Week 3 Summary

Week 3 is here! This class is flying by, and I am enjoying myself all the while! There were some awesome websites that we looked at this week, and many that I would feel comfortable using in my classroom. Miss Sarah's Spanish class is definitely benefitting from this online class. I find myself preparing for next year, using all of the great new technology resources that I have found. This is a big deal for me, because technology has not been very present in my classroom as of yet. To add to that, I had never even heard of Bloom's Technology Pyramid, let alone the revised version that everyone should be using now. You learn something new ever day, that is for sure. The pyramid was probably my favorite new resource, and it was not even in the Tech Explorations. The website immediately brought me to a huge visual aid of all of these amazing websites that work well in the educational setting. I was so excited to see all of these great websites just waiting for me to discover them. You could sit there for hours clicking on each individual link in each level, and searching through the wonderful pieces of technology. It was nice to see how they were spread out, and but in to individual levels. Sometimes I feel that I get too carried away with a website, and all of the wonderful things it has, that I over use it. I have done this with abcya.com because it was the first site that I found that used the Spanish language in games. The pyramid gave me that reminder that I needed, and showed me what sites were more educational than others. Plus, the websites layout made me want to know more. It was a great site, and I know that I will be talking about it to other teachers during our lunch break, for sure. 

Another great site that was FULL of information was the 4teachers website. The links were endless, and I had an easy time navigating through the different sites. I could immediately tell which ones were directed towards my needs. It is so nice to have sites that allow specials teachers such as myself, to utilize technology easily without having to convert everything. I found sites to make rubrics in Spanish, tests, and record data of the students progress. It is not often that you find sites such as those, so they were true gems. Another site had hundred of games in activities that worked with the Spanish language. I must say that as many times as I have tried to google for Spanish Educational websites, I have never come up with much. 4teachers lead me to everything that could possibly be out there, and was very helpful. 

As a Spanish teacher in the Elementary school setting, things work a little differently than other classes. I do not have a classroom, nor do I give grades. I travel to each classroom throughout the day for 20 minutes per class. This happens 5 days a week, so the children do get a lot of Spanish time. I wish that things would change, because sometimes I feel like my kids do not take the class as seriously (older grades) because they know they are not graded on it. Because of this, I do not send home papers with the students for their parents to read, nor do they have homework assignments. All of our work is done in class, and the only papers they really get are in class assignments. I have however, translated some forms for the school to send home to hispanic families. In these, they have not been very decorated or interesting in visual effects, because my job is simply to translate the documents. I have uploaded on document that I recently translated for parents of our upcoming Kindergarteners. These parents needed to know what to do to get their child registered and all of their medical forms filled out before the new school year. I could possibly change the document to have some clip art pictures on there, or change the colors and sizes of some of the font so that it looks more appealing. In the future, I would maybe like to send a "greeting" from me, to the parents at the first of the school year.This could definitely be a possibility for me to improve on my lapse of documental knowledge.

It is hard to include all of the new knowledge I am receiving, into my classroom. There will always be some things that are just not possible, due to the drastic change of learning structures and lesson plans. If I were to ever have a normal classroom, I think it would be great to send home weekly news letters, letting the parents know what their child is learning. Sometimes it is hard to a child to come up with something they have learned over the course of a week, because they have been given so much information from so many different subjects. With the letter, parents can ask about a specific event. I think letters such as these should be informational, but fun. Maybe with some games on the back that the students could play, so that they can enjoy them as well. I have also seen some news letters where the class choses a "student of the week" so that they can tell more about themselves, show others some things that they may be good at, and have a chance in the lime light for a bit. Not all students get this chance, so it is nice for them all to get a chance to been seen and noticed.