Organizing my Teaching - Online!
For class this week, we were each assigned a tool to make our lives easier (Dropbox, Skype, Evernote, or Diigo). I am already an avid user of Dropbox (to share videos and pictures with my family) and Skype (to video chat my friends), but I presented on Evernote. I can honestly say that Evernote is something that I will use in my classroom. It will function much like a class webpage, and a way that I can hold the students accountable for doing their work. For example, on Evernote, I will post the worksheets, syllabus, maybe any activities from the whiteboard if a student missed class, and the students will have this all available to them on the web (they don't need to have the App, although it would make life easier). So everything the students need to be successful in my class will be right at their fingertips. Which I love!!
I know the purpose of this blog post should be how I felt about teaching this particular tool to my classmates; and I think that I shared my true belief of its benefits with my group (because again, I really do think I'll use it). But I would like to talk about some outside research I've been doing recently for another one of my classes on the use of music in a Second Language classroom. In thinking about how I would like to use music in my Spanish classroom, I have been linking it to what I have learning in this class. One amazing site that I stumbled upon is called www.LaMusica.com (also available as an iPhone App)! This site will allow students to listen to FM Spanish Language Radio stations from across the country. Stations like LaMega in NYC or LA 96.3 not only play Spanish language music, and conduct interviews in the target language, but it would introduce the students to cultural information about the groups living in each area (Puerto Rican or Mexican, for example).
I know I have to link this research to what we did in class today, and this is how: I would have this link available on the class Evernote, and assign the students to listen to one station for an hour a night for homework (assessment being that they should write about what they heard). This way, I know that they will be learning about the culture, and I know that they will have exposure to authentic, conversational Spanish, instead of just the textbook vocabulary.
So, you see, I found the class this week (which was entitled Organizing your Online Life) not about organizing my life, but how I can take the tools and organize a classroom, to help my students succeed. And I think that using the tool like Evernote will help me accomplish this as a teacher.
As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.
Audrey Hepburn
Ahh super cool ideas! You always have the most specific applications for everything that we learn and I love it. I totally am pumped about the opportunities that all of these websites present of us in our future classrooms, but it is awesome that you can brainstorm ways to construct lessons around them already! Love it.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I would totally love to steal you sometime to help me with Dropbox. Not that any of us have time to do a Dropbox lesson right now, but at some point I would love to see how you use it and stuff. I feel like it is just going to be somewhat of a mental jump to get these websites/apps integrated into my life. But I know I will love it when they are! It reminds me of when I was trying to MAKE myself start using Gmail. It took soooo long to sit there and figure it out, make labels, and filters, blah blah blah. But now my Gmail is like the best thing that ever happened to my life. I KNOW this will happen with things like Evernote or Dropbox, I just have to make the jump into really learning how to use them.
What did you think about Diigo??! I thought that one was especially sweet. And super applicable to our lives now in this program. I am really thinking it is going to have a pretty massive impact on my life/educational career. I loved the groups and all the actions on toolbar. So many cool additions to my internet!
Glad the class got you thinking! Not to deter you from your Evernote plans, but you might also check to see if your district has an existing course management system like Moodle. Edmodo.com is a free classroom management system (very Facebook-like) that might also be productive to look into (hint hint - you will need a tool to present on in a webinar nad to write about for a Winter 2013 article!).
ReplyDeleteHey Lauren,
ReplyDeleteIf I was a student in your classroom, I would be super excited about having access to all of that genuine Spanish language multimedia. Speaking to using songs in the classroom, I still know almost all the South American capital cities from listening to that song just a few times. Also, songs like La Bamba and Dame Mas Gasolina (questionably appropriate) I still sing. Learning lyrics is a good way to improve pronunciation and also familiarize with informal language (as you said). I really believe, the more engaging the class, the more learning. Also, that's good to hear that you actually use Dropbox. I had never heard of it but it is nice to see that these tools are already somewhat well known. I guess I wouldn't be a Dropbox pioneer after all.
Have you ever heard of the bone dance? I think it would be a great example of music being used to strengthen memory. You should really consider sharing it with the class. I often sing the bone dance to remember the scientific names of the bones in our skeleton and because it's simply an amazing piece of music.
ReplyDeleteWay way way back when (I am ever so old as you might recall), my Spanish teacher used some goofy songs to help us remember conjugations. Although I never took Spanish class very seriously, I can remember those songs till this day. Having worked with junior high school and high school kids in a foreign language setting, I can assure you that how you sell the song is key to success. Many kids will just reject your musical rhyming as childish no matter how useful it is. It's just something to consider.