In earlier posts, I posted about my Project Based Learning unit that I did with my French 2 students. I decided to do it again last year. But, as most teachers do, I took the things that I learned from last year and improved the unit. We started the unit yesterday with an activity where students "went to France." I gave the students the web site of the school that we have partnered with on this unit. We have a school in Lille, France who has agreed to help out, and a school in Versailles, France. Each group was given an IPad and I pretty much just let them go. I required them to do three things: 1. Figure out the name of the high school (this is level 2 and they were looking at website that is entirely in French, that task is a little more challenging than you might think) 2. Find it on Google Maps or Google Earth and look around, then pinpoint the location the city in which the high school is found on a map of France. 3. They had to complete a Venn Diagram comparing our high school to the one in France.
Let me just say, using IPads in the classroom is so cool. I have a little jealousy for those teachers who get to teach in a school where all students come the class with an IPad. I use my IPad daily for the management of the classroom, but using it for instruction is beyond anything that a textbook can offer. The ease of using a tablet so that all the students in the group could see the terrain of the city where their partner school is located makes the learning experience so exciting and engaging. Of course, many of the students had the website pulled up on their phone, as well, in order to compare their findings. They were engrossed in looking around the community where the school is located. The used Google Eartth to look at the windows of the buildings, the cars that were parked near by, and even the graffiti that they found on buildings that were near the high school. Each group found different and unique things and it was fun to watch them so enthusiastically involved in learning.
Saturday, November 23, 2013
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Oh Where, Oh Where Should my Projects Go?
This week consisted of one of my most monstrous of projects. I use a Microsoft program called Photo Story where students narrate pictures of their family members in order to practice their vocabulary and grammar. We spend several days in front of computers in the computer lab. Students spend days lining up their photos and recording their voice as they describe the ages, likes and dislikes and give descriptions of their family members. Then, render them into videos.
However, when students participate in a project such as this, the conundrum occurs when it is time to submit their work. In the past, our school had a large amount of space tied to their student ID. While it was a bit tedious, in order to grade the projects, I would find their folder on our shared drive and find their project. This meant that I had to be at school on the network. This school year, in order to save server space, the district did away with the "Student Docs". At first, it sent me into a panic, how in the world am I going to grade 70 projects if they can't save them on our shared drive? No way was I going to accept a flash drive from each student. Can you imagine the mess? This problem ended up being a blessing in disguise. It forced me to investigate the many different ways of submitting to the cloud.
Our school does not have a Classroom Management System for each teacher. Something like Blackboard or Moodle offer very easy ways for students to submit electronic assignments, but I don't have those at my fingertips and I can't afford to buy them. Two other free options are Schoology or Edmodo. My students use Edmodo on a regular basis. Edmodo offers up to 100MB in size for each student submission. That was plenty of space for these projects. But, in order for the students to turn it in, there is a "process" that they had to follow. I wanted to avoid the issue of "I can't remember my log in" or "How do I submit to an assignment". While Edmodo offers what I needed, it was too labor intensive. I wanted something easier.
At last, after a weekend of searching, my husband came across "Drop It To Me". This ended up being the answer to this frustrating problem. With Drop It To Me, I set up an account so that when students submit their assignment to me, it goes into a Dropbox folder on my Dropbox account. Teachers, if you don't have a Dropbox account, you need one. My account has 14 GB of space because I send students invites in order to expand my available space. (Smart, huh!) I put a link unto my website, (Which isn't even necessary because the URL for Drop It To Me is very simple.) and my students uploaded their projects. Important Note: I had my students save as "classperiod_lastname" For example, my file, if I were in 5th hour, would be 5_Burton.wmv--for a Photo Story movie. Since I had students save this way, their files appeared in class order alphabetically. Awesome!! I could walk around with my IPad, open the Dropbox app and show students immediately that I had received their project. Double Awesome!! It is important to note that there is a file size limit of 75MB, but for these projects that was plenty of space.
Here is a link to the instructions that I gave my students:
Submission Instructions with Screen Shoots
Now, I need to sit down and grade some projects! Which I can do with my Ipad on my couch, thanks to Dropbox!
