For my Bad Day Box

After a particularly challenging week left me questioning why I became a teacher in the first place, I was feeling really down about my position at my school, and wondering if it was even worth sticking around at Grady. When my students were driving me crazy with their lack of respect, their disinterest in learning, and their overall attitudes, I decided to email the parents of some of my best students. Rather than contacting parents of the "bad" students, I got to praise my good students. Not only did I get to brag about these wonderful kids, I received some amazing compliments in return. I printed these emails to remind me why I love this job, and they are headed toward my Bad Day Binder (I didn't end up making a box). And posted here for constant reminder to me and anyone else who may be struggling through their first year or student teaching experience....

My virtual Bad Day Box:

Thank you so much for your email. It is so nice to hear good things especially when a parent usually only receives information if something is wrong. He is enjoying Spanish so much. I appreciate all you do to make learning a second language a fun experience.

Ms. Aho,
Thank you so much for your wonderful note. I will certainly pass it along to A. He is loving Spanish and comes home talking to us using whatever he's learnt that day Even I'm beginning to pick up on it! Thanks for making it such a fun and positive experience.

Thank you so much for such a refreshing email. I must return the compliment and let you know the girls think you are amazing. They are so excited to learn and that thrills me as a parent. Keep up the great work, I can't wait to see the progress from now until the end of the year.

Wow! Thank you so much. S's first language was actually Spanish. Although she only spoke the language for thee years, she stopped being exposed and forgot all that she had learned. I also studied Spanish and was equally enthusiastic about learning the language. She has my complete support in learning. Thanks for noticing.

Hello Ms. Aho,
Please call me Laura. Thank you very much for your words. I am very proud of him. I can tell you that N has taken Spanish lessons in the past however no one ever seemed to catch his attention the way you have. He actually comes home and wants to have trial conversations. Keep up the great work as you are doing a great job yourself!
Thank you!


Sigh. It warms my heart and makes me want to get up and go to work on Monday, when not 12 hours ago I was having panic attacks at the thought of it! It is amazing how special my students are and their enthusiasm is the only thing bringing me back each day.

LiveBlog of Feb 24th Job Search Seminar

Helpless.

This morning, a student had a seizure in my second hour class.

It was probably the scariest thing I've seen in my life, thus far. The worst part, the thing that I can't get out of my head, is that at first I thought he was goofing around. The students were working in groups, trying to get through "Clifford's first Valentine's Day" (en espanol) and I was walking around, checking on the groups. I happened to walk up to this student's group right before it all began. He was making some weird noises, but he wasn't convulsing or anything...it just looked like he was being a little goofy during group-work time. It wasn't until his eyes started to roll and his body began convulsing that it hit me - THIS WAS REAL.

And then it hit me. And overwhelming feeling of helplessness.

I'm just a student teacher, I don't know what to do in these types of situations. Do I call 911? Do I try and support his head? After a fleeting moment of being frozen to the spot, I called for my mentor teacher, who quickly gave me the extension to call the office while she tried to sit the student up. The school secretary called an ambulance, and sent some help to our room. After a couple minutes (which felt like an eternity....) a wheelchair, a hall monitor, and the school's police officer arrived at our room to help until the ambulance arrived.

All I could do was comfort my students, and again, I felt extremely helpless. Nothing I could say could change what had happened, so I did what I would have wanted for myself: I gave out tissues, hugs, and reassurances that they were taking good care of him and there was nothing that we could have done differently.

Does that mean I don't feel guilty for the few seconds I thought that he was kidding and not getting help sooner? Not at all. Am I so str0ng that this didn't shake me up? Yeah right...I'm as emotionally unstable as they come. But I did manage to hold it together to give support and comfort to my students. Once they'd gone on to their next class though, what had happened finally had the chance to sink in, and I'm left feeling dazed, shaken up, and scared.

Now, even 2 hours after it happened, my 4th hour students are splitting into groups to work through the Clifford story, it's replaying in my head over and over and I'm afraid it will happen again. I still feel helpless.

