Cosa veintitrés: La última cosa

I remember when I got the e-mail about 23 Things back in October, I did not hesitate to respond to Kathy to let her know that I wanted in. As a first year teacher and part of the digital generation, I felt (and still do) that I needed to enhance my technological skills in order to find some success in the rapidly changing field of education. While I did not learn to code HTML or Javascript, I feel as though I became a more literate member of our Web 2.0 community. I have already begun to use Keepvid to bring Youtube into my classroom and I have found and suggested tools like WordRoll (Spanish-English Dictionary IPod Application) for my students. Completing the 23 Things Technology Tutorial has opened my eyes even more to the utility of technology.

In the next week or two, it is my goal to get a website up and running to allow my students to better access the Spanish language. With this website, I hope to provide my students with a daily schedule that includes classroom activities and homework. I hope to include great Spanish references for them to clarify their learning. I hope to add a wiki or blog which will allow for more interactive learning for my students. And, most importantly, i hope to make the site useful enough that students and parents alike utilize the website to improve my students' Spanish exploration.

As I close this post and my 23 Things tutorial, I will make the promise to myself and my students that I will continue to learn to learn and to use the infinite educational resources that Web 2.0 offers. By doing so, I will create a more engaging and relative educational experience!

Here's a start: Because I prefer Google Reader...

Google Sites...

Cosa Veintidos: Wiki Wiki Fun

In my previous post, I expressed concern about the difficulty of creating a wiki. I saw that Anne Baird, the creator of a Technology Wiki, failed to create a visually stimulating wiki. I made the assumption that her technology background meant that she should would strive to make a technologically superior wiki... I was wrong. The creation of a wiki is actually quite easy. Just messing around, I started a decent foundation for my own classroom wiki. I was happy to see that it was extremely easy and intuitive to create a multiple page wiki. For my Spanish I class, I elected to use a google calendar. I like that I can update my calendar on google and have it update automatically on my wiki.

After about an hour of configuring my wiki, I decided to call it quits. Before investing any more time in its creation, I have a few things that I would like to think about: Will students use my wiki? Will students use my wiki responsibly? Would it be redundant to create a blog and a wiki? Which would be more beneficial?

I think the ultimate answer to my question is to create a website that I can maintain a blog and wiki. The blog would serve as a good source to communicate classroom happenings, while the wiki would provide an interactive workspace. The website would serve as the host for each, while also adding a more logical place to maintain a classroom schedule. In the next 23 Things go around, it may be useful to learn to use Google Sites, rather than 3 separate RSS explorations.

Cosa Veintiuno: Wiki'ing a tad intimidating?

One of the most interesting wikis that I found was Teaching with Thinking and Technology. It piqued my interested because it relates directly to our exploration of technology. Anne Baird, the wiki host, aggregated all of the information that we have seen in 23 Things and included much more. While I enjoyed this wiki, it seemed to me a bit of a paradox. The wiki is supposed to foster the use of technology; however, it pales in comparison to wikis like Welker's Wikinomics, which utilizes an infinite amount of technology. Instead of implementing calendars and user feedback like Welker's, TTT was written primarily in boring script. The contrast between the two wikis showed me that Welker's Wiki is an example of the highest quality, while Baird's demonstrates the difficulty of achieving the most user-friendly page. Based on this exploration, I feel that a blog may be an easier medium to organize my classes... that is... until I further my programming and webmastering skills!

(Picture found at: http://www.ikiw.org/category/wiki-adoption-strategies/)

Cosa Veinte: Podcast part deux

One would think that veinte cosas into this thing, that I would read ahead and just combine posts. Nonetheless, I have not. I wrote about my success with DiscoverSpanish in my last blog. I really like the elementary approach to Spansih that the podcast takes and I am hoping to find some supplementary information to combine with the podcasts so that I can use them in class.

I found that ITunes was the most user friendly podcast browser. Visually, the ITunes search was the most visually pleasing. The Avatars for each podcast give the consumer an idea of the crowd that the podcast is targeting, while the ranking and reviews explain the quality of the podcasts. These features allowed me to invest my time more efficiently. Using the Education Podcast Network, I found that it was more difficult to measure the utility of a podcast because there was not a ranking system and the actual search was quite difficult. Using search engines like Google and Yahoo, I struggled to find good podcast because many of those podcasts required a fee in order to access the content.

