What a downer

wow.

I have been such a downer lately. Like for the past six months or something... I swear. Maybe it's just a natural shift that happens as I'm figuring out that I don't, in fact, need to please everyone all the time... which is still hard, but I see myself standing up for myself in ways I never would have before because, although I yearned to be noticed, I didn't want to stick out. So I hope this is just part of the phase... and maybe it's because I feel loaded down... but the other day Liesl mentioned that she didn't like all the negative energy she had been giving out lately (which I hadn't noticed) and it really struck a chord with me. It is definitely true for me.

So here's my positive spin on today:
German 1 did some exit slips about how they were going to study. I think that I like the exit slip philosophy... but I also don't know if I have enough stamina to follow through with it on a daily basis (and is that really necessary?). Anyway, a number of kids said they were going to use the internet resources (podcast and online flashcards)... so Monday I am going to give the exit slips back and check back in to see how many actually did... and what they thought.
I was lucky that the class of kids I've had the longest is the class I had to miss today... because they know what to do and have fun. And one of the subs said she liked the clapping. Me too.
It's good that the doctor says that Caitlin just has the croup... and I'm sure he listened to my concerns before handing out this diagnosis.
German 2 had a very interesting conversation about sarcasm, and I was surprised to hear how many didn't appreciate sarcasm in the least... and I was very surprised at who said it.
I got to spend some time with my medicine loving baby today. She was so good at the doctor's office and afterward... a lady in the waiting room didn't think she was even sick.
The conversation with daycare from my perspective went really well. We have a conference on Monday and I think everyone knows the agenda... which is good: no surprises.
Tori and Hannah are super excited to start the speech season! (They saw me in the hall and said they were just talking about speech last night!)

So... all in all... an excellent day.

Bow chicka bow wow

Okay... mostly writing just so that I get this down with the hopes that I can use it as AR data. Today I offered the idea to the onesies that I make an MP3 of the vocabulary... asked what they thought. It was overwhelming. The mass responded very positively and I heard one girl say "Actually, that would be greatly appreciated." and others said things like cool! and mentioned that would be useful! So I had two boys agree to be the test pilots... told them where to go in order to download the mp3 and to let me know how everything went tomorrow. I made the mp3 at lunch... and uploaded it. So it will be there, ready for everyone tomorrow. I just need to remember to show everyone how to do it and talk with the boys about how it went.

Otherwise we're off to conferences tonight instead of the school board for the community of experts (which I am very excited about).

Finally, I'm surely running up the ladder and definitely not letting something go. Something happened at auditions today that I thought was just fine and had let it go... and then it was brought up again later with the statement "I don't want you to think you have to walk on eggshells with me." with someone who I've always felt didn't really get along with me (from their point... not mine). So now I'm having a hard time putting it to sleep. If they wouldn't have dug it back up, I would have (naively) thought it was just all in good fun... but the issue coming up again makes me believe there is relevance there that I didn't know about. ugh. We'll see.

Otherwise speech auditions were good again today. Everyone has been pleasantly surprised at the number of students who are coming in asking for public address categories. That is awesome. I'm wondering, Liesl, if you will see FS tomorrow. I don't want her to think we didn't do creative because we didn't believe in her writing skills. I don't want her running up the ladder, too.

That's it for today. Off to supper, conferences and the minute clinic for a sick Noodle.

Meme again...