However, when students participate in a project such as this, the conundrum occurs when it is time to submit their work. In the past, our school had a large amount of space tied to their student ID. While it was a bit tedious, in order to grade the projects, I would find their folder on our shared drive and find their project. This meant that I had to be at school on the network. This school year, in order to save server space, the district did away with the "Student Docs". At first, it sent me into a panic, how in the world am I going to grade 70 projects if they can't save them on our shared drive? No way was I going to accept a flash drive from each student. Can you imagine the mess? This problem ended up being a blessing in disguise. It forced me to investigate the many different ways of submitting to the cloud.
Our school does not have a Classroom Management System for each teacher. Something like Blackboard or Moodle offer very easy ways for students to submit electronic assignments, but I don't have those at my fingertips and I can't afford to buy them. Two other free options are Schoology or Edmodo. My students use Edmodo on a regular basis. Edmodo offers up to 100MB in size for each student submission. That was plenty of space for these projects. But, in order for the students to turn it in, there is a "process" that they had to follow. I wanted to avoid the issue of "I can't remember my log in" or "How do I submit to an assignment". While Edmodo offers what I needed, it was too labor intensive. I wanted something easier.
At last, after a weekend of searching, my husband came across "Drop It To Me". This ended up being the answer to this frustrating problem. With Drop It To Me, I set up an account so that when students submit their assignment to me, it goes into a Dropbox folder on my Dropbox account. Teachers, if you don't have a Dropbox account, you need one. My account has 14 GB of space because I send students invites in order to expand my available space. (Smart, huh!) I put a link unto my website, (Which isn't even necessary because the URL for Drop It To Me is very simple.) and my students uploaded their projects. Important Note: I had my students save as "classperiod_lastname" For example, my file, if I were in 5th hour, would be 5_Burton.wmv--for a Photo Story movie. Since I had students save this way, their files appeared in class order alphabetically. Awesome!! I could walk around with my IPad, open the Dropbox app and show students immediately that I had received their project. Double Awesome!! It is important to note that there is a file size limit of 75MB, but for these projects that was plenty of space.
Here is a link to the instructions that I gave my students:
Submission Instructions with Screen Shoots
Now, I need to sit down and grade some projects! Which I can do with my Ipad on my couch, thanks to Dropbox!
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Cooperative Learning for the Workplace
One of my favorite things about conducting a flipped classroom, is that it allows for the inclusion of so many cooperative learning activities. I love watching as students take the teacher role and teach each other. However, cooperative learning has its challenges. How does a teacher insure that each student benefits from the cooperative learning activity? How does one avoid having "bogs"--students who do all the work and "logs"--students who just sit there and take up space? In small groups I give jobs to each person so that each person is responsible for something and those jobs switched throughout the activity.
Today, I used cooperative learning with large groups and with an application to the real world. This activity was a lot of fun. It got crazy, but that is normal for my classroom. For this activity, I told students that we would be part of a "corporation". I am the CEO; I give the paycheck (aka: grade). They would be working in committees. Each committee was assigned a category of regular verbs. They would be responsible for teaching (or really reviewing because this is level 2) the conjugations, providing a clever way of remembering how to conjugate these verbs, and providing a list of common verbs in the category, as well as what those verbs are in English. To make this activity work like it would in a business place, each committee had to chose a foreman (or "patron"). I, as the CEO, would communicate with this foreman. Within each committee, they had to divide into sub-committees. One would be in charge of creating an engaging presentation; the other was in charge of creating an activity which would allow the rest of the class to participate in practicing the grammar point. Students had 40 minutes to work. I called a "board meeting" 15 minutes after they had started working to touch base with the foremen and to make sure that each group was on track. At this time, I told them what I saw that was working, what wasn't working. I asked them about their method of presentation, as well as the type of activity that their group would be doing. I talked to them about their committee members who were being "logs" and gave them ideas of how they could get those team members involved.
It was a great experience. The students amazed me with their enthusiasm. It was fun to watch the foremen as they moved within their groups to delegate jobs. I loved hearing the conversations about what types of practice activities would be the most beneficial for their classmates. As any CEO would do, I guided them when necessary and encouraged good behaviors. Tomorrow the groups will present. We'll see how those presentations go.
