Wow to Webdocs!

Am super amazed and excited by this new Web 2.0 tool! There are so many different things you can do with it and what I love most is there is very little learning curve. I was able to create this, my very first Webdoc, and post it in a matter of minutes! A Webdoc integrates text, links, images, video, sound and apps in a super simple and visually attractive format! Plus the Webdocs can then be posted to a blog or shared via e-mail, Facebook or Twitter. I can see a million possibilities for this in the classroom.... voting tool, getting student feedback, comparison of websites or blog posts, posting media, creating interactive collages/posters, etc.!

Professional Learning Academy 2011

The Professional Learning Academy this week was AWESOME!  I am so glad I had the opportunity to collaborate and brainstorm with some really amazing and innovative teachers in my district!  I am super excited about some of the ideas we came up with and learned about (which I shall share in more detail very soon).   Now, all I have to do is get to work on implementing them for this upcoming school year!  Some of the topics and tools we discussed included...

• Problem Based Learning
• 21 Century Classroom Design
• Google Apps for Education: IGoogle, Google Reader, Google Docs, Google Earth and more!
• Blogger - to be used as a class managment tool and as a living document of student work, projects, etc. throughout the school year
• Moodle
• Discovery Education
• Video Tools - Screenr, Splicd, Youtube, and Jaycut
• Introduction Videos for 1st day of school
• Digital Citizenship and Proper care of 1:1 Devices
• Parent Letter for students that will be enrolled in the 21st Century Model Classrooms

Creating a Model 21st Century Classroom..

I am thrilled to be creating a "Model 21st Century Classroom" in the upcoming 2011-2012 school year! My school district has chosen 5 classrooms (2 elementary, 2 middle school, and 1 high school) that will basically be given a "technology makeover". The technology tools in each room will be a little bit different, but in all the classrooms the implementation of technology rich lessons and problem based learning will take place.

What will this entail for my high school Spanish classroom?

• A Smartboard - A large sized Smartboard was purchased at the end of last school year and installed in my classroom in May 2011. So, I have already had some time to work with it and start creating lessons using the Smart software. However, I still have much more to learn and will work to optimize the capabilities of the Smartboard in the upcoming year to improve teaching and learning.

• 30 Motorola Xoom Tablets - The Motorola Xoom is the first tablet device that runs on the Android 3.1 Honeycomb System. It also contains a dual core processor, HD Video Camera, front and rear facing cameras, and is Adobe Flash Player 10 ready. The video below demonstrates in more detail the capabilities of this device. With the 30 Xoom tablets, there will be a 1:1 student to tablet ratio in my room. As you can imagine, this opens up so many opportunities for learning and my brain has been working overtime lately with new ideas that I want to try out. I have to shut it down sometimes so I can fall asleep at night!

As the year unfolds, I will be continuing to post updates on the creation of the "Model 21st Century Classroom" as well as reflecting on the various new tools, apps, strategies, and technology rich lessons that are implemented. I love getting and sharing ideas with others! So, if you have anything you think would be useful for me and others looking to improve 21st century learning, don't hesitate to leave a comment!

QR Codes = Easy Info. Sharing!

Tool:  QR Codes are a great way to share web sites, information, and much more with students.  I recently used a QR code in my Spanish IV classes to give students quick and easy access to research sites for their Spain project. To generate the QR Code, I used Kaywa, which is super user friendly.  It allows you to create a QR Code from any URL, text, SMS message or phone number.  You can then embed the QR Code where you want students to access it.  Through the use of their smart phone cameras and a QR Code App, such as QR Droid (free android app), students could then scan the bar code and quickly have access to all the resources via their phone, which means they could continue their project research and work on the go 24/7!

Results/Reflection:  Students really liked having this alternate way to grab the info. and websites for their Spain project.  Obviously not all my students owned a smart phone, so the information and websites were also posted on the class web site, but it was nice for students who did have a smart phone to be able to have an additional point of access for the project resources.  I will definitely be using QR codes in my classes more often and will post more ideas for their use soon! :)

Guide Research with Customized Google Search

Tool - Customized Google Search Engine - This tool works great for guiding or filtering student research for various projects and other activities. It allows you to input specific sites that you want students to use and allows them to search by keyword or phrase specifically within those sites.  I recently used this tool to help guide research for a large project my Spanish IV students were doing on the autonomous communities of Spain. I copied the URL's of the websites that I wanted them to use into the customized search engine creator and 2 seconds later I had a search tool that I could embed into my class web page for students to access. 

Results/Reflection: This tool worked incredibly well for filtering information for students and helping guide them to quality web sites.  In addition, it was incredibly easy to create.  I think it took a grand total of 10 minutes to generate the customized search engine for my Spanish IV Spain Project.  This is definitely a tool that will be used again in the future!

Craig's List meet Señora's List!

Tool: Google Sites - For teaching about the subjunctive with adjective clauses, I had my students create want adds for a varitey of things: automobiles, furniture, cell phones, video games, etc. I set up a template Google Site and added all the categories that I could think of that would appear in the want ads or on Craig's List. The site was called "Señora's Site", named after the famous "Craig's List" of which most students are pretty familiar with. In today's day and age a large number of people utilize sites like Ebay or Craig's List to look for or sell items. Wanting students to practice a real life skill/task and due to the fact we were studying subjunctive with adjective clauses, I had my students write an add for an item or service that they were looking/searching for.

Results/Reflection: The activity worked pretty well, but there are some changes I will make for the future. The main problem that we encountered was that unlike Google Docs only one student can be typing on a specific Google Sites web page at one time. Everyone can be on the same Google Site and on different pages, but 2 people on the same page and one person's work will get deleted. So for next time, I will need to make sure that I have a seperate page within the Google site for each student in the class. On a bright note, this school year our district is pilotoing Google apps and all of my students already had accounts set up before we started, which was a real time saver and made it much more user friendly for the students. If your school does not have Google Apps, you can always create a free account for the class and have everyone log in with the same username and password. You can't track everyone's work, but it saves a lot of time and has worked well for me in the past.

Ideas from the Minneapolis, MN TIES 2010 Conference

Had so many notes and great ideas at the TIES 2010 conference.  Love networking and learning from other educators and how they implement technology in their classrooms and schools!  Please visit my Wallwisher site to see the ideas and links to information from some of the presentations that I attended if you want to learn more!  If you also attended the conference feel free to add your personal notes and ideas!

Notes & Ideas from TIES 2010