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! :)

My 1st "tech tip of the month"!!

Since the drive is really starting to run smoothly now, I decided to focus my time at our World Language department meeting on teaching a "Tech Tip" to my colleagues. In today's session I introduced the site Edmodo.com 

Edmodo is a great online communication tool, almost the "social networking of education". I started using it last year with my students and have really enjoyed it. I think my students really like it too, especially how it looks like Facebook and they can add a picture of themselves to their profile. 
I've used it to post assignments and reminders, ask questions/polls, and collect assignments. My students can post comments, responses, and turn in assignments all through the site. 

It's a pretty neat site, it's free, and it's supported by HCPSS. What's better than that!?!

Overall, I think my very first "tech tip" of the month was a success! I definitely introduced a new tech tool and offered to meet with teachers individual to help them with set-up if needed. 

I'll be the administrator

After the feedback from my colleagues and some thought, I've decided that I'd prefer to be the only administrator to the drive. My plan for adding new resources is:

1. At the end of each quater, I'll email the teachers and ask if they have created any new resources for the previous unit to be added to the drive.
2. They can either email them to me in an attachment, or if too large I'll take my portable hard drive to them in order to get the resources.
3. I'll add them to the appropriate folders of the resource drive for future use.

My colleagues of course will still be able to access all of the folders and if they want to make changes to a document, they can "save as" on their own computer. 

Since I really am concerned about the drive being user-friendly and well organized, I think this is the best method. I feel that if the organization starts to get messed up, it will discourage use of the drive because it will be impossible to find anything 

Survey results are in!

So since we've been using the Spanish Resource Drive for about a month and a half now, I wanted to get feedback from my colleagues on what they think of it. I used a GoogleForm to create a survey for them to respond to. The questions I asked them were:

1. Do you find the idea of the Spanish Resource Drive and sharing resources helpful to your planning? *

·         Yes

·         No

2. Do you find the Spanish Resource Drive to be helpful in any other aspect of your job besides planning? *

·         Yes (If yes, please explain below)

·         No

3. In the 1st month of school, how often have you accessed the Spanish Resource Drive? *

·         Never

·         2-3 times

·         About once a week

·         2 or more times a week

4. Do you like that the way Unit 1 for each level is organized? *

·         Yes

·         No (If no, please explain below)

·         Other:  

5. Do you have any suggestions about how to add resources to the drive?(Ex. Each person can add their own resources whenever they want to, people send resources to Drive Adminstrator who adds them, Adding new resources at the end of each quarter?)

It took a few reminders to get responses back from everyone, but finally they are all in!

To question:

#1: All 6 teachers responded YES!!!

#2: 4 teachers responded YES, 2 teachers responded NO 

    ***only 2 of the teachers that responded yes explained further. One person said that it has helped to use similar test/quizzes to other teachers, and the other said that it helped to get new ideas. 

#3: 2 teachers responded "2-3 times", 3 teachers responded "about once a week" and 1 teacher responded "2 or more times a week" 

#4: All teachers responded YES!!!

#5: Not everyone responded to the last question (maybe I should have made it mandatory!) Some responses were:

      -Send resources to the administrator to add them

      -Email out reminders for any new resources created

      -Update at the end of each quarter (unit)

Overall I am very pleased with the feedback from my colleagues. This helps me to determine that so far I feel like my resource drive is a valuable tool. I think accessing the drive about once a week is satisfactory, but of course the more the better! 

Unit 2 - Up & ready!

I had to sit down for quite a while this weekend and organize the resources for the Unit 2 folders for Spanish I, II, and III, but I have them ready to go. It took a long time, but thankfully not quite as long as the first time I did it because I was able to copy and paste my original folders, so then all I had to do was drag resources in the proper location.