Today, I used cooperative learning with large groups and with an application to the real world. This activity was a lot of fun. It got crazy, but that is normal for my classroom. For this activity, I told students that we would be part of a "corporation". I am the CEO; I give the paycheck (aka: grade). They would be working in committees. Each committee was assigned a category of regular verbs. They would be responsible for teaching (or really reviewing because this is level 2) the conjugations, providing a clever way of remembering how to conjugate these verbs, and providing a list of common verbs in the category, as well as what those verbs are in English. To make this activity work like it would in a business place, each committee had to chose a foreman (or "patron"). I, as the CEO, would communicate with this foreman. Within each committee, they had to divide into sub-committees. One would be in charge of creating an engaging presentation; the other was in charge of creating an activity which would allow the rest of the class to participate in practicing the grammar point. Students had 40 minutes to work. I called a "board meeting" 15 minutes after they had started working to touch base with the foremen and to make sure that each group was on track. At this time, I told them what I saw that was working, what wasn't working. I asked them about their method of presentation, as well as the type of activity that their group would be doing. I talked to them about their committee members who were being "logs" and gave them ideas of how they could get those team members involved.
It was a great experience. The students amazed me with their enthusiasm. It was fun to watch the foremen as they moved within their groups to delegate jobs. I loved hearing the conversations about what types of practice activities would be the most beneficial for their classmates. As any CEO would do, I guided them when necessary and encouraged good behaviors. Tomorrow the groups will present. We'll see how those presentations go.
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
New Beginnings
Teachers have reported for duty in our school district, and our students join us on Thursday. I am nervous and excited about this year. Our French numbers have dramatically increased and since I am the only teacher to teach level 1 and level 2, I have huge classes. It's a wonderful problem to have.
I have decided that from Day 2 I am going to continuously run my class with the integration of Kagan Cooperative Learning. On Day 1 and Day 2, I am going to include Team Building activities to get kids talking and moving. I figure if we first have fun, it will start us off on the right foot. So Day 1, we are doing a Six Degrees of Separation from Madame B, where students have to figure out who they know that also know me, and a Venn Diagram with their assigned partners for likes and dislikes.
Day 2, students will be assigned their groups for the next four weeks. In those groups, they will discuss things that they all like by doing a round robin share time, then decide on a group name. Then, in those groups, they will play triangle tag. To play triangle tag, three group members hold hands to create a triangle. The fourth person stands outside of the triangle and has to try to tag the person in the triangle that is furthest away, BUT the people in the triangle try to prevent that from happening. The group that goes the longest wins and has bragging rights.
I will include a lot of French in my explanations and encouragements for these days in order to be modeling target language as I go along. I am excited to see how it goes. I met my freshmen today and they are awesome!
My next task is to create a list of gambits, or positive reinforcements, to teach the students. I want a list of encouraging phrases that they can use to help each other. Hopefully, I will get that list together soon.
As your school year begins, good luck! Remember, we are in it for the kids. As I said in my Teacher of the Year, Back to School speech, we have the power to change lives each and every day. Let's do it!
I have decided that from Day 2 I am going to continuously run my class with the integration of Kagan Cooperative Learning. On Day 1 and Day 2, I am going to include Team Building activities to get kids talking and moving. I figure if we first have fun, it will start us off on the right foot. So Day 1, we are doing a Six Degrees of Separation from Madame B, where students have to figure out who they know that also know me, and a Venn Diagram with their assigned partners for likes and dislikes.
Day 2, students will be assigned their groups for the next four weeks. In those groups, they will discuss things that they all like by doing a round robin share time, then decide on a group name. Then, in those groups, they will play triangle tag. To play triangle tag, three group members hold hands to create a triangle. The fourth person stands outside of the triangle and has to try to tag the person in the triangle that is furthest away, BUT the people in the triangle try to prevent that from happening. The group that goes the longest wins and has bragging rights.
I will include a lot of French in my explanations and encouragements for these days in order to be modeling target language as I go along. I am excited to see how it goes. I met my freshmen today and they are awesome!
My next task is to create a list of gambits, or positive reinforcements, to teach the students. I want a list of encouraging phrases that they can use to help each other. Hopefully, I will get that list together soon.
As your school year begins, good luck! Remember, we are in it for the kids. As I said in my Teacher of the Year, Back to School speech, we have the power to change lives each and every day. Let's do it!
Thursday, July 25, 2013
Bon été!?!
