MACUL Conference

This past Friday, we went to the MACUL conference in Detroit. I was excited for a day to spend with my fellow teaching professionals to learn more about how to incorporate technology into the classroom. The biggest challenge was deciding which sessions to attend, since there were numerous options for each time slot. After deciding and attending four sessions, there were definitely two favorites for me.

One of my favorite sessions was a talk from Amy Eno about using technology to help communication in the foreign language classroom. One of the major struggles in a foreign language classroom is getting students to speak in Spanish, and insuring that everyone is actually using the time to practice speaking the language. Amy talked about different websites that we can use to help simulate a real conversation, and has the students record themselves so that we can view them later. One of the websites that I will definitely use is called MSU clear conversations. For this website, you record a video of yourself asking a question or prompt in Spanish. Then students go on the website and they can view the video that I made, and then they have a certain amount of time to record themselves responding in Spanish. I can then go back in and watch all of my students responses to the video. Not only does this simulate more of what a real conversation would feel like because students do not have time to practice ahead of time, but also it saves us time in the classroom. We don't have to call individual students up to our desk and listen to all of their responses, instead we can listen to them on our own time.

Another effective website for the foreign language classroom is called lingt language. On this website we can create assignments for our students to complete. When we create the assignment we can put in a clip of our voice asking a question or prompt, text, an image or a YouTube video. This gives us a lot of creativity and flexibility in terms of what we want our students to do. Also, students can respond with either a recording of their voice or text, depending on what we want them to do. I like the idea of using this website to do quick assignments during class because it is a super easy and efficient way to see if students are understanding the material, and it works on their written and speaking skills.

I was energized at the discovery of these new websites to try out in my classroom, and help my students with their Spanish skills. After these informative sessions, I attended my last session- the lightning talks. There were two speakers that struck me in particular. They both talked about the students that need us most, and why our job is so important to continually support those students. It was an excellent way to end the day and a great reminder of why we do what we do.

Technology Teach-In

When I was thinking about what kind of technology I wanted to infuse into my lesson plan, I was trying to think about how to improve speaking activities with technology. I am continually brain storming on how to improve speaking activities that will benefit my students in the future, and increase their proficiency in Spanish. The problem with many classroom speaking activities is that it is hard to insure that all students are speaking Spanish when the whole class is doing the activity at the same time. 

How can I be listening to all of the students' conversations at once?? 

Technology allows me to do this!! 

I will have students use their cell phones to record their conversations. 

In my lesson plan, first I will have all students find a partner. This solves the problem of not all students owning a smartphone because they will only need one smartphone per partnership. Students will be given a certain topic to talk about. They have to create a dialogue and then film themselves speaking the conversation. I am not exactly sure what the topic will be right now, but I think this method of having the students film themselves can be applicable to most units. 

I want to implement this type of speaking activity that uses smartphones because I want to insure that my students are practicing speaking Spanish. When we do normal speaking activities in the classroom, it is impossible (not impossible but very time consuming for one person) for me to go to each pair of students and listen to their conversation and give feedback. When students film their conversation, I know that they are practicing because I can listen to each individual conversation. Also, students will be motivated to speak Spanish, even when I am not directly next to them, because they will be turning in the video as an assignment. 

Lastly, students love to use their phones, so I might as well use them to improve their Spanish skills!