iTunes University

As it turns out, iTunes University has a wealth of free resources for teachers.  These resources include review materials for students, lectures, ideas for the classroom teacher, and so much more.  Here are a couple of resources I found for my Spanish Classroom.

Spanish 1 Yo Form of AR Verbs
http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/yo-form-of-ar-verbs/id456278509?i=96346964

Spanish Descriptions
http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast//id469399692?i=99085101

Although these resources from iTunes U are very basic, they would still be great review materials for my students.  These would also be great back up substitute plans.

The following link is from Power On Texas, the Texas Education department.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/using-twitter-as-lifeline/id473939665?i=101810013

This collection has amazing ideas for teachers on integrating technology in the classroom.

A $35 Computer? In India of All Places?

Click here to read the article.

A tablet would be the better word, however the $35 price tag is legit.  "A contract between the Indian government and Canadian development partner DataWind, should put between 10 and 12 million devices in the hands of students across India by the end of 2012, according to Computer World."  How amazing and inspiring is this going to be to the students that will be receiving one of these new tablets?  If I had my guess, we should be should be expecting some pretty amazing things to start coming from India.  To me, this is a message from the Indian government to the students.  They are saying "We want to invest in you, and we want to invest in your future."   I feel like this message will be heard loud and clear.  Anytime a student is told that someone believes in them, they are more likely to succeed.  Although their are some obvious disadvantages such as slower speed, and toy like features, all of these things are relative.  To a student in the U.S., the act might not be so inspiring.  To these students (some of whom have never held or used a computer), this will be cutting edge technology.  This just goes to show when a government puts their minds to it, they can make huge strides in education.  If the United States does not do something soon, we will quickly fall further and further behind.

Top Ed-Tech Picks

Mind Connex- Shakespeare in Bits
MindConnex.com offers a new way of looking at Shakespeare.  Many students crave a visual representation of what they read.  As a bibliophile, this pains me somewhat.  I want kids to enjoy reading, and to be able to imagine a world beyond their own.  The reading of classics in early grades is however very difficult for students.  Shakespeare is especially difficult.  This program helps students have a visual of the scenes.  Students can also listen to the story, as well as have access to difficult words.  The site offers literary analysis as well as character analysis.  One screen shot showed a family tree of the Capulet and Montague families.  Considering how difficult it is to keep all of the characters straight in a Shakespearean play, I would image this to be a very helpful feature.  The program is offered as an app for $7.99 as well. 

BrainPop.com

BrainPop is an interesting website that features a number of free videos and games for students.  The link below goes to a video about Shakespeare that I plan on using with my students.  The site simply puts things into an easy to understand format.  Their are also numerous lesson plans available to educators that sign up for a free subscription.  Most of the educational fields are supported by BrainPop, so I would heavily encourage any educator to check it out.
http://www.brainpop.com/english/freemovies/williamshakespeare/

Reflective Journal: Deliver Phase

This by far has been the most tedious portion of the project.  Actually putting everything together and determining what the teacher should have verses what the student should have is difficult.  I have not yet tested the product with any students.  Given the fact that all of our students were out for Thanksgiving, we will do our trial run tomorrow in class.  I will report my findings here on the blog.  I know I am missing steps at this point.  I am excited to see what the students have to say about the project, and if they have a better understanding of why they need an online portfolio.

Reflective Journal: Demonstrate Phase

As it turns out, actually creating a prototype is more difficult than planning for one.  I thought it would be the other way around.  You have all of these great ideas in your head, but I really do not have the technology "know how" to make everything work.  Rather than using Google Sites to create my website, I chose to go with iWeb.  From the online tutorials by GoDaddy, it seemed simple to set up the site.  Wrong!  I finally ended up sharing my site with DropBox because it was so much easier.  I will work on the hosting more at another date.  The only problem I have with iWeb is that you cannot customize the colors quite enough.  Everything is a little static.  Still, iWeb beat Google Sites, and is easier than DreamWeaver.  My question is this, as an instructional designer, would I physically be creating all of the elements, or would I have a skilled webmaster on my team?  As of this point, I think I would have to have someone skilled at creating websites, flash products, and video editors to do anything substantial. 