I love summer! I love the slower pace. I love being able to spend sun up to sun down with my kids. I love being able to just sit at the pool and watch my kids as they are smiling and laughing. I love that I can sit and sip a cup of coffee in the morning. I love that I can get more than 5 hours of sleep each night. I truly love summer!
This summer has been more of a working summer for me. I learned how to code in HTML 5 and use CSS. I realize that for many people that accomplishment is merely a "whoopity-doo", but for me it is quite exciting. The grad class that I took this summer was probably the most challenging, yet most rewarding endeavor that I have been faced with in a long time. HTML is really fun. It's mind-boggling, but I found it to be so exciting. Yes, there are time when it brought me to tears of frustration, but I really feel that I have accomplished something. And with excitement and relief, I can unveil my new website: flip.mrsburton.com. This website is designed to help any teacher to successfully transition to a flipped classroom. It is no secret, that I love the flipped method. It is something that I preach. My website has the tools and explanations that one would need to get started and pull off the flipped method. I know that teachers are planning for the upcoming school year, and I hope that this website can help.
Speaking of the upcoming school year, I, myself, am starting to think about what I am going to do differently this year. I felt as if last year went well. I still need to address those students with Ds and Fs. I had a few students who just didn't buckle down and do anything (except show up), at the end of the year. Unfortunately, those students didn't pass. I guess, I really need nag those kids. My plan for those kiddos this year: everyday, I will remind them that they have a D or an F. Everyday, I will point out something that they can do to improve that grade. I will applaud every single little point that they earn. Some students are fine with failing, especially an elective course. Their parents tell them that they could never do a foreign language, and they get this idea that being able to speak a different language is an impossibility for them. I have to figure out how to get those kids to change their mind-set. It's tough, really tough.
I have been working on ideas for a few projects, all of which I hope to share in the upcoming months. For now, I plan to sip my coffee and enjoy my last days of this wonderful time of year.
This summer has been more of a working summer for me. I learned how to code in HTML 5 and use CSS. I realize that for many people that accomplishment is merely a "whoopity-doo", but for me it is quite exciting. The grad class that I took this summer was probably the most challenging, yet most rewarding endeavor that I have been faced with in a long time. HTML is really fun. It's mind-boggling, but I found it to be so exciting. Yes, there are time when it brought me to tears of frustration, but I really feel that I have accomplished something. And with excitement and relief, I can unveil my new website: flip.mrsburton.com. This website is designed to help any teacher to successfully transition to a flipped classroom. It is no secret, that I love the flipped method. It is something that I preach. My website has the tools and explanations that one would need to get started and pull off the flipped method. I know that teachers are planning for the upcoming school year, and I hope that this website can help.
Speaking of the upcoming school year, I, myself, am starting to think about what I am going to do differently this year. I felt as if last year went well. I still need to address those students with Ds and Fs. I had a few students who just didn't buckle down and do anything (except show up), at the end of the year. Unfortunately, those students didn't pass. I guess, I really need nag those kids. My plan for those kiddos this year: everyday, I will remind them that they have a D or an F. Everyday, I will point out something that they can do to improve that grade. I will applaud every single little point that they earn. Some students are fine with failing, especially an elective course. Their parents tell them that they could never do a foreign language, and they get this idea that being able to speak a different language is an impossibility for them. I have to figure out how to get those kids to change their mind-set. It's tough, really tough.
I have been working on ideas for a few projects, all of which I hope to share in the upcoming months. For now, I plan to sip my coffee and enjoy my last days of this wonderful time of year.
Thursday, March 7, 2013
Food, Fun, Foolishness
We are one day away from Spring Break. We missed two days this unit due to snow days, I am losing my mind trying to keep my kiddos focused. This could possibly be a VERY long entry, since I have done a lot and had no time to jot it down.
First of all, very exciting news....I was announced this week as the Francis Howell School District's Teacher of the Year. I was totally caught off-guard on this one. It is an unbelievable honor. I work in a wonderful school district and to be chosen as the teacher of the year in such great place is quite meaningful.
