https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?service=pages&continue=http%3A%2F%2Fpages.google.com%2F&ltmpl=yessignups

http://www.readwritethink.org/

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EXPLORATORIUM – Loads of resources for teachers.  Online since 1993, the Exploratorium was one of the first science museums to build a site on the World Wide Web. Our site now contains over 18 thousand award-winning Web pages exploring hundreds of different topics. We currently serve 20 million visitors a year. That makes us one of the most visited museum Web sites in the world.

http://www.exploratorium.edu/educate/index.html

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B4UCOPY – B4UCOPY is designed to raise awareness of copyright laws and reinforce responsible behavior online.  This site further promotes a safe and digital world.  There is material for all ages of students and there are also free educational programs.

http://www.b4ucopy.com/teens

http://www.b4ucopy.com/kids

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TEACHER PRODUCTIVITY WITH PAPA JOHN… – This site tells you everything you need to know about Windows MovieMaker and Microsft Photostory.  MovieMaker was a great tool when I needed a technological lesson for my Spanish Independent Study Students.  They created great Spanish movies for my lower level Spanish classes to view and perform assessments.

http://www.papajohn.org/

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UNITED STREAMING - Discovery Education streaming is a digital video-on-demand and online teaching service to help improve students’ retention and test scores; it is aligned to U.S. state and provincial standards.

http://streaming.discoveryeducation.com/index.cfm

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Filamentality is a fill-in-the-blank tool that guides you through picking a topic, searching the Internet, gathering good Internet links, and turning them into online learning activities. Support is built-in along the way through Mentality Tips. In the end, you’ll create a web-based activity you can share with others even if you don’t know anything about HTML or serving web pages.

I have personally used this website to create online scavenger hunts to introduce new grammar concepts and vocabulary to my Spanish I and Spanish II students.  This is a wonderful alternative to having students read a passage in a textbook and answer paper and pencil questions.  Students can work independently on the computer and not skip steps or information if they wish to complete the entire scavenger hunt.  The site also assists with creating directions and the layout for the scavenger hunt.  Filamentality has a great format and easy to create directions for those educators not exposed to the technological world.

http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/fil/

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FREE ONLINE APPLICATIONS – There are free online applications that provide very similar functionality to most of the Microsoft Office applications and Adobe Photoshop.  Teachers and Schools can utilize these applications to post, create, modify, and share documents, presentations, handouts, lesson plans, music, movies, photos, and the list is endless.  Use these websites to organize your clubs and organizations and have students post and retrieve their assignments.  There are so many options with these online applications. 

• Google Documents (office suite)
• Ajax (office suite)
• Zoho (office suite)
• Picnik (photo editing)
• FotoFlexer (photo editing)
• Phixr (photo editing)

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To over 180,000 of the best online resources, aligned with state standards and organized by readability and grade level.

Each resource is carefully selected by educators to ensure it is safe, age-appropriate and 100% academically relevant.

An easy-to-use tool for K-12 students and educators in a search environment you can trust!

http://www.nettrekker.com/

LearnPort creates a new virtual learning community that manages a step-by-step process to make your professional development focused, effective and efficient.

LearnPort

• Helps align your professional development experiences to develop your skills to increase your students’ achievement.
• Provides communication tools designed to help target and sustain your learning.
• Is a source of professional development to help you meet the requirements of NCLB and HQT.

http://www.learnport.org/content.cfm?ID=423

Limiting Seductive Details – I may have brushed across this before…  Maybe it was I wasn’t buying into the concept or did not think that it was relevant at the time.  I have recently had an experience with a student that this came into effect.  I was trying to pull out of a student’s memory bank some certain grammar and verb rules in Spanish and trying to get them to recollect base don a story or photo in the textbook that was mentioned during the lesson.  The student could clearly remember the details of the story and the photograph that led into the story; however, completely forgot the lesson and the grammatical details.  A complete disaster.  I think from now on there may be an appropriate time when to include side details into one’s lessons and when to stick to the material.  Very complex lessons include several details with foreign language as it is and I need to be careful about filling some of my student’s heads with extra information and visuals.  Needless to say, there are the students that still need that connection for the memory bank and I will not forget to leave these students behind.  If anyone has found a happy medium pass the information along.  I think this is a concept and suggestion I best keep in mind and not leave it stray off when doing lesson planning any longer. 

Prior Kowledge – I have always been a huge fan of activating prior knowledge.  My first year of teaching I realized that transforming the students who have been exposed to one Spanish teacher’s ideas and processes to another’s is difficult for both the students and the teacher.  I had no other option than to assume that they had been taught anything and that many things may need to be revisited.  I had to pretend they had no prior knowledge, otherwise, things could be lost and forgotten to be covered.  And we’re talking important concepts and vocabulary.  Prior knowledge is so important at the beginning of the school year, throughout, and the end, when getting new students, and moving forward in my textbook.  I have to rely on prior knowledge when teaching a foreign language and have grown to thoroughly appreciate and bow to the concept.  Prior knowledge is such a powerful tool for language learners.  Chapter 30 reinstated this concept and brought back those feelings of my first teaching experience.  I remember how those students felt and the frustrations we shared.  Thanks to Chapter 30, I am rejuvenated with my strong beliefs and appreciation for prior knowledge.

