Final Reflection, etc. - 8/30/12

FINAL REFLECTION:

I am so glad I was able to take this class this summer.  I have learned a lot about blogging and embedding html codes and what all those things even are.  The blog format was scary at first because I was posting things that anyone anywhere in the world could see.  Because of that, I felt I did a better job and put in more effort than if it were just my instructors looking at my work.  The part where we had to comment on three other blogs was also helpful because I was able to get more ideas on how to use these tools, which was one of the reasons I wanted to take the class in the first place.

I am planning to use many of the tools I learned to use in our activities throughout the year.  I've passed on information to several of my colleagues anytime I thought how perfect this would be for...  I really liked that we could choose from several alike tools.  I liked that we were forced to try the tools out for ourselves because I learned I just have to jump in and try something rather than wait for a training on it.  I guess you could say it built my confidence level up so that I can try new things and not be so intimidated as I used to be.  I am very interested in taking Summer Camp 2.1 if there will be one next year.  Thanks for all the encouragement.

Free Choice! - 8/26/12

REFLECTION:  All I can say is OMG!  Why haven't I been doing this?  The time to set up the formulas in the spreadsheet was a bit much, but I'm sure there's a faster way that I can learn.

There are three drawbacks if I were to actually quiz this way:
1.  Not sure how to control cheating.  Students could easily open multiple pages to find answers.
2.  Every student needs internet access.  That means I need to schedule a time in the computer lab, which is always booked, or students need to do this from home, which I'd never assign because of drawback #1.
3.  The answers need to be pretty specific.  No spelling errors, which is good for the Spanish part  for me, but I chose some words that have multiple answers, so I listed them all before I knew what I was doing.  Even if students had all the right answers listed, if they weren't in the order I had listed them or didn't list all of them, this would mark the answer wrong even if they got it right.  That's why I'm back to the drawing board. Hand correcting is just faster in a language because of the multiple ways to say the same thing.  This probably would be a good thing for math.

Still, I've got the wheels turning in my head to figure out a way to make this work.

Polling and Data--8/26/12

REFLECTION:  I was very excited to do this activity because I've used all these tools and I thought I'd have an easy go at it.  Not the case.  I've used Poll Everywhere for a couple of years and each time I create a poll, I spend hours on just it to get it perfect.  Same thing this time even though I only created two polls.  I am planning to do this as my presentation during workshop week, so  I had to make sure I had it just right because I'm at a new school this year.  Plus, it's changed somewhat since I first started to use it so I had to check out all the new features.

I use this a a formative assessment.  I don't over use it, once, maybe twice a year as a novelty.  I usually use it with our SMART software so I can cover up the answers if I'm letting students submit their own answers with a screen.  I rarely have them submit their own answers because students can be somewhat immature at times, so I like that I can now put their identification -last four digits of their phone number - on the screen.  That way, I can see if the same person is answering multiple times or that there is a way to purchase a feature that pre-edits comments if they are totally outrageous in terms of language use.  This only applies to the written answers, not the multiple choice response.

I tried Tweeting, but it didn't seem to work.  I'll have to continue to try it.

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REFLECTION:  I have used Google forms when I was CCT for world languages.  I had to collect large amounts of data from teachers across the district and this worked very well for me to manage it digitally.  I used to collect forms from everyone and then I had to sort, make sure everyone submitted, and then compile the data.  Now  it's all there for me to check with a couple of clicks and email those who still hadn't responded and to manipulate the data since it organizes it like an Excel spreadsheet.  It was also great because the program models looked different at each level and even among the same levels, so teachers could submit their data at any time of the year and I didn't have to worry about hanging on to it until I got it all.

I might try this with students as a formative assessment for my hybrid class.

InfoGraphics - 8/26/12

REFLECTION:  This activity wasn't very useful to me as I teach lower levels of Spanish, which is working on getting the basics of speaking, reading and writing in Spanish understood.  This would be useful for showing culture, which is why I chose the topic above.  I could also see students doing the research, which I have done in lower levels on occasion, and presenting it with these tools.

Infogr.am was fairly easy to use.  Again, I was limited in what I could do, but I guess that was part of the plus side of not creating everything yourself and saving me some time.  I like that when I hover my cursor over the people, it shows the data I entered - because there wasn't much variation on colors between some consecutive countries.  It maybe is more visually stimulating if I had used fewer data points.  Also, I entered the percentages in descending order, so I wonder what would happen if I would have organized the table by alphabet or without any type of rhyme or reason.

Cloud Computing - 8/22/12

How would you use cloud computing with this particular example? 

I am planning to link this to my webpage.  I just discovered all of the at the end of the school year, so I've played with it a little bit.  I think it will be a great tool for students to stay connected and plan their day/week/months better.  I'm really liking Google more and more each day.

Would cloud computing be a useful tool in your classroom? What are the pros and cons? 

Now that students will be getting their own Google accounts, I can do so much with cloud computing.  The surveys and things I used to do in class that took up some time I can now have them do outside of class on their own time at their leisure.  

I see this as such a time saver and classroom management tool that I can refer students to instead of explaining things over and over again.

A con is that I am assuming students have access to internet, and I know that isn't the case.

Study Tools - 8/11/12

http://www.tagxedo.com/image/87b0e184efb04112

http://www.tagxedo.com/artful/304eb0f5d4754329



REFLECTION - TAGXEDO:

I had such high hopes for this activity, but it turned out more complex than I had hoped.  I saw Wordle posters on sale for the two common verbs for, "to be," in Spanish and I thought I could do this myself.  My plan was to make a Tagxedo and repeat the words ser and estar over and over again so those words would appear larger than the other words and use an image (rather than a random shape) to link the concepts with the word.  As cool as Tagxedo is, I found it difficult to navigate and get the desired result I had wanted.  The shapes were limited and I ended up just using a simple star.

Also, there doesn't seem to be a way to save the images and then search for them, so I ended up recreating one of my Tagzedos so I could link it here.  Overall, more work than I had thought at first, but I think I could see my students using this activity as a fun writing activity or for higher levels, to describe a famous Spanish-speaking person with his/her own image.

I'll post the second activity later...

http://www.studyblue.com/#search/notes/AUTHOR:1106275

REFLECTION - STUDY BLUE:

I had already tried Study Blue before and was not at all excited about recreating flashcards that my book already has created for each lesson.  Why reinvent the wheel when time is so limited?

What I found out was that I probably didn't really need to recreate anything (but I did anyway) because someone else probably had already created a full list of vocabulary to study.  It was easy to search and since I actually did the activity as intended, I was pleasantly surprised that other examples of the flashcards came up on the right hand side that I could click on easily to add to my collection.  That led me to discover I could add a photo, which my book already does, but I could personalize it with pictures of local places/people/things.  I was also glad I could add sound so pronunciation could be practiced, but that is also already include with my book's website.  What I'm not sure of is if I can ad a picture AND sound.  Something my book also does and is helpful for multiple intelligences.

I really liked the fact that Study Blue kept track of your progress, something my book's website didn't do (with flashcards).  I'll have to see if I can keep track of my student's progress as well once school starts.

I'm a little concerned with the link I posted above because you could edit the list and delete or edit cards and I'm not sure if that would affect my cards directly because you don't have an account and are not logged in, so don't try it please.

I doubt I'll create that much in Study Blue since I already have a tool that does most of what want, but I may assign it for students to do so that they could be more involved in their learning.  They would add their own pictures/images to make it more personal for themselves.  They can log in through Facebook, Twitter and Google, something my students already use a lot.  Overall, I liked the tool.