Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Tool #11

1. There are so many tools I learned that I liked! My favorite couple were probably online timelines, wordsift, and any type of picture presentation. The ultimate site I plan to use this year will be lingt.com. I plan to start with this one first because it contains reading, writing, and speaking Latin. Students will be able to work on these in class with the netbooks, or if they are a more reluctant speaker, they can work on them in the library or at home. It has a variety of tasks that the teacher can develop, and it holds every student accountable, but they can work at their own pace.

2. I didn't think that this would change my way of thinking, but I was wrong (and it didn't even take my wife to tell me). When I first became a teacher, I loved setting up stations using equipment that was old even then. Students responded very well and enjoyed the class. As technology in the school waned, I drifted away from this style, as technology outside of school vastly outpaced school districts. I am very excited that we are now "caught up" to outside technology! I was afraid I wouldn't find it easy to learn or even useful, but I was certainly wrong. I won't necessarily need to make changes, just return to the way of teaching I enjoyed years ago. Students will create a variety of products using reading, writing and speaking, which have never before been possible using this much technology.

3. I think the most unexpected outcome was how much this has excited me thinking of the new possibilities in teaching Latin! I expected to learn new skills, which I did. They will be very useful, but I am looking forward to increasing student interest and excitement to the level I now feel.

Tool #10

1. a. Do NOT share personal information online! b. using appropriate language/no bullying- you are not anonymous. c. check sources on internet info when researching. just because it's on the internet does not make it true.

2. The Internet Safety Plan from webwisekids lists very simple open ended questions which I plan to use as prior knowledge tool to start the discussion..

3. I definitely intend to start the discussion with all students answering the open ended questions. Then we can discuss answers and focus on misconceptions, etc. Then finish by describing how to react when presented with several scenarios.

4. Parents need to understand that the internet safety is to protect their own children.Digital citizenship is analogous to citizenship in a country: we have a set of behaviors determined by the majority of society to which all members adhere. Just as we teach and practice how to be a citizen (Pledge of Allegiance, voting, jury duty, etc), we also must teach and practice how to be a citizen online.

Tool #9

1. Without tying technology to the objective, the equipment becomes superfluous at best, a time-waster at worst.
2. I have worked very hard to hold all students accountable for every activity in my classroom. Stations are an assignment, and thus, no different.
3. Many of these particular sites are not applicable. However, there are some good applications of thinkfinity, but the site is rather difficult to figure out. The timeglider site is excellent, but I can't use that for very many activities. There are many various ways to hold students accountable, but it either ends with a product created or some other type of assessment.
4. I am a huge fan of the app. Latin dictionaries are excellent. Sentence diagrammr will be a fantastic way to practice parts of speech. There are many more I look forward to using these frequently, and I might even let students hunt for their favorites.
5. There are other ways to use the ipad, as not all good applications have apps. Some websites such as the Latin textbook online would be great for students to use. The netbooks will be useful for recording students speaking individually to practice pronunciation.

Tool #8

1. The webcams on the netbooks will open up a whole new way of communication, especially with some of the new software I learned about this summer at the American Classical League convention...lingt.com. Also,             the management aspects were something I had not yet considered, although with so many different types of technology students are already using, I have found that they are quite respectful and responsible.

2. Speaking of management, the suggestions on the tools website were quite helpful. I have thought about the idea of making a list of students who are responsible week by week for managing the equipment. I definitely plan on introducing use of them in stations to begin, as well as assigning one person in the group the responsible party.

Tool #7

With Latin being a NON spoken language, I found quite a lot of difficulty in thinking of ways to collaborate with other classrooms. I did think of trying to get an "expert", and I still might consider this, but those can be hard to find...anyone want to offer a suggestion? So here goes my idea- I would like to do this with my former student teacher who now works in Pearland.

1. Objective: Students will use English derivatives in context (prose).
2. Time Frame: Could be implemented toward the end of any chapter/unit
3. Tool: Google Docs
4. Students will be given a list of vocabulary words derived from Latin vocab in both classes. Students will be paired/grouped with some students from each class. In pairs, students will be assigned half the vocabulary each. Students will be given the first sentence as a theme. Students will take turns writing until an assigned vocabulary word is used, then switch to the other student. Continue until the story is written.

Saturday, July 14, 2012

Tool #6

I like all of these tools. I started with word wall. This has multiple applications in a Latin classroom. It could be used as a way to discuss culture, especially with images from the internet.



