Podcasts

Podcasts would be very useful in my Spanish classes. I really want students to hear other people speaking, especially native speakers, outside of our classroom. Here's the URL http://www.spanishpod101.com/feed.xml I subscribed to free lessons and will check them out to see which ones would work well with the curriculum. They are very entertaining conversations in Spanish and also provide specific information about the dialogues and particular word usage.

YouTube Video - The Running of the Squirrels

Kahlil Gibran

At ebb tide I wrote

A line upon the sand

And gave it all my heart

And all my soul.

At flood tide I returned

To read what I had inscribed

And found my ignorance upon the shore.

                        ~ Kahlil Gibran

Up and Down, Technology and PBWikis

This week has been up and down as far as technology is concerned. My Power Point was a success but most of the week I spent way too much time arguing with Verizon Wireless over Samsung Glide cell phones

with touch screens that don't work very well. If the phone goes haywire after the 30 day trial period you are pretty much stuck with it unless you want to buy a completely different phone at full retail price. So Touch and drag screens are all the rage, but they do not yet work that well on Samsung phones.

And on other technology fronts, the usefulness of PBWiki is eluding me since I cannot figure out how to get to the Sandbox to play or how to add an entry to the Rocky Mountain 23 Things wiki!

21st Century

inteligente


I have spent a lot of time entering the 21st century (8 years late is better than never) by creating a Power Point presentation of vocabulary words for my 6th grade Spanish class. In the past I have succumbed to my old fashioned ways because I thought using Power Point would take too much time, and I have these old fashioned flashcards all ready to use. (Boring but ready to use!) I thoroughly enjoyed creating the presentation, time consuming though it was. The students reaction was great. They loved the pictures and the format. I believe they will know this vocab much more quickly. The Albert Einstein painting was an image I used in the presentation to represent inteligente - intelligent.

Yes We Can!

I want to post a Youtube video here but webwasher will not let me do it from a district computer. I will try and add a video from my computer at home.

Presidential Elections

In 1968 I was 16 yeas old and Robert Kennedy was assasinated. Even at 16 I do remember the excitement his campaign created because of his youth and optimism. I feel that same kind of excitement in 2008.

Experiment number two:

http://www.redkid.net/generator/soup/newsign.php?line1=hello+bloggers&Talk+Soup=Talk+Soup

Experimenting with Generators

Experiment number one:

This is fun!

Find this at

http://makesweet.com/mixer-halloween-pumpkin

Mindboggling or mindblogging?

Just spent an hour looking at blogs to add to my Blogline. I searched for Spanish teacher blogs. I would like to find a couple that work for me with information and an exchange of ideas. Several of them are blogs being used by high school and university Spanish teachers in classroom situations. Each student has their own blog on which they will make postings in Spanish. It is mindboggling trying to sort through them all. But I like the idea of students blogging in the language. The teacher could create a prompt to which they would respond, or I even like the idea of just a free form communication, like a diary.

Technology

I am blogging. And I might even be getting hooked on it. My pursuits are small right now, but as I move further in to it, I can see the possiblities are endless. And -- I forgot to turn on the oven for dinner tonight.

Puzzle of the Day

Daily Jigsaw Puzzle

Something to Do on a Cold, Rainy Day

The number of third party applications on Flickr and elsewhere is endless. An application called Bubbir let's you create comic strips with series of photos. I could apply this in my Spanish classes. Students could make comic strips with photos that they or I would pick and then they would have to write captions or tag lines in Spanish. I spent a lot of time "researching"a jigsaw puzzlemaking site. I created a puzzle with a photo and am trying to put a link to it on this blog. No success yet, but it is something to do on a cold, rainy day!

Looking for Truth

"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell

Trying to watch the presidential debates, I find that I am even more distrustful and disillusioned. Considering the state of our economy and the abuses of our financial system, the quote from George Orwell is very profound.

A Day of Small Accomplishments

Today was a day of small accomplishments. Sometimes the small ones are the best. When you cross off items from that long list of things that has been nagging you for months. Clothes washed, groceries bought, bills paid, filing done, car washed, dog brushed, bed made, supper cooked, and a new pair of shoes! I love it!

La Camisa Negra - Juanes

End Goal

The easiest habit to focus on is the end goal. We always seem to be able to identify what we want. The difficulty is how to go about getting it. That part is complicated by all sorts of other things that occupy our lives. Will using more technology help us to get to our end goals?

7 and 1/2 Habits

The most difficult habit for me to acquire will be to use the technology I learn in this course in my real life. When I am taking a class like this, I am excited about the new things I learn at the time, but when the class is over - it tends to be over. I would like to use the skills in this class to create a supplement for an adult Spanish class I am teaching.