Taking this class has immensely helped me to develop my technology skills. Anyone who knows me knows that technology is something that easily frustrates me. This course gave me the knowledge and practice that I needed to build my confidence using different technology so that I am not so quick to be frustrated. I learned so much about different Web 2.0 technologies and how to use them. Things like blogs, wikis and podcasts are not things that I had previously used in my teaching, and were not really things that I was considered simply because I did not understand them; they were intimidating to me. This class gave me step by step understanding of these technologies and allowed me to practice them in a way in which I now feel comfortable using them, and I am excited to introduce my students to them. Besides teaching me how to use these technologies, I also feel much more comfortable developing lesson plans which incorporate technology in a useful way. I am very excited to work podcasting and blogs into my curriculum!
One way in which I can continue to expand my knowledge of technology integration is to work closely with the “technology guru” at my school. I need to work cooperatively with him so that I can find out everything about our equipment at school and how to best utilize it. Some things, such as the MAC computers, are somewhat new to me, so working with someone who really understands these things will greatly help me integrate technology and increase student achievement. Another thing that I can do is keep up with the technology blogs that I subscribed to during this course, and find other credited ones. Really, one of the best ways to learn is to stay in contact with other professionals who have the same goal as you and seeing what they have tried, what works, and what might need to be tweaked. This will help me to get some great ideas, as I already have from sharing with my colleagues over the Internet, and also avoid some mistakes that they have already made. It will also serve to give me more practice in using blogs.
One long-term goal that I have for myself is to use podcasting in order for my students to enhance their portfolios. One of my instructional goals is that students learn to speak comfortably in Spanish, and it is a difficult one to achieve, as many students have low confidence in this area and cannot see their own growth. My goal is to have students record their speaking tasks and turn them into podcasts that they can post on their electronic portfolios, which they make in 10th grade and 12th grade. The goal of this is to have a place where students can easily listen to their own speaking tasks and see how they have or have not improved over time, and then reflect on why they think this happened. I believe that this is a very feasible goal for me, as I can use our MACS to have students record their tasks on garage band and then easily turn them into podcasts and have them uploaded into their portfolios. I am very excited for this.
A second long-tern goal that I have for myself is to use web 2.0 technology to give my students contact with Spanish-speaking students abroad. This goal is little loftier, but I think that it is achievable. I have a contact for a school in Spain where I used to work, and my goal is to get my students in touch with the students at this school. Students could practice reading and writing in Spanish if we did this as a classroom blog type project, and they could also practice speaking and listening if we did this as a podcast project. I would probably have to start this a single-class project to make sure that I knew how to best run it before I introduced it to all of my classes. I think that students could use the blog to communicate about topics that we are discussing in class at that time, and also to learn about different cultural topics. My hope would be that they would make friends and continue contact with these other students, building life-long language learners.