On to the happenings in room 236. Last week, I tried a great little lesson that proved to be quite fun. Since I am a firm believer in letting the students work through problem-solving to come to conclusions, I decided to try something new when teaching the French superlative. We had just learned the comparative and they seemed pretty sure of the ways of the comparative, so I transitioned them into the superlative. I created a video with several series of images. FouFou is a cute dog. Milo is a cuter dog than FouFou. Pierre is the cutest of the dogs...You get the picture. I posted the video on Edmodo and I put them into groups. The groups had to watch the videos and come up with some statements about what they noticed in the superlative sentences. Each student wrote things down. I had them use their cell phones to watch the video. In most groups, at least two people had a phone, so they could crowd around their phones and watch. Then, the group agreed on one thing that they noticed and posted it on Edmodo, being careful to read what others had posted so that the same post wasn't repeated. It was such an amazing thing to watch. Some kids got it right away, some of them struggled and couldn't figure out what it was that they were looking for. I asked them to be able to answer my question "What is different about the superlative than the comparative?" I walked around to each group to make sure that everyone was grasping the concept. One thing that surprised me was that the kids who caught on right away, were the ones who usually struggle when notes are directly presented to them, and the ones who usually grasp direct instruction immediately took a little longer. That switch created confidence in the lower students, but frustrated the higher students. It was an interesting turn.
To help practice the information, I had students bring in several types of food. We had cookies, chocolate covered strawberries, chips, juice, candy, and much more. Students were instructed to write sentences comparing these things. I was able to walk around and look at their answers and work one on one with them to help clear up confusion and double check that they were writing the correct answers. Every student was engaged and because I was checking in with them, I could make sure they were appropriately engaged. I feel as if I have room to grow with this one, but we had a lot of fun with the assignment. Our class period was cut short due to a shorted school day. Had we had a normal class period, I would have had the time to do an end of the hour summary. That was something that was missed. But...I am ready for next year!
First of all, very exciting news....I was announced this week as the Francis Howell School District's Teacher of the Year. I was totally caught off-guard on this one. It is an unbelievable honor. I work in a wonderful school district and to be chosen as the teacher of the year in such great place is quite meaningful.
On to the happenings in room 236. Last week, I tried a great little lesson that proved to be quite fun. Since I am a firm believer in letting the students work through problem-solving to come to conclusions, I decided to try something new when teaching the French superlative. We had just learned the comparative and they seemed pretty sure of the ways of the comparative, so I transitioned them into the superlative. I created a video with several series of images. FouFou is a cute dog. Milo is a cuter dog than FouFou. Pierre is the cutest of the dogs...You get the picture. I posted the video on Edmodo and I put them into groups. The groups had to watch the videos and come up with some statements about what they noticed in the superlative sentences. Each student wrote things down. I had them use their cell phones to watch the video. In most groups, at least two people had a phone, so they could crowd around their phones and watch. Then, the group agreed on one thing that they noticed and posted it on Edmodo, being careful to read what others had posted so that the same post wasn't repeated. It was such an amazing thing to watch. Some kids got it right away, some of them struggled and couldn't figure out what it was that they were looking for. I asked them to be able to answer my question "What is different about the superlative than the comparative?" I walked around to each group to make sure that everyone was grasping the concept. One thing that surprised me was that the kids who caught on right away, were the ones who usually struggle when notes are directly presented to them, and the ones who usually grasp direct instruction immediately took a little longer. That switch created confidence in the lower students, but frustrated the higher students. It was an interesting turn.
To help practice the information, I had students bring in several types of food. We had cookies, chocolate covered strawberries, chips, juice, candy, and much more. Students were instructed to write sentences comparing these things. I was able to walk around and look at their answers and work one on one with them to help clear up confusion and double check that they were writing the correct answers. Every student was engaged and because I was checking in with them, I could make sure they were appropriately engaged. I feel as if I have room to grow with this one, but we had a lot of fun with the assignment. Our class period was cut short due to a shorted school day. Had we had a normal class period, I would have had the time to do an end of the hour summary. That was something that was missed. But...I am ready for next year!
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Inspiration and Engagement
Last week I attended our area's Education Technology conference, METC. I was so fortunate that my district allowed me attend for both days because I was a presentor at the conference. I presented on the "How To's" of flipping a class. It was such a great experience. I love being around so many inspiring educators that have great ideas for getting students engaged. One of the presentor's that I saw talked about an interactive activity that teachers in his district did with elementary students. It is a sort of "Where in the world is..." type activity. Students skyped with another classroom somewhere in the country, and asked questions to pin point their exact location. He showed a video of this class in time-lapse. It was so fun to watch as students were circled around IPads and asking questions.