Cosa Diecinueve: Podcasting

AHHH!!!! This was a frustrating cosa!!! Obviamente, I want to find podcasts that relate to teaching Spanish, but I felt like it was impossible to find a good one! I listened to the Notes In Spanish podcast, but I found it too boring to utilize in class. I subscribed to Coffee Break Spanish, but I immediately canceled the subscription because, likewise, it was too boring! Finally, searching ITunes helped me Discover Spanish!

The Discover Spanish podcast was pretty simple and more instructional than the others. While this is the most useful podcast that I found, I feel that it is a better supplement than classroom teaching tool. In order to make a podcast a great instructional tool, I would have to tailor my unit's exploration to a given podcast. But, as a link on my blog, it may provide my students with the motivation to discover Spanish on their own.

(Picture from discoverspanish.com)

Cosa Dieciocho: Slidesharing!

Soy yo...

View more presentations from Benjamin Anderson.

(I just noticed that I uploaded the rough draft of my slide, so there are a few mistakes that I am too lazy to correct right now!)

This is a great site! I love the fact that I can embed PowerPoint presentations into the blog. For students that miss class, this allows them to easily access a day's lesson and it allows students to go back and study content that they may have not fully understand. While it is always possible to download the document, embedding it within the site allows students not to waste space on the hard drive and always know the location that they can find the information.

Outside of the classroom, I do not see much use for Slideshare. It may help when one needs a motivational slide for a meeting, but it is not as revolutionary as YouTube which has a use no matter who you are.

Cosa Diecisiete: Knowtes (Flashcards)

I am not a fan of Knowtes. There is entirely too much work that goes into making the flashcards! The website's interface looks good, but it is too difficult to navigate. Each time that I attempted to make a new card, it erased the previous. It was quite frustrating and took a bit to figure out. While I like the idea of the program and I can see how I can use it on my blog (if and when I get it up and running), I do not feel that the time it takes to create a deck is worth the number of students that would actually use it. I also tried Remember the Milk, but I gave up on that after too much confusion.

Cosa Dieciséis: Google.docs Rocks!

As one of the directors of the education component of The Quito Project at the Univeristy of Michigan, I was introduced to google.docs last year. It was my job to recruit undergraduates to serve as math and language tutors in Quito, Ecuador. In trying to figure out a way to organize interviews, another member suggested that we use google.docs. Using google.docs saved me an immense amount of time. I did not have to field a million requests for times, I did not have to create a schedule, and I did not have to send confirmation times to everyone! Instead, our prospective tutors simply logged into google.docs selected an open date and time and the interviews went on without a problem!

As the testimonial video showed, google.docs allow for a more interactive classroom. Students can work simultaneously on projects and they can provide each other immediate feedback on work in an effort to create high quality documents. Once again, however, Web 2.0 brings up the question of access. Google.docs would be a great classroom tool; unfortunately, my school does not have the tools necessary to make make my classroom a Google.docs zone. Maybe I need to write a grant to acquire some IPads for my classroom... but then what do I do about Internet?

Cosa Quince: RSS... a bit redundant?

I will once again admit, I do like my RSS feeds, especially for my IPod. But, a third cosa that deals with RSS is a tad bit redundant! Before arriving at this exercise, I had already cleaned up my Bloglines account and subscribed to my New York Times Education feed on Google Reader.

I am not impressed with the del.icio.us feed. I consider del.icio.us to be a useful search engine, not a blog. I do not care if someone classified a new education site. This step may pass the line of information overload. I struggle to envision anyone truly using this strategy... am I wrong?

(Picture: http://libguides.mjc.edu/content.php?pid=34237&sid=491433)

Cosa Catorce: Tag The Website Is It!

Do not judge me because of my del.icio.us name, when one creates his Yahoo account in middle school, he should not be judged as an adult: bigben9111984.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I feel that del.icio.us is a better search engine for finding useful teaching content. Because motivated users tag sites that they found useful, social communities are able to arise. As a teacher of Spanish, I hope to become a member of the Spanish teaching community. My first contribution to the community was to tag the website learnspanish.com. While it has been tagged 97 times, I am contributing to the community because I am making more people aware of the site. As a member of the community, I was able to find an obscure video that shows students how to construct informal tú commands. While I found the video a tad too boring for my class, it may be a useful tool to use when a substitute teacher is present. Because individuals interested in learning/teaching the Spanish language tag sites that they find useful, there is less 'spam' in a del.icio.us tag than a Google search.

(Picture: http://cmtvarok.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/tag.png)

OT: For whatever reason, I cannot read the del.icio.us name without thinking of Gwen Stefani's B.A.N.A.N.A.S.

