Filling The Tech Toolbox

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Chome Timer Web App

I used the Timer app, available in the Chrome Web Store, in my classes today for a timed writing activity.

Things I love about it:

1. You can customize the background to any image.
2. You can link a YouTube video to play when the timer goes off.
3. I was able to add a picture from Barcelona, Spain during "La Navidad" and a Spanish carol available from YouTube to play when the timer went off. It was a simple way to integrate a bit of culture into the lesson!

One tip - I pinned this Chrome app in my browser to have ready whenever I need to use it!

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

TodaysMeet - Backchanneling in the Target Language

TodaysMeet was used in my classes today to create a backchannel discussion during a video in the target language. I posed various questions throughout the video for students to answer and even gave out some prizes for most creative/detailed answers. It was very effective for creating further engagement in the activity and took very little time to create/prepare! Take a look at how it went...

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Google Voice Speaking Assessment

We did speaking assessments in my Spanish 4 classes today utilizing Google Voice.

The bonuses..

Can complete 30 voice assessments during class in 10 minutes (+ approx. 1 hour to grade them)
Can access the voice messages from anywhere using my Google Account
Voice messages can be shared/embedded
Can send text back to students with feedback immediately!
Provides more opportunities to assess speaking w/in a World Language Classroom
Super efficient!

Take a look at the process I use to do this...

*Video created by Recess Duty.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Google Forms for teaching about your "Digital Footprint"!

Instead of a traditional "talk" with students about what is appropriate when using Social Media in the classroom, I created a Google Form with information/reminders about what is appropriate. Underneath the information, I added a couple of questions that ask students to verify that they understand the expectations of using Twitter/other social media in my classroom. Students will read the info on the form, answer the questions and submit it to me before we begin our first Twitter discussion tomorrow. Take a look at the form below.

Remind101 - Keeping parents informed of class happenings!

This year I am using Remind101 for texting parents and students of important class information and reminders. In the past I collected phone numbers, etc. from everyone to do this. However, using Remind 101 has streamlined the process and made it much easier.

After setting up an account in Remind101, I created separate "classes" for each class I taught and for the parents of students in those classes. With each class you get a subscription code that you can give out for people to subscribe to it. Once someone subscribes, Remind101 collects their name/info., which allows me see who subscribes. The teacher can also unsubscribe someone if necessary.

I put my Remind101 subscription codes in my syllabus and will also put them out at parent teacher conferences tonight to advertise this optional form of communication to parents!

This is a screen shot of what will be displayed on the Smartboard in my classroom as parents walk in for conferences! (I have scribbled out the exact codes for privacy reasons.)

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Generating Group Stories through TodaysMeet

TodaysMeet was utilized in my Spanish 3 classes to generate a group story for practicing the proper use of both the Imperfect and Preterite Past tenses. To do this, I created a TodaysMeet room for each of my 3 sections of Spanish 3 and then linked the URL of each room to today's post on our class blog. The whole activity worked seamlessly and students really seemed to understand better how to properly use the 2 tenses. Definitely a successful activity, which I plan to use again in the future!