But, I learned today that I can stay strong in the face of an emergency and be the rock that my students need me to be, and for that, I am extremely proud and grateful.

Speaking Practice, Less Fear

I found this sweet site called voki.com, which allows you to create an avatar and record a voice for it. You can record your voice using a microphone, type in the text that you would like to have spoken, or even record a voice by phone! I'm really excited to use this in my classes, and get my students to do some speaking!! I think this takes away some of the fear students face when speaking a foreign language because there is a little more anonymity in speaking through a character. Plus...it's fun!

Only problems I've found so far:
1) There's a 60 second limit on recordings, unless you upgrade to the paid version. But it's next to impossible to get my students speaking for anywhere close to a minute right now, so this is not such a big obstacle for the time being.
2)Sign-up seems to be a little touch and go. I signed up a few days ago, but never received a confirmation email to activate my account, so that I could save and publish my avatar. However, I tried again today with a different email address, and it worked just fine. Confirmation email arrived in seconds.

I had so much fun creating my avatar and playing around with the voice recording, that the technical issue is worth working past. This would be an excellent addition to my classes' webpage!

EtherPad gets 2 thumbs up

In searching through web 2.0 tools to feature in a webinar in ED504, I discovered a cool little tool called EtherPad. It's a web-based word-processor that allows several people to collaborate on a document, and changes show up INSTANTLY on everyone's screen, no lag time whatsoever. A pretty cool tool for any kind of collaborative work in or out of the classroom, it's recently been accquired by Google but is still up and running until its transition into Google Wave has been completed. Interested in checking it out? Go to etherpad.com or check out my quick-and-dirty how-to screencast. I'm definitely a fan.

It's been really great watching my cohort's webinars and getting a chance to learn about some new web-tools to use both inside the classroom and out. Check back soon for my newest discoveries!

One Potato Two Potato Hot Potato Four

Hot Potatoes is a freeware developed by the good folks at the University of Victoria, specifically for language instruction! The program allows you to create all kinds of nifty web-based activities, like crossword puzzles, matching, multiple choice jumble-sentences, and gap-fill exercises. It was a little tricky to use at first, but after a few minutes playing around with the program, I was able to create some pretty sweet interactive web-based activities. I think this is going to be a very handy tool for the classroom...I may have found a way to make even verb conjugation practice a little more fun!

Check out my latest projects!
Vocabulary matching
Gap-fill Goldilocks story
Past tense conjugation crossword

Do you Think You Can Dance??

Trying my hand at Liveblogging the So You Think You Can Dance results show tonight at 8pm. Join me!

You had a bad day....

Had a bad teaching day? As beginning teachers, it's sure to happen (more often than you want it to!) And while our teaching will get better with more experience, the bad days don't stop. Unfortunately. As a person who gets wrapped up in her emotions, it can be hard to shake these bad day feelings and get back in the saddle to try again. Since I can't flip a switch and become an awesome teacher who will never make another mistake, I had to find a way to deal with the bad day blues.

First things first, I have to give myself some time to acknowledge those feelings. They are valid, and it's ok to be upset and disappointed when you don't live up to your expectations. Last week I let myself have my half-hour drive home for sad time. But then I got out of the car, and my sad time followed me out. I couldn't make myself snap out of the funk, convinced that I would never be a good teacher and filled with doom and gloom (don't worry, my teaching that day was NOT as bad as I felt like it was). So now I have a great idea (in my humble opinion...) for beating the bad day blues:

Had a bad day?
Make a bad day box!
(or folder, or document, or journal, or whatever works for you!)
Fill it with positive feedback from a mentor teacher, compliments and comments from students (my favorite so far - "I definitely won't forget THAT now!"), funny things heard in high school, a lesson plan you're extra proud of, photos, inspirational quotes, anything that will put a smile on your face...the sky is the limit!

What a great way to bust out of that funk and remember why you wanted to become a teacher in the first place. Give it a try, it just might help!

And if that doesn't work, listen to Daniel Powter's 'Bad Day' (a favorite of mine!) The video never fails to make me smile!