Cosa Trece: Surfing with del.icio.us

For me, bookmarks are my board of choice when surfing the Internet. Before I purchased my laptop, I faced an interesting dilemma: my bookmarks (ie: my key to efficient research) were located on my desktop pc, but I found it difficult to be productive at home. In my sedentary years, a site like del.icio.us would have been a Godsend. The ability to access websites without sending myself a million e-mails of important links, would have allowed me to maintain organized and efficient research. (Picture found at: http://www.pcrs.ca/Images/PtoW/Living/surfing%20internet.jpg)

While I can see the benefits of del.icio.us as an organizer, I am not convinced that it is a far superior search engine. It seems as though tagging takes too much effort. In order to maximize the benefit of tagging, users must understand and embrace the rules of the tagging language. While they are not complex, they do take effort and I am not convinced that the vast majority of users do not give up on tagging before they master it.

Although skeptical, I did find educational browsing more efficient on del.icio.us. In comparisons to a Google search, it seems that fewer educational 'pay' sites appear in the search queue. This allowed me to find more valuable content, some of which I would be willing to use or adapt for use in my classroom.

Widgeting... Cosa Doce

Usually I am not a fan of widgets, but I do like the translator that I found! I wish that I could shift it to the left a tad, so that one could read the plural conjugations of the verb realizar (or whatever verb is highlighted today). Besides that one small problema, it allows one to hear the word and to see how the word is used in a sentence. Pretty awesome, if I do say so myself!

To address the other questions: Yes, I am a careful member of the Facebook

community. Why is it that so many students are addicted to such communities? Simple, everyone remembers yearbook day at school. It was always exciting to see what pictures people a

re in and what comments a crush made... well Facebook and MySpace provide a continuously updated yearbook, which allows students to waste hours talking, widgeting, etc. For

me, I have maintained my membership because it allows me to keep in contact with college and high school friends. We can easily arrange reunions and we can stay updated on important happenings.

Cosa Once

I have never put much thought behind commenting on blogs until Thing 11. Before now, I focused solely on my grammar, spelling, and message. After reading Lollis' and Coke's blogs (and a few others), I began to think of how their thoughts can inform my teaching and/or blogging. When responding to Coke's blog, my original purpose was to find out how she adapted her lessons for students that did not have home Internet access, but by the end of my comment I had taken a tangent as I thought of a way to implement student blogs in my teaching. The reflection process can work much the same for students. It can force them to think of questions that their peers may have overlooked and inspire them to go off on their own writing tangent.

Cosa Nueve y Cosa Diez

YouTube is a great teaching tool. It offers a seemingly limitless supply of videos to use for teaching or reviewing new concepts. However, one must discriminate when using YouTube because like many other resources, including Wikipedia, the information presented has a limited filter. Information can be monitored based on user feedback; however, this is not a perfect system because the expertise of users varies.

As the disseminator of information, I have found quite a bit to use in my classes. Because we do not have the capability to access YouTube in my classroom, Thing 10 was extremely valuable. I was excited to learn how to download the videos and embed them on my site. So, without further ado, I leave you with a great video...

As a first year Spanish Teacher, this is a great video because it shows just how creative students can be with the language, even though they may make plenty of mistakes along the way.

Cosa Ocho

In terms of classroom activities, I feel that Thing 8 was perhaps the most helpful. There were quite a few resources of which I can take advantage. I was not as big of a fan of the sites that simply created image collages; rather, I preferred the resources that allowed me to insert text. I chose to make a playing card and wrote, in English, a few sentences about the significance of the image.

Playing cards, magazine covers, and the like can be extremely useful in my class. I can have students take pictures of themselves acting out a verb and conjugate the verb in the text section. Or, students can add text to pictures of historical Hispanics like Salvador Allende or Augusto Pinochet. Such activities will allow students to use the computer to practice writing Spanish and to develop study resources.

Flickr (Cosa 7)

As a Spanish teacher, Flickr provides me with the opportunity to bring my students closer to a world which they hope to one day enter. Typing in keywords such as Machu Pichu, Barcelona, or Ecuador allows them to see faces similar to theirs exploring lands that they can barely imagine. While the photos provide great images, the comments are even more important. Posters respond to the pictures in both English and Spanish. Such comments allow students to interact with authentic Spanish in an effort to develop their fluency.