In an effort to sort through today (I still can't even begin to try to comprehend yesterday's huge discussion) I'm needing to go back to the Meme thing (shout out to you, Liesl!):
What went well:
Speech auditions! I am excited about the quality of kids we had audition and look forward to holding them to high (but fun) standards and really finding a lot of success... I am SUPER excited about Liesl's lightbulb about having a certain young man do extemporaneous poetry reading... Seriously. He will go to state. I am SO excited.
What went pretty well:
German 1 went pretty well today... I ended up telling more culture today than normal, but sometimes culture can go by the wayside and it is definitely not only already one of the standards of world language education, it's also inherent in many of the other standards. So no problems here.
German 3 went pretty well also. The new way of doing music was fantastic. We listened to it three times and for different things each time (degrees of difficulty scaffoldling throughout) and I asked what they thought. Even Dirk said that he liked it because sometimes listening to it the first time with all the lyrics and not knowing (or having to find out) what they mean is too overwhelming... and he's one of the best students in class. This is great feedback. I'm glad I learned the technique and I know it is pedagogically sound as well as effective! Awesome. They also did more conjuguemos today. Only 4-5 have passed it. They really are having a harder time with this than kids have in the past... but they all recognize how beneficial it is for them to do... despite the fact it might be frustrating. How do I know this? Because right after their complaints (Man, this sucks! I can't do this!), they verbalize things like (ugh. But I know I'm doing better already... or I know it's good for me Frau, but I swear, I can't do this). Then I cheerlead a bit and ask them if they've been having personal bests... and they always have been. So this is all good. We're not going back tomorrow. We'll save it until Thursday.
What could have gone better:
German 2. Seriously. The kids are being lazy. They are tired. They are just not excited... even today when I was excited! So today is an example of an anomaly of the theory that my excitement will always infect the kids. The discussion about the podcast didn't give the results I had hoped for, but perhaps another avenue to try instead. They mentioned an 8th grade class where they did show-and-tell... and could do anything as long as it related. I might just try this. We'll have to talk more about it tomorrow. I think I also need to just get them up and moving. More community building. Something. Maybe Chairman of the Board tomorrow??
Who I need to touch base with:
A colleague about speech team. And I'm not really looking forward to it, but maybe I need the mindset that it truly is painless and without judgment... ask it like Biener would.

I can hear you...

We got our microphone/voice amplification system today (or really last night). Mine didn't work for the majority of the day. Finally, it began working and I was kind of screwing around with it "talking whale". It was interesting.

Students didn't think it was necessary.

But then I did the "cover the mic" test and the kids in the back said it did make a difference after all. So we'll see.

I want to putz around with it for a while and see if I can figure out how to do the podcasting of the entire class.

An idea...

Since the podcasting, in order to fully thrive on a large scale, needs to have multiple people recording at the same time, that project is kind of in limbo at this point. Perhaps I would be able to e-mail Al about getting more microphone headsets and then download audacity in a lab somewhere. Who knows.

Until then, I am considering a "weekly variety show" for everyone to participate in... with whatever they dreamt of.

Rules:
*Must be in German
*Everyone has to, in some way, partake and be involved

Ideas:
*Music in German (singers/songwriters write and sing their own music)
*Poetry
*News
*History corner
*Culture corner
*Other things?
*Vocabulary/Grammar corner

Podcasting 101

Not enough front loading with 4th hour.

I just sent them on their way with minimal explanation. I need to remember that these kids won't know it unless you spell it out for them. So AFTER we got back from the computer lab, I had this discussion with them:

• Remember everything we've been learning about learning styles for the past week and a half? Do you know how beneficial this knowledge is for you? You get to share it with others.
• You are going to take your learning style and look more in-depth into it... then share that information with others.
• This information is beneficial for EVERYONE! It can help anyone with anything!
• Hopefully we can get people across the district (and maybe even around the world) listening to our podcast... so let's make them amazing!

I think they got it then.

I must have done something different with first hour, because they got it. I think the frontloading from yesterday (that 4th hour didn't get) made a ton of difference. Some of the more thoughtful discussions have come from 1st hour as well. I just end up sharing them with 4th hour.

And then I got to pay for some "sins"...

Yesterday I had told my 1st hour kids that they had done a better job with their speeches than my 4th hour kids... so I told my 4th hour kids that I shared that information with 1st hour.

TODAY a number of kids kept saying that they were hearing from their 1st hour friends that I said that they were "better than" the 4th hour kids. I told them that I was just talking about the speeches and that I had told 4th hour that I said that yesterday.

They seemed quietly down about it.

I need to figure out what to say/do to figure out how to make it not personal for them. It's true. First hour's speeches were better... Fourth hour didn't push themselves like first hour did. But that means nothing about who is "better". Maybe simple clarification will work. Hm.

