Could I be done?

Well, I just finished organizing my last set up resources for the Unit 4 folders. This means that all of the units now are full of resources for everyone to use! The only thing left for me to do is contact my colleagues at the end of the 3rd quarter (3/28)  and at the end of the year (June) to see if they have found or created any new resources for me to add to the drive. 

I can't believe it! It makes me very proud to see my resource drive fully stocked and full of great things for teachers of Spanish I, II, and III. When I think back to when I started this Internship, I thought this drive would be very easy to create and would be no problem, while it was very time consuming to organize and create at the beginning, the longer we started using the drive, the easier and faster it got to organize. 

I am very satisfied with how this project has come together and from talking about it with my colleagues, I think it has really helped cut down on their planning time. As for my students, I'm sure they haven't noticed any direct effects of the drive, but because we all started sharing tests and quizzes, they are now all being assessed on a more equal level by different teachers of the same level. 

I am very thankful for the opportunity to implement this change in our school! 

My last "tech tip of the month"

At today's World Language department meeting, I shared my last "tech tip of the month" with my colleagues. In the Digital Communications class that I am currently taking, I was introduced to a pretty awesome website, www.join.me, which allows people to "share" computer screens. I thought this would be a great way for teachers to manage students and their computer use in the classroom. 
There is a free version and a pro version (costs $13/month) that allow either up to 10 computers or up to 250 computers to "share" the same screen. What this means is students can "share" the teacher's screen to watch what they do or a teacher can "share" a student's screen to make sure they are visiting appropriate websites or staying on task with the assignment. 
I haven't been able to use it in my classroom yet, but think it'd be pretty neat! 

Moving beyond my school!!

So last night during my grad class, I was talking with my classmate about her roommate, who is a first year Spanish-teacher at another high school in Howard County. She was telling me how her roommate is always so stressed and spends her nights planning for her classes because she doesn't have any common-planning time with any other Spanish teachers at her school. I told her I would email her roommate and invite her to access our Spanish resource drive. Since she's a teacher within HCPSS, I can allow her access to the drive. How great to offer these resources to people besides just the Spanish teachers in my school!?!   Pretty exciting, huh?

Last day of the 2nd quarter..Half way through the year!!!

Well today's the last day of the 2nd quarter, half way done!! wahoo!!!! 

Overall I feel like the resource drive is almost "running itself" which is pretty awesome. I still have to add and organize Unit 4 resources and then all resources will be up there for all 3 levels!! So as far as upkeep, I plan on contacting my colleagues at the end of each quarter (I'll be emailing after I finish this post!) to ask for any new resources they found or created for the previous unit/quarter. I can then add them to the appropriate folder on the drive for future use. 

iMovie "Monthly Tech Tip"

Yesterday we had our department meeting and I taught my colleagues how to use iMovie to create digital story books. This was something that I learned from Dr.Marcovitz in class this summer. I had given my students the option of creating a digital storybook for one of their projects last month and was shocked by the fabulous projects I received. It was always a really easy way to give them a speaking grade, because they recorded themselves telling the story on each page of the book. genius! 

I went through my PowerPoint to briefly introduce the idea and then showed my example that I had created for my students as well as an example of a student project created last month. My colleagues loved! I was so excited to teach them a new idea! The only downfall of this project is that it does take quite a bit of classtime to create the movies on iMovie and tape the stories. My students had a hard time taping their voices in a quiet spot because so many other students were talking and doing the same thing. Also, the other difficult thing is when they start creating the iMovie project on the laptop from the cart in class, they need to get the same exact laptop back the next day in order to continue where they left off, or they have to start all over. You can only "save" a fully finished and imported movie, which means it can't be edited at all anymore. 

Unit 3 - Up & Running! Ahead of schedule!

We have our monthly World Language department meeting coming up on Monday, so I really wanted to be able to have Unit 3 resources organized and ready to go for then. I'm going to teach my "tech tip" on using iMovie, but I still wanted to be able to mention that Unit 3 is ready.

It's been getting easier and quicker to get the resources in the right folders. I think because I know exactly how I have everything organized in Units 1 & 2,  I can quickly put the resources in the appropriate folders. 

Lunch discussion today!

While eating lunch with my colleagues today, one of the Spanish teachers was talking about some great movie trailer clips that she found to go with her lesson. Another teacher responded, "that sounds awesome! Lisa could you put those on the drive when you get a chance so we all can use them?" 

***happy*** It's great that my resource drive came to her mind right away as the place to put those video clips. OF COURSE I'll put them on there so we ALL can use them!! That's the point, if one teacher is using the movie trailer clips in her Spanish III class, the other Spanish III teachers should be able to use them too! I think this creates more consistency among the teachers of the same level! :)