Evaluations have proven to be difficult as well.  Creating an evaluation form was easy in and of itself, but creating the questions was more difficult.  You want to word things in the right way, but at the same time you want honest answers.  Paragraph form would be easiest, but who has the time to sit and write detailed suggestions.  I chose to evaluate a few things at a time.  That way, I don't get overwhelmed by all of the issues.  I can focus on very specific things.  Once I feel I have those remedied, I will ask more questions.  The students will be the most honest test subjects in the long run, so I look forward to the pilot tests.

Reflection Journal: Design Documents

Sitting down and thinking how you are going to do something is tough!  I am the type of person that likes to just get in and get my hands dirty so to speak.  I like to try things out, make mistakes, then fix my errors.  Actually planning is proving to be quite difficult.  I think in the long run however, planning will be a good thing.  As I was working, I began thinking about what the students need to learn.  What is truly important?  I think they really need to know why a portfolio is important, who should create one, what should be included, and how to actually create the portfolio.  Those questions helped me to form the basic outline for my site map, and organizational chunks.  I had honestly never looked at the standards of practice for foreign language education until now (well at least Georgia's standards, I am quite familiar with Alabama's).  I thought about how useful these projects could be in showing the SACS board what our students are learning.  This also teaches the students organizational skills, and how to determine what is really important in each chapter.  I e-mailed the document to my client and she said everything looks really great.  I think for her, actually seeing the prototype will result in requests.  I teach Spanish 1 and 2, and I actually came up with the idea for the online portfolios.  I shared it with my co-teacher Shelley (my client), and together we took it to our department head.  They decided upon Google Sites, because it would be the easiest for the students to maintain.  Our kids all have iPod Touches and Macbooks, but they must turn them in every summer.  This will allow the students continuous access to the materials throughout the summer and even after they graduate.  Our hope is that the students will have a desire to continue their portfolio throughout their entire language career.  If I can make it easy enough for them to maintain, the likely hood of more teachers and students using it increases.  That is why my client wants a very easy to manipulate interface, that is clean, and embraces other technology (such as ePub materials).  If I could have done things differently, I would have worked a little more with Google Sites before the planning stages.  I would also have started this process at the beginning of the semester.  I have had to go back to my group assignments to help me jog my memory.  How great would it have been for me to do my group work, then directly after create my own materials for this project!  There just isn't enough time in the day!  As far as my testing of the product goes, that is where I am the most worried.  As of right now, I have the testers working on the tutorial at their own leisure, then completing an online survey.  By doing this, I would be setting myself up for people to not complete the survey on time.  My fear though is not having time for the students to take do the prototype lesson during the school hours.  My first thought would be give it to the kids I know would turn in a survey, but that would be skewing the data.  I need kids of all levels to test the product and take the survey to get a true representation of the products' usability.  That is what I will be thinking about, and hopefully I will have an answer by the next blog post.

Reflection Journal: Design Decisions

The design process is way more involved than I ever thought it would be.  You really have to pay attention to detail, and everything must be very deliberate.  Constant communication with your client is key as well.  I have never thought about the costs involved in the design process until this lesson.  Although my current project is very low budget, with time (and a lot of practice) I could very well be working on a much larger project with a much larger budget.  At first I thought this project would be very simple.  I would make a couple of video tutorials, put them on a website, no big deal.  Wrong!  Everything has to be planned out down to the font size and color!  Daily steps must be made to get the project done in time.  The next steps in my project will be determining outcomes and doing a subskill analysis.  I will need to gain a true grasp of what my client desires, and begin setting up interviews with Spanish 2 students.  I will also need to determine the learners current skills, and begin defining content.  I will begin writing a design document that includes an overall goal and vision for the product.  I will also want to begin looking at a syllabus.  My biggest question right now is how to deliver the content.  Would it be best to actually create a Google Site or use a product like Dreamweaver or iWeb to design an actual website.  Although, I have been looking at all of the above options, I have yet to settle on a final method of delivery.