Follow Up Session #1

It has been good to be back at GAETI!

We have learned about how to write grants. I found this very insightful because to me writing a grant seems super intimidating. I like how Dr. Bracey broke it down so it seems doable now. I even want to look for some grants that I could possibly apply for! I really liked doing the activity with two of my colleagues from Fifth Street because I really learn from DOING and it really clicked by looking for possible exercise equipment for our "Fitness @ Fifth Street program. I think all three of us really think the idea would be food for our school, so maybe we could look for a grant to fund it.

After lunch, we learned the basics about coding. I did  not realize the importance of incorporating coding into k-12 education before. Now that I see it is like learning a foreign language, especially with Spanish being my subject area, it makes sense to me to teach coding to students as early as possible. With that in mind, I was amazed and excited to see the code.org program that is FREE for teaching k-12 coding! I don't understand why we have not talked about this at our school yet!

I really enjoying doing one of the "unplugged" activities on building a foundation, and hearing about other activities for the courses.

Day TWENTY

Wow! I can't believe that the time here at GAETI is already up! I have really enjoyed my time here and have learned so much! I honestly don't think that the post test will do justice for how much everyone has really gotten out of this institute. Today we gave our presentations. I had a hard time getting my lesson plan done and ended up staying up until 12am working on everything and getting worksheets printed out, so I was afraid I would be too tired to really get anything out of today. But boy was I wrong! I was so impressed seeing the others websites and lesson ideas. I also was very encouraged because they chose to give me the Best Lesson Plan Presentation Award! I was surprised with how much they got involved in my lesson and how they chose to honor me with this award. I really enjoyed teaching them some Spanish, doing my Thing Link activity with them, and showing them pictures of my family all while speaking a lot of Spanish with them. Angie also gave me the "Hard worker" award! She was so sweet to do that. I honestly think there were so many that deserved it besides me. I guess they just couldn't believe that anyone would choose to do a image with 33 pieces to cut out! Lol.

  Thanks GAETI 2017, I'm looking forward to September 30th!

Day NINETEEN

Today has been a GET IT DONE kind of day. And I sure have needed it! Hope and I were finally able to have time to collaborate and finish our bilingual newspaper since we didn't get to the other day. I have been trying to get my website done and it has taken much more time than I anticipated. I am glad we did the websites though, because it will help me remember what we did and also I'll be able to find resources easier because I have it on the website or my blog which is linked to the website.

We started the day off by presenting our art projects. I cannot say how proud I am of my project because I put a lot of heart and work into it. I was very nervous about talking in front of the class about it though! Seems like I'm always nervous in front of a crowd--especially adults. I really enjoyed seeing everyone's work and hearing why they did their work and how they plan to use it in the classroom. It was also so cool to see what people learned and overcame through this process. I know that my art project has helped me want to adjust a project I already do with my class.

Day EIGHTEEN

Bomb threat happened during our call with my Brazilian friend Mayara! But we found out we were not in the buildings being told to evacuate, so we just continued with our call. We used Zoom instead of Skype for the Global Connection call. I really liked it because Mayara was able to share her screen with us and show pictures of food from Brazil and places that we "must see" if we go to Brazil. To me it was a very fun conversation and it seemed like people were not ready to quit talking when our session had ended. Mayara was so excited about a chance to share about her country.

Earlier today, we heard from Dr. Talya Straughter about taking care of yourself as educators. It was such a helpful session! We talked about balancing our lives physically, financially, intellectually, emotionally, socially, and spiritually. I really liked her circle graph she used to have us evaluate our life and see which of these areas we need to make more of a priority in our lives. My "emotional" one was very low as I expected so that's something I need to learn how to manage and give myself time. I need to give my stress to God and not carry all my emotional baggage. I was surprised to see my social one was the best area seeing as I am an introvert! I guess I have learned how to make myself "get out of my shell".

Day SEVENTEEN

We learned how to make a video in Adobe Spark! It was so easy! I liked how you could record and play music at the same time. I plan to make a video about my travels in Spain to show students.

