Well, this blog is late due to a family emergency. It's much more work to be absent!
But about my GAME plan, otherwise known as my efforts to learn more about wiki's and integrate them into my instruction. Well, I have learned a little bit more about how to work a wiki but even more about some of the applications that would be wonderful to run in conjunction with the wiki. The idea is of course to get my students excited to use the wiki and motivated to use them (and thus continue learning content) outside of class time. I think Slide (http://www.slide.com/arrange?bc=0&fx=4&tt=24&sk=0&cy=ms&th=0&sc=0) is one such gem that students will have a TON of fun with. After having them write a short entertaining story in Spanish I will just "Let them loose" on this free online application that allows you to upload pictures and write in text students can create nice visual backdrop to their stories! It was so easy that even I was able to make a slide show quick and easy!
Epals is also something I am excited about because of the contact with native speakers that my students would get. I know how invaluable it was for me to travel to another country and get a broader world view and I hope that the experience with epals, possibly in conjunction with a wiki project, would engender some of the same benefits that travel had on me. The NETS T standards will take care of themselved, it seems, as I have my students working with each other and possibly other classrooms using technology.
I still have much more to learn about the wiki and what can go with it so I am not ready to set another goal for myself but I am ready to dive in again soon. In January I will unleash my Spanish 3 class on pbworks and we will see how smoothly I can get it to run. =)
My particular learning style is to get in and work with what I want to learn about so I hope to beable to more of this during the Christmas break. One week till Christmas break! Yay! Merry Christmas everyone!
Jennifer,
ReplyDeleteHi! I am so glad you tried out Slide--it's so easy to use, and it's fun. I just stumbled upon it when I was looking for a way to add visuals to our wiki. I can see this working really well as you have described, with Spanish students. I will use this tool, too, in my language arts classes, to allow students to combine their own text with images and sound.
Personally, I studied Spanish as a student, both in high school and in college, and you are correct that immersion is such a strong learning tool. I was able to visit Spain for a week, and I learned more during that week than I did from years of Spanish class book work. I we had a wiki or some other tool back then for communicating with native Spanish speakers, and I wish we had ePals for the same reason! I'm sure your students are benefit from all of these resources you are using. Kudos.
Jennifer,
ReplyDeleteHi! I am so glad you tried out Slide--it's so easy to use, and it's fun. I just stumbled upon it when I was looking for a way to add visuals to our wiki. I can see this working really well as you have described, with Spanish students. I will use this tool, too, in my language arts classes, to allow students to combine their own text with images and sounds for creative writing assignments and when presenting information.
Personally, I studied Spanish as a student, both in high school and in college, and you are correct that immersion is such a strong learning tool. I was able to visit Spain for a week, and I learned more during that week than I did from years of Spanish class book work. I wish we had a wiki or some other tool back then for communicating with native Spanish speakers, and I wish we had ePals for the same reason! I'm sure your students are benefiting from all of these resources you are using. Kudos.
Thank you Sherrie, =)
ReplyDeleteKathleen to Jennifer
ReplyDeleteWow Jennifer, you have some great ideas!!!! I'm not a foreign language teacher, however we do integrate projects accross the curriculum so I am going to share these ideas with our foreign language teacher and see if we can come up with a project to incorporate these ideas into our curriculum. Thanks for the ideas!!!
Kathleen
Math New Tech
Thank you Kathleen, Happy to have something worth sharing! =)
ReplyDeleteHi Jenn,
ReplyDeleteI never would have thought of using something like Slide in the classroom. I think it could definitely serve a purpose for allowing students to add visuals to the content. Epals would be awesome to incorporate into a language course. From my experiences, speaking with native speakers is the best way to practice a language. Plus, it is a more authentic experience.
Merry Christmas to you also!
Kristy
Jenn,
ReplyDeleteThe more time you spend with and on wikis the more practiced you are. I think your students will love this project! I hope all is well!
Ashley