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....

Great Genius Hour Results

On Friday my students presented their genius hour projects. I was amazed at the results. Many of the students are quite artistic and I was wondering why they did not register to enter their art at the Roane State Academic Festival. I would definitely say that this program was a success in my classes. The students thoroughly enjoyed presenting their products. We do have a few stragglers who will present on Monday, so we will see what happens with that. I am totally looking forward to ISTE 2107 for inspiration for the next school year. Also, there is the possibility of teaching German for Upward Bound this summer. I found a great YouTube based class I could use for that. We will see. On a personal note, one of my good friends decided to move to town and I am so excited to be able to share experiences with her as she settles in here. The predicted snow did not materialize here. So this afternoon I will be able to get out to Walk Across Tennessee.

Great Student-led Conference

I loved the Student Technology Conference yesterday. One of my students presented "Rapture: Our Underwater Future" about his project proposing such a habitat for our future. I was highly impressed with his presentation as well as the follow-up questions that were posed by the participants. This presentation really made them think about such a possibility. None of them brushed it off as being unrealistic, which was interesting to me. Great conference put on by students!!!

Global Student Technology Conference Participation

This week we found out that one of my student's proposal was accepted for inclusion at the Global Student Technology Conference this coming Saturday. This confererence is completely student run and modeled after the Globel Education Conference. My student's project is about an under the ocean habitat that he could create in the event that life on Earth is no longer feasible. He researched ways to make life sustainable under the sea and even laid down ground rules for behavior in his proposed habitat. This project is his Genius Hour Project in Spanish II classes that I am doing with my classes this semester. We had him do a practice run today to see how long it would be and what sorts of questions the audience may have. My class was pretty shocked by the whole idea, but it's an idea worth exploring in the future.

Chromebooks in the Spanish Classroom for Native Speaker Rotations

This has been the longest week and it's only Thursday. I wrote an article about my Spanish III class' use of Chromebooks for native speaker rotations: http://edtechreview.in/trends-insights/insights/2658-chromebooks-in-the-spanish-classroom Also, on Tuesday I was evaluated in that class. I will get my results this afternoon; hopefully they will be good. One thing I can say is that they were talking more Spanish during those 70 minutes than ever. I have had that class only since January, so I feel that we are certainly on the right track as far as speaking abilities are concerned. The native speaker rotations are working fabulously. But we will see what the observer thought is this. So, today we are doing Genius Hour. I had the students give short updates this morning and I am very excited about what they are doing. So many ideas: an art gallery, a coffee shop, a Mexican fast food place, a goat breeding operation, various websites that sell items, trips to Spanish-speaking countries, fishing tours, under the ocean habitats, dresses and furniture designed based on Hispanic themes and much more. Each student in my classes is doing a different project that is based on personal interest as long as it has to do with the Spanish language and culture. Next week we will set the project deadlines. Updates to come later. Update: Evaluation results were wonderful. The observer really appreciated my efforts to include the native speakers in my lesson the way I do with the rotations.

A five-day weekend

We came back from a four-day weekend yesterday, just to be sent home for a five-day one due to illness in the school system with numerous teachers also being affected. My first reaction was disappointment because my evaluation was supposed to happen today in fourth period. Now is it scheduled for Valentine's Day. I suppose it will be ok anyway. It's just very difficult to keep the momentum going when you are out this much. We practiced a little bit for it and now actually have a chance to practice some more on Monday. It's mainly a matter of practicing the routine. I especially love our native speaker group rotations, where students speak to three Hispanics in Spanish about the assigned topic, in this case sports. I am also going to catch up on grading my online South College course today. Lesson plans? I can just use this week's plans, so I believe we do not make out new ones. What to do over the long weekend? I will think about it and let you know.

End of 30 days of blogging challenge

I just found out that today is the end of the 30 days of blogging challenge posted by A.J. Juliani. I was surprised as I had completely forgotten when we started the challenge. A lot has happened in one month since I began with my new students in January. Blogging is a great activity to reflect on what is going well and what needs changing in our professional lives. For the most part it has been a great experience. There was only one day last month that I would rather have not experienced the way it happened, but that's not bad in the great scheme of things. Today I gave my first chapter test and it was very typical. There were some 100's, a lot of down the middle and a few failures. I still need to re-teach the whole subject-verb agreement deal until they finally get this. I am not quite sure if they actually didn't know the conjugations or if they still do not understand how it works in Spanish. But I will find out. Monday will be subject-verb agreement day. Update: There will be no school until Tuesday due to sickness. I guess I will get a four-day mini vacation. How nice! Buncee rocks. I took their webinar yesterday.