After lunch, we spent much needed time working on our websites! I finally feel like I'm getting close to finishing up. I still lack the newspaper, and putting a link the Flat Stanley video. Hope and I were so proud of ourselves because we used a skill we had just learned in Adobe to make a banner for our WebQuest website! Go us! :)

We learned about Prezi. I think I would like to use Prezi for specific topics that there are nice templates already set up, but I think I will continue to use PowerPoint for most of my presentation needs. I did like how you can put icons already part of the program into the slide show.

Day SIXTEEN

Today we learned about to create a webpage using Adobe Spark. I thought that was really cool!

Day FIFTEEN

It's FRIDAY!!!!!!!! I can't believe that we only have one more week of this workshop left! Today we heard from Jeremy Martin on How the Secretary of State's Office can help supplement your income as an educator. He showed some awesome websites that give you valuable information about Mississippi. I cannot believe all the information that is avaliable about traffic patters, what people are buying, etc, etc... I can see how this would be great for knowing what kind of business to start in your area.

Mrs. Latham went over the Anatomy of a Business Plan and gave us an overview of what we will be doing next week in writing a business plan.

I worked a lot on my art project. It was a very frustrating process trying to get all 32 pieces together and figure out how to do the levels. I had to glue and un-glue a lot. I finally got it together--pun intended--after much struggling. I think I'll definitely get it framed. All I need to do now is outline the edges and fix the serpents fang. I was so proud of my work I had to take a picture with it! Whew!

Day FOURTEEN

We started the day by learning ways of generating Technology Learning in the Classroom with Ms. Billie Jean Fulton. She gave use several very useful websites which I'll post below so I can find them later: 

GAETI 2017 June 22, 2017

Screencasting via youtube

Thinglink

Problem Attic

Hyperdocs Template

Example of Hyperdoc

Best Tech Sites for Social Studies

Teacher's Tech

I really liked working in Thinglink. I made a Thinglink image with a picture of me and my siblings (Mis Hermanos). I would like to use this image to teach students how to talk about their siblings in Spanish. I included three questions to answer in English, and put "markers" on each on my siblings saying whether they were a "hermano" or "hermana" and whether they were "mayor" or "menor"by looking at the markers for each. I think the students would enjoy this more than simply being told what each means. 

We talked to Tony's friend in England. I learned several things I didn't know about English, namely a few differences between their education system and ours, and some of the mentalities they have in business--he says they are less "up front" and "direct" and he had to learn "the art" of being more "subtle" while getting his point across. Oh, and I had to ask if they have peanut butter, which they do. lol. 

Today we finished our Flat Stanley video and shared it with the group. Hope and I stayed late yesterday and put all the video in order and made a few edits, so today we just had to make some more edits and add music. We had some trouble with file type for the music, but that was finally resolved, and we had trouble producing the video. Thankfully, Dr. "B" came to the rescue and fixed our issue. I was very proud of my group's work and thought the video turned out pretty cute!

Day TWELVE

Today we learned how to create a recorded presentation. I think that I might use to incorporate dialog audio for the students to hear during class presentations. I already have a PowerPoint that i found that has some audio on it, but I didn't know how to make my own. I also think that it would be possible to make a presentation for a substitute to show in class.

We started learning how to make a movie using "Flat Stanley". We are supposed to make a movie about Stanley using our phones to video. I am in a group with Hope, the other Spanish teacher, and Holly, a history teacher. We decided to combine our subject areas by making Stanley an exchange student from Spain who is coming to get a master's in history here at Mississippi State.

Dr. Lee showed us how to make a WebQuest yesterday, so today we continued working on that. Our webquest is a about sports in Spanish speaking countries. We want the students to learn about sports that are not the average sport you play at school here in the United States. We had some trouble with the website so we were not able to submit it in time. Hopefully we will be able to resolve those issues soon so I can post a link to the WebQuest here.

Day THIRTEEN

Today we learned about to create a story banner using Adobe Spark. I made the banner below that I am using in my Canvas page, and I thought it would be good to add to my website.

We then meet with Dr. B to learn about to edit and make movies in Camtasia. This helped prepare us to worked on our Flat Stanley video. Unfortunately, my group did not get very far so we will have to finish everything in the class tomorrow.