The obvious constraints that I would face in using Flickr for classroom activities is my limited access to technology during class. I have zero access to the computer lab and the mobile labs often do not work properly. As the district's access to technology improves, students will be able to utilize IPods or phones (I hope!) to access sites like Flickr.

¡Cosa Seis!

Especialmente hoy, ¡quiero viajar! This picture was captured in Patagonia, Argentina. The whole picture just captures the beauty that can be found in South America. Hopefully, in the near future, I can bust out my hiking shoes, backpack, and tent to make a voyage to this beautiful place!

Numero Cinco

I have elected to use Google's Reader rather than Bloglines. For me, it was an easy choice. Google developed my default search engine and my primary e-mail account, so why not make it my default RSS? In exploring the two, I really liked Blogline's bookmark feature. It takes all the difficulty out of linking sites; however, that one perk does not outweigh the benefit of consolidation that Google provides me.

When I first started exploring Reader, I was skeptical that I would actually use it. A few hours later, I realized that a slight addiction was developing. While I have yet to find a great blog (besides those that I already follow), I was thoroughly entertained as I sifted through posts ranging from hiking to Michigan politics. Also, for those of you that use your Smart Phone or IPod Touch, the RSS feed makes browsing much easier!

RSS (Numero Cuatro)

When I open my browser, I expect to engage in an exploration of the Internet, why else would I use the Safari browser?

My routine is always the same, I work through my bookmarks from left to right. First I check gmail, then I open Pandora, from there I digest all of the worthless knowledge possible regarding the University of Michigan's athletic department. I cannot even begin to put a number on how many times a day I go through this routine, many times to find that no new content has been uploaded.

Could the RSS feed revolutionize the way I explore the Internet? There is a distinct possibility. It would be nice to have information come directly to me, rather than me find it. However, I am skeptical that I will convert. I prefer reading the articles in the format that the blogger/website intended, rather than how they appear on Reader and Bloglines. While it is possible to follow the link to the site, I do not know that this would necessarily save me loads of time. I will try it out... for now I will stick with Reader because the last thing I need is another site to check!

To blog or not to blog? (Cosa tres)

My last post promised that a sword-wielding me would take on the blogging world full-steam... so here I go with an immediate follow up (well, it was immediate, but I decided to go to sleep after writing the majority of the response)!

(Picture: http://www.innosight.com/)

I believe that Blogging and/or, if I ever find some real ambition, web design will be very important tools in my development as a teacher. Blogging's most obvious benefit is organization. It will allow me to record each day's lessons in chronological order with supporting documents attached and, hopefully, some annotations to remind me whether a lesson needs some tweaking for next year's class. While, there is no doubt that I will benefit, my students will be able to use the blog to remind them of homework assignments, to inform them of what they missed when absent, and to give them easy access to missing documents.

In addition to organization, the blog serves as a communication tool. For struggling students, parents can monitor class assignments in order to ensure their completion. Students can perform activities verbally and through writing by posting responses to questions by creating podcast or simply making comments on the blog. Also, students can, anonymously, ask clarification questions for material that they may not have fully grasped in class.

As mentioned in my previous post, this is all very much a Web 2.0 utopian vision. Unfortunately, access and desire to access may pose problems to the effectiveness of the blog. If students cannot access my blog, will they be unfairly excluded from important content? If students and parents do not elect to look at the page, will the whole blogging process be a waste of time?

While the questions are salient, I believe they are merely small obstacles. Education is utilizing technology and I believe teacher blogs/websites are and will continue to be very efficient communication tools for all educators.

Para mejorar la experiencia de mis estudiantes, ¡voy a usar la tecnología!

To celebrate the Waterford School District's decision to hire me, I purchased a state-of-the-art MacBook Pro. My rationale behind the splurge was that it would allow me to bring mis estudiantes de español a more practical Spanish education. Unfortunately, included in the delivery was not a technologically savvy me. So I am here, with all of you, and it is my goal to sharpen my computer skills in order to become a more effective teacher. (Photo: http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/)

While I am excited to endeavor upon this journey, I am also a tad skeptical that I will receive immediate dividends from my learning. In the Web 2.0 article from Thing 1, I saw a world in which technology was at the fingertips of EACH AND EVERY student! Because many of my students lack the necessary access to the Internet at home and we have built in rules as a district constraining student use of technology, I fear that there will be plenty of obstacles on the road to creating the more efficient and substantive learning environment promised by the Web 2.0 vision. This utopian image will be difficult to meet, but armed with my wonderful MacBook and my developing Blogging abilities, I will attempt to foster a Web 2.0 classroom!