a word doc, etc... I decided to do a new blog post from my notes from the conference.  Rehashing what I took down will help me sort through what my goals are... plus, it will probably be helpful to language teachers looking for a kick in the pantalons, technologically speaking...

The two most influential sessions I attended were by Becky Rush and Jocelyn Judge.

Every teacher in my building is blessed with an iPad.  So here is what I learned...

I can use my iPad as a document camera.  By hovering over a document, I can snap a photo to save the work.  I've been doing that with my whiteboard to save notes for later.  Here is a final exam from last year's senior class: The Little Prince.  What is on your planet, and why?

I can also use my iPad to document student participation, something I do with paper, but prevents me from producing reports beyond "hey look at all these little marks I made!"  The program is called Student Action Tracker, and can be found here: 

http://download.cnet.com/Student-Action-Tracker/3000-20415_4-75583892.html 

I'm told it can also be used on an iPhone, or iPod, which is much smaller, and useful when the students are using the iPad and I can't get to it.  I've loaded it all up, and am planning on starting to use it tomorrow.

The first session I went to was about using http://www.kidblog.org as a platform.  What I like about it is that there is one main blog page where all activity is posted as a sort of status update, and when you click on the activity, it takes you to the individual's personal blog.  This is far more favorable to 30 people sharing ONE blog, and then blowing up the main page.

The blogs foster digital conversation, allows students to catalogue their work, upload images, mp3 links, and functions as a digital portfolio.  I can correct their posts online by changing the color of errors, or making notes on their errors, for them to go back and fix.  The author of the session, Becky Rush, says she only corrects once, then what's done is done.

She posts digital assignments on her blog for kids to access.  She posts links to listening or reading comprehension sites and then requires students to respond on their own blogs in the target language.  She uses Audacity to create soundfiles.  iPad will also do a voice memo the same way, and we were also told that the website Audioboo is a great resource as well.  I will save this info here to check out later.

21st Century Learning Skills require that students are literate in technology. Even though I may not know how to use the technology in minute detail, the kids will figure it out.  That's part of developing the 21st CLS, no?  

There are a few programs that Rush used to create products, awesome products, that require reflection and synthesis to demonstrate aptitudes.  The first was Photo Story 3, which I promptly emailed my tech guy and requested that he download to every machine in the labs.  Digital slide shows of photos that students narrate vocally, and can insert subtitles.  It prompts you to do every little step, so there is less time spent on formatting and screwing around with settings, and more time spent on creating.  It does not work on a mac, however.  (sniff!)

Story Jumper: Creates a digital book. The finished product belongs to the company, however, and cannot be dowloaded, only linked to, or you can purchase a hard copy.

The iPad training by Mrs. Judge and Mr. Wong was about using 1 iPad in the class.  The student action tracker was explained there.  So was using the iPad as a document camera, as a white board with the app "Show Me", which allows you to save what you've done in a video.  Judge prepares her notes, and plays the video for the class, and it is saved to be used next year.  She also uses it for pictionary, and can upload the videos to the school website.  This is helpful to students who were absent, they can get the notes.  Another version of this is Explain Everything or Doodle Cast Pro, which cost money.  Show me has a free version.

iCard Sort allows you to import lists of words in Excel, and gives you a desktop covered in flashcards that you can manipulate.  It is great for kinesthetic learners, and helps with sentences creation and word order. 

Quickvoice records students speaking for verbal assessments.

Guided Access is a setting on the iPad that prevents students from touching parts of the screen that you want to disable.  Was sooooo excited to discover this!!!

Choices is an app that I downloaded that is a random generator.  

Planbook.com is an online planner that I want to look into for my classes.  It has a student code so students can see what they are doing.  Also allows you to bump today to tomorrow if you don't complete the lesson, or if there is a snow day.  $12/ year.

Polleverywhere.com is a free way to have exit polls, students can submit responses online or via text.  it's free.

What to do with all this info?!!!

I had to get it out of my brain.  Now that it's out... I can begin to sort.  

At the conference I set up a kidblog for my French II class.  Now I am going to work on developing it. Until plus tard...

Taking Credit

I have been a bit sad that my year seems less productive than I wanted it to be.  While I think of this, i have to keep in mind that my post-grad school exhaustion plays a factor in my lack of productivity, but I also have to acknowledge the work that I've done.  Once I give myself credit for the word I've done, I should do that.  Take credit for it.  :)  Here goes:

I re-invented the curriculum for an entire French IV immersion course, consistent with my praxis.  Although this is not by any means the finalized version of my curriculum, this is one of the best courses I've ever taught, I do believe.  This course utilized explicit grammar lessons, philosophical discussion, film analysis, and literature circles, all with the goal of discussing concepts in context.  I also managed to bring 6 students up to speed who were far behind where they should have been after French III.  Yay me!

I've been integrating technology into my courses this current semester by using Edmodo to provide an online discussion forum for my French III course.  We discuss French history.  Unfortunately, most of this takes place in English at this point, but at least we're getting the ideas down.  I've also embraced the usefulness of the textbook as opposed to fighting it for the sake of fighting it.  Another way I've embraced technology has been to start using Evernote.  I'd like to learn more about incorporating it into class for my students, and I hear that some of the teachers and administrators have discussed using it for student portfolios.  I love this idea.  I want to be in on it.

Last, but not least, I've been working on developing an independent study version of my courses because one of my classes has only three students of various abilities and attendance patterns.  In order to meet the needs of each student, they have to be individualized.  One student receives highly structured activities, while the other two are given an list of objectives, and are then allowed to work on their own towards meeting them.  So far my kids are all working well on their own.  I have to work hard to make sure that it doesn't become a tedious routine for them.

That's 50% of the courses I teach right there, where I'm doing something great.

The rest of the time I'm sticking to the old standby.  Basic language instruction peppered with intellectual discussion and conversation about concepts when I can fit them in.

Chin up, Mademoiselle!  You're doing just fine.  Rome wasn't built in a day.