After lunch (which consisted of a whirlwind trip to Chick-fil-a in the rain--so glad they have the app that lets you order ahead!), we worked on our art project. I continued cutting and cutting.. Cutting out the snake was the most time consuming part. I then cut some glass to use in my project. I can't wait to see all of the pieces come together on this project--pun intended.

Dr. Lee showed us a lot of awesome and useful features of Canvas! I was blown away to know that I can already create a free one for my class. I really liked the rubric feature that allows you to click on the points the student earned and it totals everything up for you. I think that if I can start using Canvas then my grading and planning time would be much much easier! Such a useful skill to teach at this workshop.

Day ELEVEN

Today was a technology day! We learned about using Canvas. I really would like to try using a site like Canvas because it would really help with keeping me and my students on track--especially for if students miss class! They could just go to canvas and see what the assignments are and I could upload any materials that they might need. I especially like the recording and discussion board feature which would be exceptionally useful for a foreign language class because I could have them speak to me in Spanish and listening to me or each other speaking in the language. Also it would be less pressure for students to speak this way as they would be able to in their own time and privacy of their own homes.

We then learned copyright guidelines. This made me want to be more careful about what I purchase on Teachers Pay Teachers! I am sure that I have already purchased PowerPoints with pictures that have been taken without permission.

Art was fun and challenging today. I really thought a lot about patience with learning something new. There was a lot of complaining going on about cutting out the shapes. I admit that I wanted to join in, but I kept thinking about how we expect our students to do work for us and trust us while we're teaching something that may seem difficult, so we need to be able to do the same ourselves. And I also thought about how God works in my life and chips away pieces that "don't belong", in our lives to make us into his desired "shape". Just like it's tempting to just cut the shape out without slowly taking away the pieces that don't belong on our art project, it's tempting to try to be what we think God wants us to do without letting him take away the sin and things that aren't part of his will. So in all the art project was a good exercise for me, and I look forward do slowing cutting away tomorrow as well.

Day NINE

Today has been great for me. I was hanging on to every word during the first session. I really found Dr. Huang's session on Engaging Your Students: Principals & Techniques so relevant to me. Writing lesson plans has been such a struggle for me. I have so new to teaching and I do not have anyone else in my content area to work with and get ideas from that I have been feeling like I'm lost. Every time I turn in lesson plans it's a battle of trying to figure out what I'm teaching, how I'm going to teach it, what I'm supposed to put in the lesson plans, and I get so bogged down with all the factors that I spend far to much time planning. I work on plans and then get to school not knowing what I'm doing. I do things and don't know what the big idea is. So learning about backwards design and going through the steps of backwards design really helped give me straight guidelines and simplified everything so I could see purpose.
I also saw how easy it is for me to expect my students to know things when I went over it, but I haven't given them a chance to really learn. I liked Dr. Huang's example of the Chess Board Memory. When the pieces made sense with the game, the Grand Master could remember a lot, but if it didn't have any order to it, the Grand Master and the Novice did just as bad. I saw that I need to help my students see the purpose for what they are learning so it is more meaningful and therefore easier for them to learn and retain.

Day TEN

Today we started the day with art. My project has been coming along but much slower than the others--might be due to the fact I have THIRTY shapes! Anyways I was able to finish tracing my shapes and thankfully Angie helped me cut out the pieces and Holly helped me glue (with only two mins remaining in class)! I was so thankful because at least the glue will be dry and I'll be able to move forward on the project. I really want this to turn out good so I can display it.

After art, Dr. Beriswell showed us some very useful tricks for making board games for our classes. I was very grateful because I'm always looking for games and activities for specific topics and can't always find what I need. Now I can CREATE MY OWN!

We talked about Gamification. I really didn't know what that meant before. I assumed that it was about incorporating games into your classroom, but Mr. Putnam talked about how it has nothing to do with playing games in the class, but it's about taking those things that students like about games and making THAT part of your class. Like the ability to "play again" and make higher on a level. Or the excitement of achieving something. Or the mystery and discovery of "clues". I am not sure how I will implement Gamification to my classroom because I'm not sure I have a great grasp on what it is. I will however try out several of the apps and websites he recommended and see if I can find a way to make my classroom more exciting for students.

