My Yola website

I am finally done with my website. For someone who doesn’t have a lot of experience doing this, I think I did ok! My website is an information site for my Spanish 1 classes. There are links to rules, resources, worksheets, projects and more. I wanted something simple and to the point. Some people like a lot pictures and colors in their websites, but I usually get lost when there are too many things on the page, so I kept it simple. In my school district, in the near future, teachers will have to create internet resources (web pages) for the students. I don’t know what kind of program or website creator we will use, but using Yola is great practice.  One thing that was difficult for me was figuring out how to place pictures or widgets in a very specific place on the page. I wanted to put pictures right by the text, so it took me a while but I figured it out. I like being able to use a lot of different widgets. I looked at the Google Gadgets and there a lot of them. I guess someone could make a complete website just by using widgets. I am glad we didn’t have to learn any programming language to create the web pages. Every time I copied the code for a widget, the code looked very complicated.

This is my website: http://laclasedelsenorsulu.yolasite.com/

Please check the Resources Links page and check out the "One semester of Spanish love song".

Texting - Part 3

Texting - Part 3

I am not a very "technology-smart" person, and I always seem to be behind on technology development. The idea of texting for any reason still is very new to me, and only in the last year I am finally getting to the idea that I could save some time by texting rather than by waiting until I get home and emailing someone. I can only type one letter at the time and I don’t know any of the shortcuts for words and expressions. (Only a few months ago I thought OMG meant Old Mexican Guy). It is very interesting to see that more and more ideas are coming around to the various ways  that texting can be used in the classroom. But again, I am still catching up to the idea of using PowerPoint presentations in my classroom. I used www.polleverywhere.com  and I can see how in the social studies part of my curriculum that opinion polls can be a part of the instructions. I may defeat the purpose of learning spelling or using complete sentences in my regular instruction for my Spanish classes. I think that under very controlled  circumstances, many teachers could use cell phones, texting, Facebook, twitter, etc.  to complement their instructions. However, I see how the misuse of technology can lead to problems for students and even teachers (as seen on the news various times). Controlling what is being posted or used can lead to censorship, which in turn is a step backwards in the progress we want to make. One of the advantages I see is the instant feedback to news (of many kinds) or events happening around our schools. I texted my friends and my sons about the hackers attacking PBS and posting 'Tupac still alive' story. I got instant responses, especially from my sons, which I was expecting. One of them told me that they also hacked into the Playstation network. He was worried more about Playstation than PBS. But interesting enough, it made our conversation (texting) more relevant and interesting. More and more ways of using cell phones and texting will be created faster than we think... if I can only keep up with all of it.

Texting - Part 2

Texting - Part 2

The article had a lot of very interesting information, and some of it is very scary when you think about it. It is very interesting to see the difference between the habits about texting between girls and boys. It is also interesting to see that only about 64% of parents know about the context of the text messages on their children's phones, especially when about 15% of them have received sexually suggestive nude or nearly nude messages. Another disturbing piece of data is about the cell phone use and driving. This is a scary statistic: 48% of all teens ages 12-17 say that they have been in a car when the driver was texting. I assume that this doesn't refer only to classmates or other teens, but also parents and other adults.

This is some information I found on http://www.distraction.gov/stats-and-facts/
Research on distracted driving reveals some surprising facts:
-20 percent of injury crashes in 2009 involved reports of distracted driving. (NHTSA).
-Of those killed in distracted-driving-related crashed, 995 involved reports of a cell phone as a distraction (18% of fatalities in distraction-related crashes). (NHTSA)
-In 2009, 5,474 people were killed in U.S. roadways and an estimated additional 448,000 were injured in motor vehicle crashes that were reported to have involved distracted driving. (FARS and GES)
-The age group with the greatest proportion of distracted drivers was the under-20 age group – 16 percent of all drivers younger than 20 involved in fatal crashes were reported to have been distracted while driving. (NHTSA)
-Drivers who use hand-held devices are four times as likely to get into crashes serious enough to injure themselves. (Source: Insurance Institute for Highway Safety)
-Using a cell phone while driving, whether it’s hand-held or hands-free, delays a driver's reactions as much as having a blood alcohol concentration at the legal limit of .08 percent. (Source: University of Utah)

