Thing 08: Research Databases

My primary teaching assignment is Spanish 1.  Spanish 1 is the most basic level of Spanish and focuses on very simple, survival Spanish.  Because of the simplicity of the language portion of the class, not a lot of research needs to occur on the part of the students.  However, many cultural projects that we undertake do require research.  For example. during the meal taking unit, scholars may need to create a Menu in Spanish featuring cuisine from a specific country.  During the travel unit, scholars may need to research what attractions and cultural experiences are "must sees"!

One of the most valuable resources online for these types of projects is World Book (Encyclopedia).  Sure, the library has hard copies of this resource, but our world is quickly changing.  Digital resources can be updated far more quickly than hard copies.  As a bonus, World book is simply written and extremely easy to understand!  Students who are taking Spanish 1 at the high school level typically have experienced many struggles in their education and have low reading levels.  World Book Encyclopedia uses pictures and illustrations to support the text information, making it more approachable and meaningful to students who struggle.

What I need to do now is contact my district and find out how I can give my students access to this wonderful resource so I don't have to continuously harp on them in regards to finding reliable resources and spend a lot of time double checking all of their information.

Thing 07: Audio Tools

Now THIS I am excited about.  As a foreign language teacher, it is critical that we assess our students' abilities to SPEAK the foreign language.  One key problem: TIME!!!  If kids work in partners to create a dialogue (say a customer and a waiter in a restaurant) and there are 10 groups creating 5 minute skits, you spend an ENTIRE class period just listening to performances.

Being able to record audio is a game changer.  This is super convenient for students who have stage fright and for me who has a serious fear of losing instructional time!

For my lesson activity, I went with the most basic service, Vocaroo.  The screen was simple an easy to use.  I simply clicked Record, recorded a brief description of myself, then emailed it to myself.

https://vocaroo.com/i/s10pKOm5Pjxn

Feel free to listen in to learn a little more about me (if you can speak Spanish, that is!)

Another way I am considering using this, is to record the dictation portion of exams while I do them live.  This way, if a student is absent or come in late, I don't have to read all of the dictations over and over again.  Our final exam dictation can take anywhere from 20-30 minutes.  Imagine having to do that 3-5 times!

To summarize...Vocaroo: GAME CHANGER!

Thing 06: Curation Tools

Embarrassing Secret:  I had no idea how to use Pinterest before today.

I feel like lots of moms and teachers use Pinterest.  I had no idea that there were so many educational resources on there, however!  I knew that Pinterest had lots of great ideas for crafts and handmade goodies, but not being much of a crafter, I suppose I never really knew what purpose it could have for me.  When I began exploring, I quickly realized how wrong I was.  There were poster-like resource, handout-like resources and even general resource-like resources!  Very quickly I began saving items and realized that I was going to need more than a "Spanish Board".  I already have three boards going:
1)  Spanish Verbs
2) Spanish Language
3) Spanish Culture

And of course, as is the case with any technology, there are some things that I struggle with.  I wish there were a few more features included on Pinterest.  I wish there were a way to see less of certain "Pinners".  Is that even a word?  There are some folks on Pinterest who are posting items with grammar mistakes, missing accents, etc.  I would love to "dislike" those Pinners in order to see less of them as I am searching.  I also wish that Pinterest had a filter.  So say I wanted to locate the perfect worksheet for the verb tener. I wish I could filter by cost, then by popularity or grade level, etc.  Because there are SO many resources on her, it would be faster and easier if I could do those things. 

All things considered, I feel like I have a great new resource under my belt that I can go to before I re-create the wheel or try to hunt down various documents in old folders and flashdrives.  Pinterest gets a thumbs up from me!