Today we went to the TK (Technology and Disability) Martin center here on campus. I really enjoyed learning all they do with using technology to help student with disabilities. It was unbelievable to see one of the teachers using one of the communication device. She was able to control the computer by moving her head only! It's so exciting to see how students who used to get left out of education are able to become independent learners through the advancements in technology.

Day EIGHT

Today we talked about backward design. I have to admit when I saw we would be talking about lesson plans today I cringed because I have had such terrible experiences with lesson planning. But Dr. Huang did a phenomenal job taking away that dread and fear with her teaching and positivity. She also made me feel like she really understands the struggle of lesson planning. I liked how she took time to listen to problems the teachers personally had with lesson planning and was honest about what she could and could not help with. I loved her activity that had us create a lesson plan for a nutrition lesson. That helped me so much with understanding the different parts of the lesson plan template. I get so confused about the differences between "understandings", "essential questions", etc. and doing the lesson plan on a topic we all knew something about helped me understand the process better.  I also thought the Immediate Feedback Assessment Tool and think it would be a great tool to use for my Introduction to Spanish class. I specifically think it would be good to use for the lesson on Why learn  foreign language and in my animal unit for the Animal sounds lesson.

Loved how today was about so much culture! We got to speak with a teacher in India via skype. That was so cool getting to see the similarities and differences between the culture and the school systems. Also I loved hearing Dr. Huang talk about China and go through her picture tour. I think it is important for teachers to know something about many other cultures, especially with there being students from those cultures because it helps us understand the people better by knowing the differences in their cultures.

Day SEVEN

I liked the time line activity. I can see myself doing it for my class in relation to ancient civilizations in the "New World", Spain history,  and when the two came together with Columbus and the  Spanish conquistadors.

I really enjoyed hearing about the native american history. Dr. Timmerman was a great speaker and really helped me see a lot of stereotypes that I grew up with that I did not even realize were stereotypes. I liked his advice for when and how to teach native american history in the schools by teaching during Native American history month (November), on Columbus Day, and Thanksgving Day. I think he had good advice to go to a local tribe and teach that history rather than continuing the stereotypical image of an "indian".

Day SIX - week 2

Today we got to go to the Geo-science building and look at the geology museum. We did a scavenger hunt to answer 12 questions about the history and geology of Mississippi. I as surprised with how much content was in the museum! I really enjoyed seeing all the artifacts. I found the scavenger hunt's questions were rather hard to answer. I think it would have been easier if the cases were marked and we knew which questions went with which cases since there was SO MUCH in each case it was hard to find what you needed for the question.

We started our art project today. We were asked to research and find an image that goes with our subject area that had "good shapes" to it. I had a hard time deciding on an image because I had a lot of ideas. I finally chose to do the code of arms for Mexico. It will be a challenge I think.

I really enjoyed the last session because we spent two hours just looking for and playing games we could use in class. I really appreciate Hope sharing some websites she uses! I plan to incorportate many of these into my class. I favorite is Quizizz! I think I'll use it for makeup assignments and homeworks in addition to class activities. https://quizizz.com/admin/quiz/start_new/58177beaf606e8ad6e781a67

Other cool websites:
http://www.digitaldialects.com/iPad/Spanish.htm
https://lyricstraining.com/play/selena-y-los-dinos/como-la-flor/HMdGuRFlFM#a7w
http://www.myspanishgames.com/Spanish-games.html
http://www.myspanishgames.com/Spanish-games.html

Day FIVE

Today we learned how to make a website through Weebly.com. I am making my website so my students and their parents can have information about me and the class, and to provide resources to help them with vocabulary practice and grammar concepts. I'm also using the website to answer any questions the parents or students my have about the class and providing information on the importance of foreign language learning. I'm looking forward to working on the website and getting it ready to share with my students and their parents when school starts back.
Link to my new website: www.senoraricks.weebly.com

Before lunch we heard from different teachers in the workshop who shared about the technology access and policies for their school. It was interesting hearing about the resources each school has and think about the possibilities we could have in our district. But in my opinion, you have to think about the demographics of you school before you decide what type of technology to implement. After lunch we had a speaker from the Madison county school district who is in charge of the technology.

Our last session of the day was on the importance of Visual Design. The elements we talked about were color, line, position, shape, size and style (font and texture).  This information will be helpful in improving my website.

