Incorporating a Tech Tool

For my culminating project for the course, I chose two tech tools to incorporate into a lesson: YouTube and Blogs. I will admit upfront that I personally have used both of these tools in the past but have never married the two with students. Both tools are free to use and easily accessible for students to utilize.

The lesson objective was to have students watch videos in the Target Language (TL), interpret and understand what they are watching, and then to compose blog posts about what they watched. In their posts, they could write a brief summary of the video, their reaction to what they saw, and possibly a list of important vocabulary from the video viewed. These blog posts could then be shared with the class. YouTube has multiple German language channels publishing current video content from German speaking countries in Europe. I will introduce the students to two or three channels that I feel are great and have them subscribe to them for future reference.

Here is a link to the lesson plan covering this lesson.

I think that my lesson incorporates the TPACK philosophy. It combines Technical Knowledge through the introduction and use of YouTube and Blogs, Pedagogical Knowledge through my ability to introduce the lesson and create a setting where the students are able to successfully complete the task, and finally Content Knowledge of both the instructor and students. Students will hopefully quickly realize that by watching videos in the TL, that their TL understanding is better than what they thought. Also through the use of the writing reviews of the videos they will be able to demonstrate understanding and write/create a final product in the TL that will display their abilities.

The ACTFL standards that are addressed in my attached lesson plan are nicely incorporated into this lesson. Hitting three of the national standards in one lesson is a lofty goal, however I truly feel that students will be able to achieve the standards. They will definitely be able to achieve 1.2 and 2.2. With the use of their blog we will be able to address 5.1 and also have the ability to share their work with anyone in the world who has access to the internet. That definitely takes it beyond the school setting.

Here is a link to one of my German 4 student's BLOG. She has finished reviews of two TL videos already.

The lesson, I feel, went really well. This is an ongoing process. Since I chose two relatively user friendly tools, the students had no issues with the technology. They quickly were able to set up their blogs and most already had YouTube accounts. Once they were set up, they enjoyed the freedom of being able to choose the videos that they reported on. I think that there would have possibly been a different reaction if I had made them all do the same video. Most of the students really seemed to enjoy this. I do plan on making this a "thing" in all of my middle and upper level classes starting at the beginning of the next school year. I hope that the students will really appreciate the blogs as a digital portfolio of their work that they can check anytime throughout the year. One thought I had was at the end of the year when I do my end of the year interviews, they could pick their top three blog posts to review with me. They could tell me why they chose those three and discuss further.

Reflection on Tools that I am Learning About

The following five tools I have been using and looking into are: 

YouTube – I have personally been using YouTube for years, but have not really incorporated it into lessons except for sharing the occasional video. What I plan on the doing in the future is having my upper level students subscribe to various German channels. I especially want to have them access Deutsche Welle (a German news channel that posts several videos a day). I would like to have the students get into the habit of choosing one video post a week to blog about. The videos not only give them practice in hearing the TL, but it also keeps them up to date on what is going in Germany and also within Europe.

Blogs – Blogger – I learned about Blogger from taking this class and am very glad that I did. I plan on making all of my students next year create a blog at the beginning of the year that they will maintain throughout the year. The blog will serve as a place to post all writing assignments and also will serve as a digital portfolio of their work. It will allow them to see how much their writing abilities improve over the course of the year. It also helps to eliminate paper in the classroom and the need for me to worry about having students turn in work. They can simply email me a link to their posts. It is also an awesome way to share their work easily with the class.

Google Hangouts – I got to experience Google Hangouts via our videoconference in the course. I was blown away with the ease of this program. I have already started using it for purposes outside of school. I would like to try to implement the use of Google Hangouts for speaking and review opportunities. I could foresee a set of prompts that students would prepare for ahead of time and then join the hangout to actually discuss the topic with me there to oversee it. I love the ability to hold actual chat windows as well as audio and video feeds. I also see the power of this program with students who are out for extended time due to illness or medical issues. I could also use this with potential homebound students that I might have in the future. *** I plan to use this with my AP European History students in the future as a way of reviewing outside of the class for the AP Exam.

Voki – I learned about Voki via our videoconference and a post on Twitter. It really seems like a neat free tool that the students would enjoy using. Giving students the freedom to create their own persona/character adds so much ownership to the students. I envision using this with my lower level students. They could create a Voki to introduce themselves and talk about their likes and interests in the TL. I could envision sharing some of the Vokis with the class. They could create and record their Vokis on their own at home without worrying about classmates hearing them record the vocal parts. This is helpful for students who are shy or reluctant to speak in class.

Weebly – I learned of Weebly through a Twitter post. Weebly is a free website that allows students to create quick and easy websites for presentation purposes. I found the program to be very user friendly, clean, and easy to navigate. My German 3 students do a unit on the German Federal States. I could see each student creating a Weebly for the state that they are assigned. Weebly allows them to embed photos and videos. This allows the students to find TL material to help in describing the state that they are presenting on. It also gives them a clean and easy way to present and share their information with the class. I already did a quick test run with the program with a few of my National History Day students. They enjoyed using and it really helped them produce first-rate presentations.

#Langchat on Twitter

I participated in the #Langchat on Twitter on Thursday evening, March 3rd. 

Before the chat began, I took sometime to reflect on my relationship with Twitter. I am relatively new to Twitter, having an account for only a year. I find Twitter hard to use because a lot of time it moves so fast that I can’t seem to keep up. Many times it just seems like a lot of noise with no substance. This opinion has changed over the past few months. I had never participated in a live chat on Twitter before tonight so I was very interested in experiencing it firsthand.

As the chat started the speed of responses was unreal. I was blown away at the pace that I had to maintain to read everything being tweeted. To be honest it was frustrating at times. Quite a number of people were sharing APPS that they were using or looking for more info on. I felt that I didn’t have time to check them out and stay in the conversation. We also discussed how we give feedback to individual students. I have never seemed to have that problem. I always give personal feedback on each writing assignment. Sometimes more than others, it depends on the assignment. It was nice to see other teachers doing the same things that I am doing. It made me feel validated. I also realized that many teachers are doing even more in their classes that I was. That was also humbling.

One other concern that I had during the chat was that many users were using abbreviations that I had no idea what they were! It was like reading a foreign language sometimes! Since the #Langchat takes place every Thursday and Saturday, I do plan on participating in future chats. I have also brought one of my colleagues on board to participate as well.