Technology reflections...

Week one is done and the UbD has been going well... I planned too much for especially the first day... so I've had to do some rearranging... but otherwise it's good. In reflection, though, I'm seeing that until this point, it is heavily focused on technology and learning and perhaps less so on language usage. This will be a place for improvement for the unit, and those to follow.

So some quick notes on technology:
*PowerPoint: as we still don't have our "smart classrooms", I checked out an LCD projector from the media center. I have been doing the notes, agenda, city presentations and a bit of internet on PowerPoint. It has been beneficial to kind of keep me on track, and one student mentioned on the first day (before we even talked about learning styles) that he really liked the PowerPoint things because he is a visual learner... so he hoped we would have more of these. :) I think it's going well. It forces me to at least preview the plan for the next day and get things together and going.

*Audacity: We recorded our voices for the audio vocabulary section of the UbD. I exported it to mp3 and published it online. It took a bit of time to do the recording (just because there were so many people who needed to get up and to the microphone)... but once I had the file cut and exported, it was about 4.5 minutes. Everyone's voices sounded really good and I was inspired to do more with this because it truly is an authentic means of assessing their pronunciation and understanding (especially if they recorded conversations on it). I loved it. The kids liked to hear themselves and many mentioned that they downloaded it and "didn't sound as stupid as I thought I would". This is good. Step one in preparation for the podcasting. It should prove to be super beneficial for me... and they like it too! What else can you ask for? Great for step one!

*StudyStack: For our visual practice, I inputted the vocabulary into StudyStack for the students to be able to interact with online. We'll see how many actually put this to work and how seriously they are taking this.
Which brings me to some reflection about the quizzes...

Will the students actually take this seriously if they are not being graded on the quizzes? Do we need to have a discussion about the purpose? Is the purpose meaningful enough for them? I think it is interesting and good, but do they? And will a grade motivate them anyway? Should we have the discussion that a language is nothing without vocabulary?

I don't know. I was a little concerned about all of this tonight as I was thinking about the 120-240 words they will be studying for tomorrow... and how some might remember that just tonight... and then, instead of studying, just tell themselves that it doesn't matter anyway because they won't be graded...

that just might break my heart.

Dropping Concurrent Language Translation

From the apple website, there is a vodcast of the benefits of iPods and podcasting in the foreign language! Here are some things I want to ruminate...

1: Drop concurrent language translation!
It is the slowest and most inefficient way of learning anything... and especially language.
Instead you should use Preview/Review on either end of the actual language usage... and then s-l-o-w down and also perhaps use TPR, etc. Podcasting works as well... because it helps the access for acquisition.

2: Podcasting hints:
In podcasting: do 1:1 voiceover... keep it personal. Make the "next door effect". Stay away from the jockey voices and the teacher voice. Talk TO them as if you were with them... because you will be there with just them. Podcasting also is awesome when used with storytelling!]
Find community materials that are already out there... and then produce your own! Students should do it too.

3: Audio Only Podcasting:
The audio only podcasting is only beneficial (and pedagogically sound) for upper level beginners to advanced learners. TRUE beginners need more than just audio... otherwise you spend too much time doing concurrent translation (using preview/review helps this). Native speakers and native resources can be used here as well. (Although it says that almost all of the podcasts out there for beginning language learning are audio only and use a lot of concurrent language translation...)

Whew. This is feeling a bit overwhelming. But it should give me purpose and definitely things about which to ruminate. Perhaps this gives me an opportunity for a "next step". Definitely BEGIN... and then step up.

My newest technologies...

