Week 8: Reflection

As this course comes to an close and I reflect on the learning that has taken place I can say that, although PBL (Problem Based Learning) , social networking, and digital story telling are not new concepts to me, I was forced to revisit and revamp my thinking and create lesson plans which took each of these ideas into consideration while still maintaining a close connection to state standards regarding content and technology. This course has shown me to think creatively regarding lessons which I have taught for years. It has offered ideas, tools, and models to follow which I can use to guide my students into becoming more creative digital aged learners. By working with technology such as blogs and wikis (which I am a novice at) this course forced me out of my comfort zone to see that, yes, I can create a wiki and actually use it to work collaboratively with my colleagues. With this type of experience, the materials used, and the suggestions from colleagues I feel that I have gained valuable experience during this course.

Week 7: GAME Plan

This week's assignments revolved around digital story telling. As a foreign language teacher I truly like the idea of digital story telling. This tool incorporates writing, reading, and pronunciation. I could definitely incorporate digital story telling into my "GAME Plan" goals which are: 1. help facilitate and inspire learning and creativity and 2. design and develop digital age learning experiences and assessments (both standards from NETS.T 2008) . Anything that can be explained or shown can be explained or shown using digital story telling.

Week 6: Game Plan

This week's assignments revolved around social networking and on-line collaboration. As a foreign language teacher I feel that making connections with people living in and speaking the language that I am teaching is a wonderful and powerful tool. I have to say I have many friends and relatives in Italy who I communicate with using Facebook, e-mails, and SKYPE and I would love to incorporate these things into my classroom. I guess the biggest challenge is finding teachers in Italy who would like to have their class communicate with mine and the time difference. One way to get around this is to set up a connection with teachers in our school district or other districts who would be willing to participate in collaborative lesson. It would not be as "authentic" as speaking with true natives but it could work just as well.