This got me to thinking about my own students. How fun would it be for us to pose questions to another class somewhere, here in the US, or elsewhere. What a great use of language skills to inquire and respond. I haven't nailed down how I can impliment this idea, as of yet. But, I will soon be searching for someone, somewhere, who would participate in this activity for me. Who knows, maybe we could even pair up with another French class, here in St. Charles, MO.
In a sort of related, but not related activity, I have found a group to partner with my French 1 students in order to help us with our French food chapter. We started our activity today. Using Edmodo (my most favorite of teacher sites), my students are posting statements about their favorite foods. Our French partners, in Bretagne, France, will also post about their favorite foods. Eventually, next week, we will create a slide show of our typical breakfast, lunch dinner and snacks. I gave the assignment for my students to start taking pictures with their phones or cameras. It has created some fun discussions, as we are thinking about what the French kids will be saying about what we eat.
Technology makes all of this happen. I love that so quickly students can post a message for other kids who are in a completely different continent. I love that we can gather pictures of what we eat in such an effortless way. And, I love how excited they are to meet their new friends. I will keep you posted on our progress.
This got me to thinking about my own students. How fun would it be for us to pose questions to another class somewhere, here in the US, or elsewhere. What a great use of language skills to inquire and respond. I haven't nailed down how I can impliment this idea, as of yet. But, I will soon be searching for someone, somewhere, who would participate in this activity for me. Who knows, maybe we could even pair up with another French class, here in St. Charles, MO.
In a sort of related, but not related activity, I have found a group to partner with my French 1 students in order to help us with our French food chapter. We started our activity today. Using Edmodo (my most favorite of teacher sites), my students are posting statements about their favorite foods. Our French partners, in Bretagne, France, will also post about their favorite foods. Eventually, next week, we will create a slide show of our typical breakfast, lunch dinner and snacks. I gave the assignment for my students to start taking pictures with their phones or cameras. It has created some fun discussions, as we are thinking about what the French kids will be saying about what we eat.
Technology makes all of this happen. I love that so quickly students can post a message for other kids who are in a completely different continent. I love that we can gather pictures of what we eat in such an effortless way. And, I love how excited they are to meet their new friends. I will keep you posted on our progress.
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Yay for School Tube!
In my evolution with my Flipped Classroom, I have gone back and forth on where to have my videos posted. I have been in the habit of having my videos in three places. I always have them on Edmodo.com, YouTube, and for a long time I was using School Tube. I used the embed code under the video that I had uploaded, and embedded it on my website. I got very frustrated, however, about the time that iOS 5 came about because School Tube started this "stretching" issue. Most of my students have Iphones, and it made it impossible for these guys to watch my videos on their phones. To say the least, it was frustrating!!
A few weeks ago, a colleague suggested that I use Sky Drive to embed my videos. I was super excited because that seemed to work very well. I only had a few students who had some issues with the videos. What I didn't particularly like about Sky Drive was that it opened the video in a Sky Drive window and took awhile to load. I got the excuse from some impatient kiddos that "the video wouldn't play".
Just yesterday I went to School Tube to upload my next couple of videos and I was pleasently surprised. School Tube has changed their interface. Not only is it more streamlined, but there are more options and it is more user-friendly. They are using a different way of hosting the videos. The best part...no stretching. That is such wonderful news.
For now, I am back to embedding my videos from School Tube. I will still upload them to Edmodo, as well as YouTube. I always want there to be a back up, in case School Tube goes down. I would like to say BRAVO to School Tube for a much needed make-over. It looks great.
A few weeks ago, a colleague suggested that I use Sky Drive to embed my videos. I was super excited because that seemed to work very well. I only had a few students who had some issues with the videos. What I didn't particularly like about Sky Drive was that it opened the video in a Sky Drive window and took awhile to load. I got the excuse from some impatient kiddos that "the video wouldn't play".
Just yesterday I went to School Tube to upload my next couple of videos and I was pleasently surprised. School Tube has changed their interface. Not only is it more streamlined, but there are more options and it is more user-friendly. They are using a different way of hosting the videos. The best part...no stretching. That is such wonderful news.
