Online Learning

Online Learning has exploded recently with Web 2.0. The possibilities are endless and a huge plus for the educational department. Using Web 2.0 tools is much more engaging to students and also better prepares them for the 21st Century.

One of the Web 2.0 tools I see as being the most beneficial to me is the Wiki. Through a wiki I could display the students' work, especially the stories that they write. Then the students could view and comment on each others' work. Collaboratively the students could make a visual dictionary of all of the vocabulary that we have worked on. I could put all of the worksheets on the wiki so that students who are absent could access them or students who need extra help could get extra worksheets. The wiki could also be a starting place for many other Web 2.0 tools such as links to podcasts and webquests.

The pedagogical strategies that I would use would include, but not be limited to, Modeling any information that is needed, collaboration with other students on work, analyzing errors to better another students' work, scaffolding with the material as the class goes on, and deductive and inductive. The deductive would be all of the explicit work and instruction that I share with the students, while the inductive would be everything they learn from all of the stories the students would read from both me as the teacher and their classmates.

The three Online Learning tools that I thought would be the most difficult to use with the students are the following: Learning Management System, Educational Gaming, and Online Resource Validation.

The Learning Management System would be difficult because it would be something that the students would have to extensively learn to use and it would also be the most time consuming to get up and running from a teacher standpoint. However, once all of the lessons were into the system and the students knew how to use it then I think it would be very valuable.

Educational Gaming would be fun and entertaining for the students, but it is hard to incorporate all of the words that the students are learning in Spanish in a game that is strictly online. It is important that the students have the opportunity to practice the words verbally and most online games don't allow for that extra piece. Also with the method that my school has chosen to teach Spanish, grammar is not explicitly taught, and therefore grammar games would be used rarely.

Lastly I think that Online Resource Validation would be hard for the students to use. They are so used to believing everything that they read and hear about, rarely do they stop to question the validity of their information. While that makes the need for this online learning that much more apparent, I see a lot of resistance from the students who don't want to take the extra step to validate their findings as well as frustration.

Wikipedia & Wikis

For the first time ever I contributed to a Wikipedia page. You can see what the site looked like beforehand:

And then the changes that I made, which included making an entire new section for Education:

Writing on the site energized me and made me feel empowered. I was the expert.

I can see how much students would enjoy adding to this site as well. Its not often that students are seen as the authority or expert on something. How motivating for them to get to tell the world just what exactly they know!

I also created a wiki for my Spanish classes all the way from Kindergarten to grade 8. Its still just the bare bones but if you're interested to check it out go to Espanol-de-Dansville!

UDL Guidelines

Taking the following lesson plan: Spanish Digital Storybooks, I applied the UDL (Universal Design for Learning) Guidelines.

You can see how my lesson plan held up to the guideline here: UDL Guidelines.

You can also see the changes that I made to my lesson plan, which are highlighted in yellow.