Texting - Part 1

Texting - Part 1

It seems like the many ways of communication among our teenagers today includes the cell phone, and it's not for voice communication, but for texting. Unfortunately it seems that their cell phones are also their main source of entertainment. Some schools are looking for ways to incorporate this "dedication" to the cell phone and make a positive experience in the classroom. I think that just like the Internet and the social networks, there will be a lot of people reluctant to accept cell phones as an "educational tool". My school district is changing its cell phone policy for next year. High School students will be allowed to used their cell phones during lunch and between classes. Before, cell phones were only allowed before and after school. Teachers will still have control of how the cell phones can be used in the  classroom - as long as it has an educational purpose. This could be the right steps towards using the cell phones in school in a positive manner.

Tell me what you think at: http://www.polleverywhere.com/multiple_choice_polls/LTE5NjI1ODQwNDg

Assignment Photos in a Classroom…..

I use to do a lot coloring to illustrate some the assignments in my Spanish 1 classes, but we all the kids having access to cameras in the cell phones, this a  new approach that I can use to make this assignment more 21^st century.

I like working on the photography part of this assignment. I always like photography but I never been good at it. I like that you manipulate the pictures to fit the type of project you are doing. I also like that there are sites on the web that we can use with our pictures without having to pay a lot of money for the software. I have a lot of pictures of my students’ projects that I embarrassed to show because the photographer (me) didn’t do a good job with the camera. Maybe now I can fix some of them now and create a web page to show them.

Spanish 1 – 9^th Grade

Students learn in Spanish 1 how to say and write the Pledge of Allegiance. The idea is to learn new vocabulary in context in the target language, but also to promote citizenship and pride.

·         The students make a poster with the flag of the United States as the background; they also include the Pledge in Spanish and 4 symbols that represent America.

·         The students take pictures of themselves with their flag and with different people and in different places:

·         2 adult relatives, 2 adult friends, 2 people in uniform (soldiers, policeman, fighter fighters, etc.), 2 government places and 2 prominent places (church, banks, business, etc.)

·         Students create a digital album with their pictures and use the words of the Pledge in Spanish as the captions for the pictures.

·         The students present their projects to class and during their presentation they recite the Pledge in Spanish.

·         CRITICAL THINKING - Students will write a short essay about what makes them proud to be an American, how we must honor those who defend and protect our country and how our community shows or needs to show citizenship and respect to the flag.

Internet Netiquette - Definitions

Digital Citizenship could be defined as the norms and behaviors follow when using any kind of technology.

Netiquette, or Internet Etiquette, is the acceptable social skills used that facilitates the interactions of people over the Internet networks.

Wunderground Assignment

This is very interesting to me. My son is in construction management and he is very interested in energy saving and green-house building. The weather pattern for Belize in the last ten years is very stable according to the data I used. I am not very good a research, but I believe that there is a great effect on the weather because of deforestation and pollution in the word. I do believe we have global warming and that we will see more drastic climate changes in the next few years. During my Mayan unit in my Spanish 1 classes, we do touch basis on the ideas of environment changes and how that affects people and cultures. One of the reasons of the fall of the Mayan empires, according to some researchers, was the mismanagement of their natural resources. During the introduction to South American countries we also have discussions about the deforestation of the rain forest and how everyone in the world should be concern with this. I read somewhere that it takes 65,000 trees to print the Sunday Edition for the New York Times. In this age of technology and e-readers, it seems like a crime. This is a great activity that I can easily in Latin American geography units.  

