I had originally started keeping my Chrome journey in a doc file but I decided to switch to a blog, don't know why but then I could share it out with people I suppose. I thought perhaps my fellow Chrome compadres might like it. Who knows? Or just for my own crazy amusement.
So Thursday and Friday were the first days that I had the kids pick up their CBs (henceforth meaning Chromebooks) on the way in the door.
This really is making me plan like a first year teacher again because I have to rethink how I do things. Last year, and every year for the past few years, I've had unit packets. I photocopy it in the beginning of the unit and then have all the copying done for three or four weeks. I think it was around year three that I had that brilliant idea and it eased up my life so much. So this year, for the first two units, I naturally photocopied the units but now as I plan, I find that a lot of it is not needed, or needed differently since they can access things digitally.
I wasted a half an hour Thursday and Friday and I am trying not to feel guilty about it. It wasn't completely wasted since I was rambling in Spanish to them while introducing the vocabulary and most of them were following along, but I do not need to spend a half hour having them write down the English words. Note to self: NEVER DO THAT AGAIN! I'll photocopy future vocab sheets with the English already on them so that we can jump in and start using the words!
When I started teaching Spanish 4, I really thought long and hard about how much photocopying I do and I wanted to save on trees, so I didn't photocopy a lot of vocab/grammar exercises. I did them as a class by putting them in powerpoint. This year, I took my twenty favorite questions and put them into a google form for the students to take as an online quiz in the beginning of class. At first I made each question a required question however then I thought: I only want to give them X amount of time in class to work and some students will finish very quickly and others probably not so much. So I changed it all and am going to tell them they'll have X amount of time and if they don't finish, they submit what they did and then they can go back later and do another entry and finish what they started. I think what I'll end up doing is telling them when I will be grading it so they know when it must be completed.
Speaking of grading, I gave my Spanish 4 pre-assessments the last two days and I wanted the results sooner and I wanted to test out the Flubaroo script. So after the students finished their work, I had them enter their answers into a form and submit it. I graded it last night in about two seconds. Granted, this couldn't work for EVERYTHING because it's not the best form of assessment, but if spot check understandings can be done like this, then I can spend my time on creating new things and giving feedback for written work. I'm excited about that. Also Flubaroo can email them their grades or feedback which is incredible!! I just have to get good at using the google form, instead of copying it into excel, so it's a learning experience for me too.
Lots of my students had learning experiences this week! Thursday's classes had a much harder time with the log in and commenting process. They seemed less willing or able to just click something and see what happens. I was running around in the beginning of each class trying to field questions. However on Friday, my three classes came in, sat down and I had ten minutes in the beginning of class to finally sit and breathe and speak to my students. I thought perhaps the form would give them a problem if too many were submitting it, but thus far, that has been okay because it's varied enough.
So despite my many technological problems this week, THINGS WERE A SUCCESS.
ALSO... I screencasted this week. Each class has a video to watch over the weekend wherein grammar will be explained. They have to take notes as they feel is appropriate and come in ready to work with the material, so I have to spend a lot of time this weekend preparing activities. It's going to be a real "first year" year, which is exciting. I have the experience as a teacher now to really know what's going on behavior wise etc but the excitement (and pressure) of: what the heck can we do??
Lessons that must be done this week in functionality: I know how to show the kids how to access the accents. I think perhaps these are "cheat sheet cards" that should be laminated and put in the tank baskets so that kids will have them as a resource. I also want to make sure they all have their bookmark bar showing and to bookmark the blogs and wordreference, as well as School Tool. I'm also not sure all of them have figured out the difference between one finger mouse movement vs two finger scrolling OR the fact that they don't have to TAP to click. I also want to show them how to pin things to the launcher so they have the drive and mail there.
These are all really exciting things and I think it's going to be a lot of work this year but I'm really excited about it! Now that's enough rambling for now, off to make things happen!
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