I can also use it to discuss grammar points in a particular story, such as the one below where students learn the imperfect and perfect tenses of verbs.



It requires every student to participate and a good way to evaluate what each student is thinking about. It also allows students to share at their own pace. Some will wait to see what others post and get ideas from it, while others will be ready to share immediately. It does make me think about how I could incorporate many of these ideas (from all the tools) into a grading rubric.

TodaysMeet can perform a very similar function, without the additional graphics link. It can be a fast tool for discussion and opinion. It is very easy to set up, and given a computer lab (or our new computers used as classroom stations), it can be a good review (or preview)

http://todaysmeet.com/SevenWonders

Ok- I just went to test these, and I really don't see the purpose of the imbed code for the wallwisher. It doesn't seem to do anything but add a picture to this blog. I was really hoping that students could click on it to respond. Guess I'll have to use the link. Oh, well...

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Tool #5

After spending a good hour or so in mixbook, I became extremely frustrated. It does seem quite useful, and people I know use it, but I ran into several difficulties. It is extremely difficult to find pictures in the public domain to use. The easiest way to do this would be to use personal photos, which I do not have. Therefore, it was not the best option for me at this time. Soooo, I have been working in Animoto, which is very user friendly, has some pictures already available, and I have found some useful pictures online.

This animoto shows things of importance in Italy.

I spent a while with both wordsift.com and abcya.com. I instantly saw all kinds of uses for them both. I think I prefer wordsift because it has more features, but I like abcya because you can save the document and reuse it. Neither one provides imbed codes. Uses. I can see where I could type in the text of a story we are reading in Latin, finding the most common words, and discussing those as a prereading activity both to clarify vocab but also as a prediction tool. The wordsift site would be most useful with English text, such as a myth or cultural reading, as students could use the definitions web, the images, and the use in the story context to help them through difficult vocabulary. I am looking forward to using these frequently in my classes.



Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Tool #4

I love Google Docs. I don't remember who introduced me to it, but it has so many uses. It has a lot of overlap with a text document/presentation being dropped into my folder, BUT students can work on the same project simultaneously, which has good points and bad points.

In my department, there could be usage when compiling data such as enrollment, awards, and all kinds of things that need everyone's input in a single document. In the classroom it has all kinds of uses. I have used it to create presentations where each student was responsible for a certain part. With documents, I have had students prepare translations, with moderate success, as most need practice with proofreading skills. I am looking forward to using this more in my classroom!

Tool #3

I have been using Discovery Education videos for many years, and I have found them extremely useful. I like to use them in a computer lab setting where students can view, pause, and answer questions at their own pace.

  A good video on a Roman ballista


A nice PPT video on Roman government

These both came from TeacherTube, and it was easy to use, but the embed code was not present in every video I watched.

Copyright laws are so important, especially now with the proliferation of the internet. I think teaching attribution is very important, because now that you can copy and paste just about anything, the idea of intellectual property seems to slip people's mind. The website http://librarycopyright.net/resources/exceptions/?startOver=true used on the instructions no longer works.

I was very interested in the way to save videos from YouTube- I had not heard that before. I also would like to know where the SBISD Media Server is.

I liked the Dropbox and it seems quite easy to use. I need to play around with it a little more to figure out how students would use it, as it concerns me that it seems like anyone with access can delete any file. I seem to be able to already utilize all of these functions with the current server usage. Perhaps with the new technology coming our way we will have some that cannot access the servers, but would be able to access the internet. In those cases, this definitely could be useful storage.

Tool #2

I found Google Reader to be a very useful tool for following blogs. I had no idea that something like this existed! The only thing that confused me a little was that the further you scroll down in a blog, the more it downloads from the blog site! I guess it will just be something to get used to.

I have always been interested in sharing information about teaching, as there just aren't many Latin teachers. I am not a texter, nor do I have a facebook account, as I don't see much use from it. However, there are lots of Latin teaching sites I can follow with useful information. http://blogs.transparent.com/latin/ is just one example of a good one to read. As time goes by, I will be able to see which ones are truly useful for teaching.

Thursday, May 17, 2012

My first post

I have been working with web pages for years, so I was unsure what to expect with a blog site. However, I found it to be much, much easier than creating a web page. In fact, I think this can be much more interactive and serve my instructional needs much better than a web page. After this, I may find myself switching everything to a blog!