Technology on a Friday Night

I spent my Friday night creating a ning site for my Spanish 2 classes. Exciting Friday night plans, huh? It was actually kind of fun though, I enjoyed changing the format and deciding what to put on, etc. I tend to get caught up in projects, and this one definitely kept me occupied!

I'm still very unsure whether I will actually put it into use or not. The collision of worlds - social networking meets school! - scares me a little (to a lot!). One think I really like about ning is that it can be specific to my class, and I have all the say over the content. And because it's academically focused (in my case) and not as well known (to my knowledge), it allows me to keep a boundary between my professional life and personal life.

I feel much safer using ning or some other site (as opposed to facebook) to incorporate social networking with my teaching...but I continue to weigh the awesomeness of my ning page versus my fear of social networking in schools. Most likely I will attempt to launch it in one (or all) of my Spanish 2 classes in the winter semester and see how it goes, and whether or not I want to use it in the future.

But for now...I'm the only participant on the site so I've opened it up for public viewing. Check it out: Señorita Aho's ning site! I would love feedback and am very interested to hear your ideas about social networking in education.

Crazy for Claymation!

We learned how to do claymation in class this week, and I have to say it was a ton of fun. I'm still struggling to figure out how I would like to use it in my classroom, if I can. My students really seem to enjoy art-y activities, and I think they would have a BLAST with this. However, it's also very time-consuming, and I'm afraid it may eat up too much class time. It's something I need to spend some time thinking about, because I would really like to find a way to incorporate this activity. I know when we were done, all I wanted to do was come home and make claymation videos all day!

So, without further ado:



Claymation by Tricia Hewitt, Ingrid Macon, and myself, with help from Tiffany Liu. Spanish storyline by me! :)

Poor little clay folks fell down at the end, which just added to the humor.
This is the rated G version for my class :)

Long time, no blog

Well, I just realized I've taken a pretty extended blog-cation. When we broke from classes for the month of August, I pretty much took a vacation of all things MAC. And when I say pretty much...I mean completely. Really. No homework, no blogs, not even a single login to Twitter. And for some reason, I have been completely unable to get back in the saddle.

I did not mean to abandon you, dear blog, and faithful followers. I promise it's nothing personal.


I don't really feel like I have a whole lot to say right now, but I wanted to check in until I have more ideas to share. I haven't seen much technology in my placement so far. My mentor teacher uses the overhead projector a lot, which makes me feel warm and fuzzy because it reminds me of my own high school experience. But that's pretty much the extent of "technology." We will be spending Thursday in the computer lab working on a Dia de los Muertos project, but I think it's essentially internet research.

2 weeks from now, my methods class will be meeting in the computer lab for a technology lesson. We MAC-ers have the option of not going, because we have a whole course on technology, but I'm excited to learn about some technology specifically geared to foreign language teachers. We'll be creating a Jeopardy game, and I believe some other mystery language activities await me as well! Expect a report on that in a couple weeks!

Also, I will hopefully be reflecting on my first month or so in the classroom soon, but for now I am too burnt out to even try. (Fall break, maybe?)

But for now, signing off.
-Srta. Aho

Learning between the lessons

Like many of my fellow MACers, I too am struggling to find the relevance in some of the things we are learning. How are concept maps and taxonomy tables going to help me as a Spanish teacher? Well, I'm not exactly sure yet. But I have to say that I am learning a lot. While I'm learning some valuable content from our esteemed professors, I have to say that I am learning the most valuable and applicable lessons (for me, as a future teacher) between the lessons.


My lessons learned between the lessons:

• A safe learning environment is essential. If my students feel like they will be criticized for their contributions to the class, eventually they will just stop trying. (Hey-o! A Benchmark!)
• Things never go the way you've planned. Always prepare to be surprised!
• Some students who need some time to form their opinions before they are ready to share them--these students need to be included. Find a way to make this happen. Whether it be through blogs or discssion forums, giving them a heads up about a discussion topic, or just making sure they have an opportunity to share later in the conversation, make it work.
  