For now, I am back to embedding my videos from School Tube. I will still upload them to Edmodo, as well as YouTube. I always want there to be a back up, in case School Tube goes down. I would like to say BRAVO to School Tube for a much needed make-over. It looks great.
Saturday, February 2, 2013
Have you Glogged lately??
So much has happened since my last post. I have found myself so busy, that finding time to record anything has been difficult. At the beginning of the month I was honored to be awarded Francis Howell Central's Teacher of the Year. I am shocked, humbled and so thrilled to have received this award.
My French 1 students just finished their first Glog of the year. In the past, I have loved this site: edu.glogster.com. I use it throughout the year for different projects. Glogster is one of my favorites because students can create an eye-catching electronic poster. For language classes it is a great way to have students use their learned language and display attractive pictures or even videos. They make for great presentations because of all of the features they can include.
This year I changed a "weather" project that I have done in the past and used Glogster to have students publish some research findings paired with learned grammar and vocabulary. In an effort to tie "Global Awareness" into this particular unit, I assigned students different francophone regions. I gave them the instructions that they should create a "Publicité" or advertisement for a tourist visiting this area. They were to use weather, temperature and include popular places to visit, as well as things to do in the area.
I introduced the project last Thursday and gave them time in class on Thursday and Friday to do research using only their mobile devices. They were to complete a KWL chart for their region. Those research days were really fun to witness. It was great to see them using discretion in choosing the information that they planned to use from different sites. In hind site, I wish that I would have checked in with each group on the following Monday to see what had been completed on that chart. I was out of the classroom on Tuesday, so I was not able to monitor their progress. Since many of my students are not extremely self-directed, I realized on Wednesday, when many pairs had not completed much of the project that some students were not as far as I had expected them to be. Because our time with computers was limited, I had to stick to my deadline. They had four days with computers, but one more day probably would have been better. There is nothing that teaches expectations better than a model. I didn't show a model until the day before the project was due. There were some students who had completely misunderstood the requirements, and it wasn't until they saw my example, that they realized exactly what they were expected to produce. When I do this next year, I will make sure to have a daily accountability meeting with each group/pair. Projects were due on Friday, and I was discouraged when there were groups that had nothing ready on their Glog. Project due dates are always frustrating because the most interesting/creative excuses come from everywhere. I wasn't clear enough in my explanation that excuses are not acceptable because I got far too many. As with any project, I have learned what to do and what not to do next time, but I will continue to use Glogster as a way to help students use their language.
My French 1 students just finished their first Glog of the year. In the past, I have loved this site: edu.glogster.com. I use it throughout the year for different projects. Glogster is one of my favorites because students can create an eye-catching electronic poster. For language classes it is a great way to have students use their learned language and display attractive pictures or even videos. They make for great presentations because of all of the features they can include.
This year I changed a "weather" project that I have done in the past and used Glogster to have students publish some research findings paired with learned grammar and vocabulary. In an effort to tie "Global Awareness" into this particular unit, I assigned students different francophone regions. I gave them the instructions that they should create a "Publicité" or advertisement for a tourist visiting this area. They were to use weather, temperature and include popular places to visit, as well as things to do in the area.
I introduced the project last Thursday and gave them time in class on Thursday and Friday to do research using only their mobile devices. They were to complete a KWL chart for their region. Those research days were really fun to witness. It was great to see them using discretion in choosing the information that they planned to use from different sites. In hind site, I wish that I would have checked in with each group on the following Monday to see what had been completed on that chart. I was out of the classroom on Tuesday, so I was not able to monitor their progress. Since many of my students are not extremely self-directed, I realized on Wednesday, when many pairs had not completed much of the project that some students were not as far as I had expected them to be. Because our time with computers was limited, I had to stick to my deadline. They had four days with computers, but one more day probably would have been better. There is nothing that teaches expectations better than a model. I didn't show a model until the day before the project was due. There were some students who had completely misunderstood the requirements, and it wasn't until they saw my example, that they realized exactly what they were expected to produce. When I do this next year, I will make sure to have a daily accountability meeting with each group/pair. Projects were due on Friday, and I was discouraged when there were groups that had nothing ready on their Glog. Project due dates are always frustrating because the most interesting/creative excuses come from everywhere. I wasn't clear enough in my explanation that excuses are not acceptable because I got far too many. As with any project, I have learned what to do and what not to do next time, but I will continue to use Glogster as a way to help students use their language.