The Google Documents, Ajax, and Zoho offer everything from the ability to import documents, presentations, spreadsheets, etc…, the ability to create new forms of these, the luxury of letting others edit your work, the efficiency of storing, sharing, and editing with one online application, and the availability of tools such as web conferencing, email, instant messaging, note taking, database creating, project managing, solution finding, organizing, and planning.The staff at my school seems to frequently share permission slip forms, test formats, position paper ideas, lesson plan constructions, worksheets, tables, charts, schedules, and the list continues…  An online application such as Zoho would be wonderful to avoid a staff member having to locate their copy of a document, printing it off, making extra copies, and then delivering it to the individual.  The staff could collectively keep all their documents online and to everyone’s convenience.  This would avoid the paper shuffle and time trying to locate documents, presentations, and spreadsheets.  Staff meeting reminders and such could be posted and email and chat can be constructed with the same online application.  This would be an amazing tool to set up with the staff I work with.

Yet another idea I have for and online office application is to utilize the presentation maker of some of these tools for presentation sat board meetings and staff meetings where several staff members have to work together on a single presentation and cannot seem to get their schedules to work out.  This could avoid the getting together; however, still allow staff to work together to create a valuable presentation.

Three competencies that I would like to further develop and develop at a level of integrity would be as follows:  sustain learner motivation, providing feedback and clarification, and using the media and technology MORE OFTEN to enhance student learning and performance.

Sustaining Learner Motivation:  I usually have no problem HOOKING the students or myself and getting them to buy into what I have to express for the day’s lesson.  However, I wish I had a more of a variety of methods to sustain the motivation for a more favorable quantity of a high level of student interest.  I have several students who can lose interest easily.  I think I could improve and be more competent in various methods to sustain their motivation and understanding what motivates secondary education students.

Providing Feedback & Clarification:  This is certainly an area where I can improve and be more knowledgeable in.  Students need feedback with assignments.  I need to learn to be more consistent and beneficial, supportive, and encouraging with the comments I give.  I know it is very important to compliment critiques with positive reinforcement.  I need to practice my knowledge more and demonstrate my competencies in this are to my students so they know they can rely on me for both critical and positive feedback comments.

Using Media/Technology to Enhance Student Learning:  I have the tools, the knowledge, and the “know how”…  I need to again use it…  I enjoy the fact this course has made be more competent in this area.  I need to continue to be more investigative on how to enhance the learning and performance of my students through the tools I have been given.

http://jacquelineroberts5.googlepages.com/home

 This is a webpage that could be used for the yearbook classroom.  The idea is for students to be able to access yearbook related information, deadlines, upcoming events, etc…  Also, other students in the school can access this webpage to email the yearbook instructor with ideas, offer quotes to possible questions posted, and the like…This is a great way to get the school involved and have input in the look and content of the yearbook publication.  Post your ideas, have links to surveys to help decide with yearbook decisions, or post possible photos to intrigue students to want to purchase the new yearbook.  One could also require the yearbook students to edit the webpage as a part of their class requirements. 

Spanish Independent Study – These students are often seniors or some juniors at the high school.  Many are college bound students who want to be pushed and shoved into the college atmosphere as far as workload and assessment.  For this year, I have tried many of the technology related tasks with my independent study students that I have acquired in my technology online courses.  Screencasts could be a great addition and a necessary tool for the students to get the full effect of the independent environment.  Even though the students are independently teaching themselves the upper level Spanish concepts I am needed for instruction on how to do the technology portions of their lessons.  If I created screencasts that demonstrated several technology tasks that I require the students would not have to step up meetings times with me as often and advance more smoothly through the required assignments.  This would also give them a taste of online courses and taking a class where the instructor is not always available at their disposal.  Sometimes this throws incoming freshmen off at the college level and they are not fully ready to take on he independent environment and demands associated with the college learning techniques.  Screencasts could just be another tool to help them make this high school to college transition.

 Yearbook – I would like to use the screencasts as warm-up visuals in my yearbook lab. Sometimes, if I use the smartboard and just jump into demonstrations of the yearbook program the students can become lost quickly.  If I had a screencast to show a movie of what I am going to demonstrate and contains descriptive language with the movie, then my demonstrations and practice with the students may be more validated.  These types of visual presentations can be very helpful in the yearbook setting.  If I had a screencast that should the students the different area of the yearbook company website and the possibilities of locating information and ideas on the website, then I could move around the room while the students are watching and practicing with the screencast and the website, instead of demonstrating myself and then having to stop the demonstration to help a student fix the problems they are having.  A screencast can provide the demonstrations and I can be more mobile and available for troubleshooting purposes.