Summer Time

So what's a teacher to do in the summer? The first few nights after school was over I had terrible school nightmares, but apparently that phase has now passed. My principal has posted the schedule for next year and I will have one section of Spanish I and the rest all Spanish II's. First thing I did was to clone the Spanish II syllabus and adjust it to Spanish I, changing the topics of course. My super cool friend Tony Vincent is keeping me busy trying out his suggestions for teachers. I already learned how to create personalized printed sticky notes for my students and now mastered Google Classroom. I set up classrooms for each of my classes for next year, with syllabus, a couple assignments, and all of the Quizlet vocabulary sets for all chapters I plan to cover with them on the Spanish I and II levels. I also created a Google Classroom for our Monroe County Teacher Summer Splash and added topics for each of the seven presenters to post their presentations and resources. This morning it occurred to me to create another Google Classroom, this one for our Global Collaborations with Athalo and Alexis. So now I will turn my focus to the Upward Bound German class coming up next Wednesday. Fortunately all is ready for them with pre- and post-tests, syllabus, project rubric, vocabulary lists, and group activity instruction handouts. Think my brain is running in overdrive? Perhaps, but I need to take advantage of this time of the year, when my brain is still on school. Ah, and the ISTE17 coming up, now that's another story for later.

Great Global Project Challenge Award

Last week I found out that our project "Why Should I Study a Foreign Language?" was selected as one of the grant winners. It came as a big surprise, but I am so happy about it. My co-project leaders Athalo and Alexis will be presenting it with me at the next Global Education Conference. This is so exciting. Last week was the most hectic all year, with a webinar, a Quizlet teacher PD, a videoconference with Athalo's school, Senior Awards night, and then graduation last night. But now it will be smooth sailing to the end of the school year with exams on Thursday and Friday. I am so proud of my 1st period class who has been my pilot Classcraft class and helped me learn to play this with my classes next school year. Next Monday I will give them each an award for their effort to participate and learn to play it after the senior left.

Global Day of Design- May 2, 2017

Summary of our Global Day of Design Activities We had our Global Day of Design in Spanish II and III classes. We began the morning by creating colorful key chains in 1st period class. One of my students had a lot of experience with this and taught the others in the class. The results were great and all were able to come up with nice products. Then in 2nd period class we created friendship bracelets. One of the students, a Cuban girl, taught the others in the class including myself how to create the bracelets. This proved to be a lot harder than the key chains because you had to use 6 strands instead of just two. We also created Cuban sandwiches in that class and had Cuban coffee, delicious.Finally we concluded the Global Day of Design in 4th period class and created Origami objects. My students made hearts, umbrellas and flowers. All in all it was a fun day and greatly enjoyed by all. Ruth Valle

I am a Certified Microsoft Innovative Educator

Today was the last day for our seniors. It began with a Sequoyah High School tradition: The Senior Drive Through. It was very upbeat and so much fun. I just loved these seniors. Well, the rest of the day was wide open, so I did a bunch of courses on Microsoft Education and made Certified Microsoft Educator. This is so cool. I guess this is what it means to be addicted to teacher PD's.

Another school year is coming to an end

So this week is the last week for our seniors. It's so sad. I can honestly say that. I was transferred to this high school after 15 years at another school in the county, but it was good. Due to their policy to give Spanish mainly to upperclassmen it was a lot easier on me. Seniors are so much more mature overall. So let's take an inventory of what I accomplished with them this year: 1. I made Apple Teacher certification. 2. I went to the Dominican Republic to visit my teacher friend Alexis there at his school. 3. We established the José Martí Spanish Honor Society. 4. I established a great blog on Seesaw.me with student activities. https://blog.seesaw.me/valle 5. I presented our Cuba project at the Global Education Conference. 6. My students placed 1st and 2nd at the Roane State Academic Festival with their creative video entries and one of them presented at the Student Technology Conference. 7. I participated in the Great Global Project Challenge with my classes. 8. I co-presented a series of eight teacher PD's on Saturday mornings on a variety of topics mainly having to do with technology in the classroom. 9. I am currently team captain of the Great Chiefs for Walk Across Tennessee, though we are currently in third place :(. 10. I am registered to go to ISTE2017 in June, a wonderful conference where I will no doubt be star struck from all of the ed tech celebrities there. 11. I will be teaching German for Upward Bound this summer, my native language. 12. I am currently teaching an online Spanish class for South College and have an intensive one scheduled for this summer. Well, not bad all things considering. What's on for next year? I really want to get into teaching with badges. So I am taking an ISTE webinar to learn more about it. Also, of course, ISTE17 will produce a ton of new ideas that I can take back to the classroom. I am in contact with CO people about offering the Apple Teacher program for our district, though the enthusiasm for that seems to be mild at this point. So we shall see. Update: The Apple Teacher Program is actually being well received here and interest is growing.

Easter Weekend- I needed this

As the school year is slowly winding down we have a nice three-day break for Easter, not a moment too soon. The last few day's have been exhausting, with my seniors thinking the school year is over. I am going to get into the last chapter for them of the year, technology vocabulary for my Spanish II classes and travel vocabulary for Spanish III. On Monday, the newspaper photographer will come in to take the photo of all of our Roane State Academic Festival winners. This will be a very proud moment for us. Still to come this school year, EOC's, awards night, graduation, the Dogwood 5K, my South College online class, and finish our Walk Across Tennessee. The last day for seniors will be April 28th, very soon. What an exhausting two weeks ahead, not counting my German Meetup next Thursday and the Dinner PLC on Friday...Wow, a lot to get through. Meanwhile I made Apple Teacher certification, made me proud.

Global Project Challenge Complete: Why Should I study a Foreign Language?

We finished our Global Project Challenge last week: Why Should I Study a Foreign Language? The results are on our website, whystudyalanguage.weebly.com/favorite-websites.html We had 28 international schools respond to our survey and supply answers to why they study languages. They also listed favorite language learning websites and apps that were compiled on our website. It's very interesting how the reasons for language study are quite similar across the globe. I am very excited about the language websites and apps to explore with my classes. Spring Break is almost upon us, one more day....