Friday, January 18, 2013
Mini-Conference
It is a universal problem in education. How does a school make professional development relevant to teachers? Our building is made up of around 130 teachers. And while our PD committee can never make 100% of the teachers happy even some of the time, I think they got it right with today's activity.
I had read about a Mini-tech conference in Tech and Learning Magazine several months ago. What our building did was survey teachers on their interests in the area of technology. As teachers, we always hear about the cool things that other teachers are doing, but we never get the chance to be taught how those cool things work. After looking at the results of the survey, the committee found teachers in our building who were using technology and had them create a presentation on their area of expertise. I did a session on The Flipped Classroom, for example. We had sessions on using Ipads, Edmodo, SMART Notebook and social media. The "expert" teachers shared their experiences during two 45 minute sessions, and teachers were able to choose the sessions that they wanted to attend. Teachers love to be able to choose; we hate being told what to do. The fact that teachers made the choice of what they were learning created a more positive attitude from the beginning. After attending the two sessions, teachers were allowed work time to impliment what they had learned. I loved it!!
We are all in this together. As teachers we must grow in our fields. To gain the attention, and respect, for that matter, of our students, we must also continue to learn. This is an awesome time to be in the field of education because of the exciting new technology applications available, but one person cannot learn it all on his or her own. As teachers, we must pull or resources together and teach each other what we know.
I had read about a Mini-tech conference in Tech and Learning Magazine several months ago. What our building did was survey teachers on their interests in the area of technology. As teachers, we always hear about the cool things that other teachers are doing, but we never get the chance to be taught how those cool things work. After looking at the results of the survey, the committee found teachers in our building who were using technology and had them create a presentation on their area of expertise. I did a session on The Flipped Classroom, for example. We had sessions on using Ipads, Edmodo, SMART Notebook and social media. The "expert" teachers shared their experiences during two 45 minute sessions, and teachers were able to choose the sessions that they wanted to attend. Teachers love to be able to choose; we hate being told what to do. The fact that teachers made the choice of what they were learning created a more positive attitude from the beginning. After attending the two sessions, teachers were allowed work time to impliment what they had learned. I loved it!!
We are all in this together. As teachers we must grow in our fields. To gain the attention, and respect, for that matter, of our students, we must also continue to learn. This is an awesome time to be in the field of education because of the exciting new technology applications available, but one person cannot learn it all on his or her own. As teachers, we must pull or resources together and teach each other what we know.
Monday, January 7, 2013
A New Year, A New Start
Starting 2nd semester means that we have the opportunity to start brand new. I love coming back from Christmas break because by now I know my students, and this is when changes that I have been wanting to make can begin to take affect. It was 2nd semester last year, when I came back from Christmas break and began to implement my flipped classroom.
This year's change isn't as drastic, but I decided to make a change to deal with cell phones in the classroom. I teach in a BYOD school. I love that students are encouraged to bring their mobile devices to school, and I love that I have permission to use devices to help support 21st century learning. However, students have difficulty knowing when it is appropriate for phones to be used and when they should be put away. Phones were driving me crazy at the end of the semester. I was trying to review information for finals, and kids had their phones out texting, checking Facebook, tweeting...and not paying attention to me. Or ear buds where in and I couldn't tell if they were listening to music or not. I have to give credit to some teachers at a neighboring school for this idea, but I started it on our 2nd day back and it has worked wonderfully.
I have moved to the Stop Light System. I went to the local teacher's store and bought a Stop Light poster for $3.49. I also bought one piece of black card stock. I cut black circles out of the card stock to cover up the different lights on the stop light so that only one color will be seen at a time. Each color represents how students can or cannot be using their phones. Red means NO DEVICES. I told them that I don't even want to see them when it is a red light. Out of sight, out of mind. A device out during a red light means I will assign a detention and confiscate the device. Yellow means that devices can be used if permission has been granted. This means that students can use their phones for a calculator or they can listen to music after a quiz or a test, as long as they have individually asked me for permission. A green light means that I want them to be able to use their device to complete the assignment or activity. For example, today we were completing our newest vocabulary list in order to be able to talk about our daily routines. Students could access the internet in order to find the words or use our online textbook.
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