Summary of Learning-Three C's Course

I decided to take this course because I knew that my knowledge of digital technology was very weak. My goal was pure learning for knowledge sake. Although I have many years of teaching experience, it was my first year at Cohasset Middle School. It was challenging for me on many levels. At first I felt intimidated by my colleagues' digital knowledge. Then the next day at lunch, some teachers expressed feeling overwhelmed with the course content. I felt that I was in good company as we began to support and collaborate with one another.

Watching Digital Nation impressed upon me how we have entered a whole new digital world. However, I believe that I was more open to seeing the big picture as a result of our class and blog discussions than some of my friends and family.

I was a complete novice with social media networks. Last January we were a Facebook free family. In fact I had only heard negative commentary regarding Facebook.

We have an interesting dynamic in our family regarding technology. One of our twin 14 yr. old sons has Asperger syndrome. He is more at home with computer technology than with other people. I spend many hours encouraging him to interact face to face versus digitally. This constant struggle instilled in me an emotional dislike for digital media. I understood this on an intellectual level. However when his brother expressed a similar attitude as mine, I realized I had to encourage him to be open to social media networks. Both of our sons now have Facebook accounts. They have connected with their cousins who live in other parts of the country. It has also become a big part of their social life. I found myself thinking a lot about my son with Aspergers during this course. I came to value and even marvel at his technological skills which he seems to learn so effortlessly. In fact he loves to chat with me about the topics I learn in this course. This course helped us to improve his communication skills because now I'm speaking his language!

My first blog was challenging yet exciting. I am now going back and reading my colleagues blogs. Unfortunately, during the school year, it was difficult to find the time. Now I am picking up lots of tips. For example I recently investigated Ted Talks, a great tool for foreign language teachers. There are many resources for FL teachers here.

My digital project was to create an xtranormal video. It was quite time consuming as I had the characters frequently speaking Spanish. I found it very rewarding to present the video to my students and colleagues. Making an xtranormal video would make a super classroom project. You can find this video on our class wiki next to my name.

I assigned a class blog as a project for my students. they had to write in Spanish. This class blog project is also on my wiki and school website. I learned a lot from this assignment. The students needed a more specific blog rubric so as to write with better grammar and spelling in Spanish. I can see that students need more guidance in the assessment area of creating digital projects.

Now for Animoto! I love that name. I created an Animoto video called "Un viaje en el Mundo", which can be found on my blog. This is a great resource, which I intend to pursue.

In the 21st Century skills packet, John W. Thomas states that," learning is maximized if the context for learning resembles real-life context in which the learned material will be used." My foreign language students are always encouraged to apply their knowledge by acting out skits, singing songs,etc. Now I believe that we can take it a whole new level, a digital level. Incorporating digital projects as student assessments is a wonderful way of ," teaching for transfer"(Ted McCain). Students will be able to link their learning to the real world.

Thank you for encouraging me to learn and improve my digital skills. I am eager to continue on my journey!

Hot Topic! Learning with Social Media

The front page of the MTA Today summer publication portrays a wordle with the title Teaching and Learning with Social Media. The inside article contains personal stories of teachers using social media networks in the classroom. Of particular interest to me was the French students' skype session at Triton Regional High School. The skype tips for non-techie teachers on p. 7 is very valuable. This article inspired me to investigate further regarding the use of skype to interact with students from other countries.

Un Viaje al Mundo

Un Viaje al Mundo (A Trip Through the World) Animoto Video

Animoto? ...Smilebox?...Xtranormal?... How to choose?

I'm enjoying catching up on my summer reading. However, this July I am reading my colleagues' blog posts from our 21st Century Skills Course. What a wealth of information! This is collaboration at its finest!

Making animoto videos for my Spanish/French classes will be my next project. I can think of many forms of classroom application. I could take photos of my students presenting skits, their personal projects and presentations which include singing and choreographing popular Spanish/French songs. Smilebox.com is another option for making videos for the classroom. There are lots of options! Our students are so visual, we need to provide this form of instruction to motivate and engage them. I feel fortunate to be teaching foriegn languages. we can really be as creative as we like!

Great Summer Reading!

I have just read the first three chapters of Daniel Pink's insightful book, A Whole New Mind. He writes an optimistic portrayal of the future for people who are right brain dominant.

Pink begins by giving the reader an informative history of how neuroscience developed its theory of the functions of the human brain. Neuroscientists divide the brain into two halves. The left hemisphere handles logic, sequence, literalness, and analysis. The right hemisphere of the brain takes care of synthesis, emotional expression, context and the big picture.

To my great relief, we humans need to have both sides of our brains functioning well and interacting together for us to become successful thinkers and competent workers. As Pink writes,"yin still needs yang". Pink describes a new Conceptual Age whereby we will utilize both hemispheres, our whole brain , hence , A Whole New Mind.