After much procrastination, I started futzing around with Audacity today. I was perhaps a bit afraid of hearing my voice on the software... unsure of what it would sound like... and perhaps worried that it would take SO much work to make it sound good that it wouldn't even be worth it. But alas. That was not the case.
After figuring out the crazy new way to do audio inputs with Vista, I first tried the Bluetooth. It worked! However it did not work well. So then I tried working with Shawn's Plantronics headset. It was most amazing. I sound like I'm in a sound studio and my voice sounds, excuse me saying so, amazing! It is actually so much fun! I've figured out cutting the audio file (to get rid of those onesie-twosie words that clutter an audio file), how to record:pause:record and how to place underlying audio tracks with other words or even music. Very exciting stuff. I think I will be doing the "audio track" for students to use for studying as their first podcast. Then they can see how easy it is. That way when it's their turn to record podcasts, they can do it super easy and should enjoy it! I'm excited. Now I just need to get something worthwhile recorded as my first podcast... and then work with uploading and publishing it so I can seem like a seasoned veteran when I do it in front of the kids. This is SO exciting. I find it exciting to hear my voice... I can only imagine how this excitement can spread when 25-35 kids have the same opportunity!

Well, once I had Audacity figured out, and had all of the audio input devices figured out, I figured I might as well sign up for Skype as well! So I did! Whew!

I'm pretty excited about the idea of "getting a Skype call" at any point (like I often hear happens to speakers at the educational technology conferences). Okay, I know that I probably won't have people calling me "at any point"... but the dream is there!

SO here's the exciting part: I was futzing around on Skype and found "Skypecasts". These are opportunities to set up a time (or find a "cast" of interest) and talk with people from around the world! I see definite possibilities in this for my German students. How cool would it be for them to talk with real Germans in this venue! Also, I could set up a Skypecast, plan it ahead of time and students could join as we talk. What would we talk about? I don't know... How to change the world? What about a "Stammtisch"? That's cool! How about a review session from our homes? I wonder if I will want to create a school account if I'm going to do that...

Nah.

Very exciting stuff. I hope I remember to use it all! (And I hope I get technology IN my classroom one of these days!)

UPDATE: I set up a Skypecast for Monday, September 17 at 8:00 PM! Everyone can log in and speak/practice German! Is this going to be a cluster...? Who knows! It's all worth a try!

Quotes from Bob Sprankle

From his keynote speech at a teacher conference in Maine...

“Why are they engaged?
I believe that now they have purpose to their work…
There is so much we do in school that’s for that moment, or maybe for that task, or for… who knows what purpose… and maybe the students don’t know… and it’s gone.
And this stuff is gold and we don’t want to lose it!”

"A blog or a podcast is an excellent portfolio."

A quote from George Lucas (through Bob Sprankle) "How do we get schools to mirror real life? We're doing things for unknown reasons as a kid."

Schools as a no-reality zone.

A concise review of Thomas Friedman's book The World is Flat "In short: the world is flat, everybody can compete on a level playing field. Asia and India are gonna eat your kids lunch and we gotta prepare our kids at a higher level so that they can compete."

And our kids are not even near ready.

Back in the swing...

Today I went back through my iTunes and re-began listening to the "Bit by Bit" podcasts from Bob Sprankle. It is incredibly motivating to listen to him... even his keynote speeches that last an hour long... because it gives me a chance to hear the history... and hear a real story about how things worked and how I can start it up!
I have let this podcasting thing get out of hand in my brain. So much so that I haven't even begun to record myself on Audacity... but listening to Bob reminds me that I actually already have so much taken care of by the simple act of blogging (and reflecting) and that the recording is the quickest part of it all!
So I went on to his website (www.bobsprankle.com) and had already clicked on Bit-by-Bit, so I wanted to check back in on Room 208 because it might be beneficial for my students to hear what these kids could do. And I was there! An e-mail I had sent at the beginning of the summer when I began this project was posted on the page! Look here! (the Maria is me!) It (oddly enough) was an exhilirating experience to see my name and my words on his website! And then for him to answer me! How awesome is this... I feel like a superstar! Just think how I can do this with the students! I want them to feel like superstars!
One of the stories he tells is of the new teacher who is now teaching his former 3rd (now 4th) graders. Ms. Bush said that she thinks she should teach them everything with podcasting because she doesn't have to teach them anything! She said she has never seen them this motivated to learn anything!
Listening to his stories are so exciting and inspiring...

Have kids teach the world...
Give them purpose...
And they will come...