• I need to develop a thicker skin. If I can't learn to let things roll off my back, I'll be running away screaming before my first week of teaching has even come to a close.
• Even the most diligent overachieving student needs to take a day off from work now and then.
• Take the things that frustrate you and turn them into learning experiences.
  
• Although I am a very nervous public speaker, I can actually find a lot of confidence and ease when speaking about a topic I feel comfortable teaching.

Outlaw YouTube?

A lot of workplaces these days are filtering the online content their employees are able to access at work, schools included. Although I've spent my fair share of time sitting in front of a computer counting down the hours 'til the end of the workday, I understand why places of business do not want their employees messing around on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. But what if these so-called "time wasters" are actually valuable teaching tools in disguise? We've discussed the merits of using Twitter, wikis, and blogs in the classroom. And we all know how an occasional video can capture students' attention as they start zoning out mid-lecture. (And if a picture is worth a thousand words, how many words is a video worth...??) But doesn't it pose a problem when even the teachers are blocked from accessing these websites?! How do we get around this?

I understand that cyber-bullying is becoming an important issue, but will getting rid of these sites solve the problem? Or will it simply bring bullying back to the playground, as this suggests? (This issue is really a separate blog post....maybe you should keep an eye out for it in coming weeks!)


...if we ban YouTube in the classroom, students miss out on gems like this:



and




Nothing wrong with using a little Justin Timberlake to teach verb conjugation! And it gives me some great ideas for having my students make their own videos.....

21st Century Classroom

At the start of our very first Teaching with Technology class, we were asked to draw our future classroom, incorporating any technology we hope to have. I found this to be a very difficult task, stuck in the mindset that a typical classroom would be the same as the classrooms during my high school career, with a few modifications (projection from the computer, rather than using transparencies, etc.). I found myself focusing more on the physical setup of the classroom than on the technology: Do I want desks or tables? Should I set them up in a square for face-to-face discussion, or in traditional rows? Where do I want the teacher's desk?

After listening to my classmates describing the classrooms they hope to have, complete with laptops or computer stations for every student, I felt a little embarrassed about my lack of vision into the 21st century and beyond. Even though I graduated less than a decade ago, technology and society's reliance upon it have changed greatly, and I guess it's time for me to realize it! Universities use websites like CTools all the time, why can't high schools do the same? (They can, of course!)

I know that by the end of the semester, my vision for a technologically-equipped classroom will change substantially. Even after one class I've realized all kinds of things I'd missed out on! I still would like to keep my room relatively simple, but having computers in the classroom for student use creates countless opportunities for instruction. A language lab can be created in-class (without the need to relocate to a separate room), using only the computers and a good set of headphones. As I mentioned in my last post, I would love to use blogging and chats to create different types of discussion and writing practice.

Pen pals from a Spanish speaking country provide an excellent way for students to practice that is more relevant than writing essays in class, and provides feedback from a native speaker...something I can't give my students myself! Technology offers ways to make this happen much more easily than the traditional "pen and paper, foreign mail that takes forever to arrive, if it ever does" variety.

Check back in a month or so, I'm sure I'll have learned about all kinds of excellent technological tools that I can incorporate into my 21st Century classroom! I can't wait...but you're going to have to!

End of Week 1

We made it through week 1 of the MAC program, and we're all still standing. At least we were, as of 4:30 this afternoon. I'm impressed with the amount of work that goes into making this program possible, and overwhelmed by the amount of work that will go into getting out of it alive! But I'm looking forward to what's to come.

The technology class really struck a chord with me today. It's not something I'd really put much thought into, but the idea of using tools like blogging and twitter and lends itself to all sorts of wonderful possibilities in a Spanish classroom. I also love the idea of using a discussion board and a live chat (Does anyone still use chatrooms anymore??) What a great way for students to use their Spanish outside the traditional classroom setting! And it could be great for the more meek, who may not be ready to speak up in class yet. I'm really excited to see what we're going to learn in this class, and what I will be able to do with it...the ideas are already going on the spin-cycle in this thing I call a brain!