Project Ideas and URL’s

I checked different sites related to virtual tours for the classroom. Many of these sites are created by professional educators, but other sites are created by educational companies. All of them have the many of the same basic structures and offer resources for teacher of all grade levels and school subjects. I found resources that I can use for my cultural units in my Spanish classes. http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/ offer lessons and resources for Hispanic culture activities: interviews, biographies, etc. http://www.theteachersguide.com/virtualtours.html offers links to virtual tour to museum and historical sites, plus they have a great amount of other resources for teachers of all grades: lesson plans, book activities, etc… This site also includes many links for interactive activities and Smartboard activities.

Assignment Prezi

I think this is an awesome tool for presentations. I will look at this software this summer to convert my boring/plane powerpoint presentation. I think students will increase their attention span with this type of presentations. I like to include a lot of culture and history in my Spanish classes and this will help the students reinforce a lot of the concepts with introduce in class.This could be of great value for visual students.

http://prezi.com/presentation/psulupsulu@gmail.com/5ggb9kp/

Wikipedia Activity

It is very interesting that Wikipedia has people as the "knowledge keepers" for all the information that is posted. I knew that people were able to change the information, but I did not know that people dedicated their time to make sure "their" information is the currect one included. I change some of the information on the Bruce Lee page and I will check later to see if anyone change "my" information.
As fas the comparison between Wikipedia English, Simple English and Brittanica I was surprised on my Bruce Lee search on the difference in quantity of content between the three searches. Brittanica and Simple English only included very basic information, while tht regular Wikipedia site includes pages and pages of detail information about the subject. I did not know about the Wikipadia Simple English version and it is true that it can be very helpful for younger students or students with special needs like ELL students.

Assignment - Twitter

Twitter and Twibe seem like very fun things for everyone. I always hear about using them, but this is my first time. I think it takes a lot of time to do. It is a great way to communicate and to share ideas. As teachers, it is a way to stay connected and to share what is going on in our classrooms. I don't see or hear a lot of students talking about Twitter, but I see them texting or talking about texting all the time. This could be a great way to share opinions about currect events, but they must be a lot of control from the teachers. I think this is the area where using these tools can create a lot of controversy among parents and other community people. If there is no control of what the students can say or write in twitter or texting, where is the limit? I suppose bullying using twitter can be as bad as bullying using texting.

Creating a Story Using sites Online

I like the idea that students can use a site like and create their own illustrated stories. I do a lot colorful projects in class to illustrate vocabulary words. We also work on translating stories to use vocabulary and grammar formats and this tool can be used to illustrate these stories to reinforce. I will try other sites later and find other places where high school students can use tools like this one. I wish we could download the final product to make a common final to store in our local computers.

WIKI’s

I did not know anything about WIKIs before. I heard about Wikileaks from the news, but it always had a bad connotecion for me. I can see now how WIKIs can be a tool where my Spanish 1 students can work together to make corrections or practicing sentence structures and grammar formats.

Google Docs PPT

This is a great tool. I have seen other teachers use this before, but I didn't know how it works. I like the idea that you can see what other people are doing. This is a great way to teach history and culture and I want to practice this more so I can use it with my students. Since I am not very technology and computer literate, and many of my students know more than I do, and think I have to experiment with some of this concepts a lot more, but I really want to be able to use them.

Youtube movie

This is a great tool for the classroom. There are many times when we find great videos in the Internet and youtube that we wished we could use them in the classroom, but we don't have the tools to manipulate the videos so we can adapt them to our needs. This shareware program is great beacuse it allow us to edit the video lenght to what we need. I can see myself using this tool a lot in the future to help me illustrate the culture aspects of the units in my Spanish 1 classes.

Technology in my classroom

I teach Spanish 1 at Gering Freshman Academy. The Academy is part of the High School, but the building is located in a different place.
Our district is using more and more technology and I can see a lot of it in my building. We have Smartboards, mobile computer labs and access to many of the resources in the Internet.
There has been a lot of progress in our district in the technology area in the last few years, and I know it takes time and money to make it available to everyone. It is a long process and some classrooms like mine are still on the list for new upgrades in this area.
I am still using a regular transperency projector and regular dvd/cd player for instruction. I hope that in the near future I can incorporate new technology in my classroom and I hope to use some of the things I am learning from my Lesley's classes.