Since the 1st quarter is starting to come to an end, I'm really starting to think about how to get new resources (ones that have been recently created for Unit 1) onto the drive for future use. While all of my colleagues have access to the drive and it's contents, I am the only one that has access to edit the organization and editing. I am very scared to allow my colleagues to be able to add and edit the folders because I have spent a long time organizing them and I am worried they would become messy and unorganized. That is one of the things I hated about the county's previous resource site. It was very unorganized and outdated, which doesn't help anyone!

I think I may ask my colleagues for their input on adding to the drive in my survey. I'll fill you in with what they say!

"Pick me up" comment today!

I don't have any new progress on the drive, but I just had to share that one of my colleagues stopped by this afternoon to tell me how much they loved a chapter project that I had put on the drive for Spanish III. They are planning on using it with their students next week! I know it's only a small thing, but it did give me a "pick me up" after a long week to know that my idea of increased collaboration is working!!!! 

Trouble downloading GoogleDrive folder

I'm glad I went back to touch base with each of the Spanish teachers about downloading the GoogleDrive folder to their computer. Three of them couldn't figure it out so I had to sit down with each one individually to help them get it on their computer. It was very time consuming but I know it will make things much easier for them in the future! I guess I should knock on wood, so far so good!

1st World Language Department Meeting

This afternoon we held our first World Language department meeting and I was able to introduce everyone to the Spanish Resource Drive! Wahoo! I feel like it's actually real now. 

I only had about 10 minutes at the meeting, so I hooked my computer up to the LCD projector so I could show my colleagues how to access the drive either through the GoogleDrive website or by downloading the GoogleDrive folder to their computers. It's much easier if they download the folder to their computers, so I'm going to check with them throughout the week to see if they were successful in doing so. 

I got some really great comments on the drive when I showed them all of the resources available. I only have the resources set up for Unit 1 in each of the levels right now, but that shouldn't be a problem because most people will be in Unit 1 until about the end of October. Mid-October is my next deadline to get Unit 2 up and ready! 

Organized & Up and Running!

It took me quite a few hours, but I finally got all of the resources organized and onto the drive. I played around with quite a few difference organization methods (what to name the folders, how many to have, etc.) but I'm very pleased with the final result! I decided to have a separate folder for Spanish 1, 2, & 3 and then within each level folders for what types of resources there are. It kinds looks something like this:

Under Spanish 2, I have a folder for Units 1-4, a folder for First Week activities (which unfortunately we're almost past), and a Midterm folder. Within each of the unit folders, there is an "culture" folder, a "grammar" folder, a "vocabulary" folder, and a "test/quizzes/projects" folder. 

Right now it reminds me of those Russian stacking dolls...a folder, in a folder, in a folder, in a folder, and so on! But I'm going to try it out with my colleagues and hopefully get some feedback from them.


Another nice thing abou using GoogleDrive to house the resource drive is you can download an actually folder onto your computer, so you don't have to visit the website to access it. I plan on introducing all of this to my colleagues at this month's staff meeting. 

End of week update!

So I was able to collect all of the Spanish 1-3 resources from the other teachers. Like I said earlier, I just created a file for each person and put their resources in there. Thankfully each person was organized enough that they had separate folders for levels 1, 2, or 3....so they are at least also organized by level. But I feel like this sorting and organizing process is going to very time consuming!!

Back to school!

So it's the first week back to school and believe it or not, I've actually been looking forward to it. While it's going to be a crazy week full of meetings and planning for next week, I need to meet with the other Spanish I, II, and III teachers to collect their resources. I'm planning on just taking my portable hard drive to their room, plugging it in their computer, and copying on over their resources. For now I've just created a folder for each of them......Michelle, Aimee, Marisa, Melissa, and myself. We have three new Spanish teachers this year (Andrew, Greg, and Edward) so I won't have to go to them to collect their resources because they don't have any yet. Hence the reason this resource drive will be AWESOME for them! Great materials right at their finger tips! I'll keep you updated of course :)


P.S. Good news! Over the summer HCPSS subscribed to Google Apps for Education so we can use GoogleDrive to house our resource drive for FREE!!! yay ;)