Day THREE

First session today we "mined" using a cookie. We had to buy "land" (cookies) and tools (toothpick/paperclips). This was a lot of fun! I think it would be a great activity to help students use critical thinking skills and match skills.

Session two: PowerPoint basics and beyond. I already knew most of the things we talked about, but it was great to brush up on the basics. I did like how we learned to write our text in the notes panel to speed up the process! Also it was good to learn how to make your own slide designs because I couldn't remember how to do that.

Session three: Google Maps and Google Earth. This was SOOOOOO cool! I did not know that you can make your own google.map! I made one about my life during the tutorial. I was able to make different layers on the map and edit the icons. I think it would be fun to show this on the first week of class to let my students get to know me, and maybe i could have them do a project with it as well.
I also learned some things I didn't know about google earth! I found out how to go into the 360 photos that google earth has all over the world. I really would like to show some of those images in my class especially some neat ones I found in Puerto Rico. We may not be able to really travel there, but it's fun to virtually travel and would give the students a better understanding of where places are and what they look like from a "street view".

Session four: We did a reading activity in which we read a passage and chose a sentence that we liked. We then wrote that sentence on a strip of paper and worked within a group to arrange our sentences in a order to write a "poem". It turned out to be a really fun activity! I think I would use this because I saw value in looking for "important" sentences and being able to see what the point of a passage is about. Our group came up with a pretty cool poem I must say haha.

Day FOUR

Today we had a field trip to the Red Hills Mine here in Mississippi! I did not even know that we mined coal here. It was an awesome experience. Before going on this trip, when I thought of "coal mines" I thought about October Sky and they dark, loud, dangerous conditions of the mines and how the workers would get sick and a children growing up in a "mining town" were destined to be miners and had little opportunity to "get out. I also thought about a movie (The Littlest Horse Thieves) about mining ponies that were used to move the coal out of the mines before things were mechanized.
I really enjoyed getting to ride the bus and see the actual process of the mining. One thing, that I did not realize is how they have a reclamation process to restore the land they have mined to the original state or better. They even will put streams/creeks back! This particular group had earned an award for their work on a stream because they did such a great job restoring it. We drove through some of the land they had already reclaimed and you could not even tell that it had been mined! It really helped me see how the mining industry is not a negative thing that I usually think of. Though it is a hard job still, it is not nearly as scary and dangerous as it used to be.

I'm not sure how I could connect today's trip to my Spanish class. I did think about how when the Spanish conquered the "New World" they mined the land of it's gold and silver. I found a reading on this topic,so maybe if my students did the field trip we could read about the Spanish mining the New World to connect it to the class.
http://mygeologypage.ucdavis.edu/cowen/~gel115/115ch8.html

I really enjoyed going on the field trip. The staff did a great job teaching about the mining process and making it an enjoyable experience. I also liked the chance to get to know my fellow classmates better by doing the activity and of course the van ride!

Day TWO

I've really enjoyed today! I LOVE looking at maps and learning about other places, so geography is so fascinating to me. I didn't really learn a lot about it in school myself, so it was fun to learn about. I definitely think that I can use a lot of the websites and activities we discussed in my classroom--especially for upper level classes. If nothing else, just getting students familiar with maps and comparing the US to other countries I think is very valuable. I really enjoyed looking at different maps that show the world based on various factors (poverty, population, etc.) Just something crazy I learned from one of these websites (https://www.undispatch.com/human-trafficking-map/ )
I couldn't help but notice how the US is one of the only countries that only IMPORTS for sex trafficking. 

Activities we did:
Lined up by color to represent the climates of the earth. 
Getting to know your class investigation. Made a hypothesis, wrote a question to ask others in the room to collect data, displayed the data in a chart and shared our conclusions/results. 
Other cool websites I really enjoyed using related to geography : 
https://www.forbes.com/special-report/2011/migration.html  
http://www.populationpyramid.net/africa/2005/ 

Session two we learned the basics of using Excel. I definitely needed to brush up on my Excel skills, and it was very cool looking at excel from a teacher's perspective since I have only viewed it as a "hypothetical situation" or from my own student perspective in the past. 


After lunch, we heard from a Grad student on the Civil Rights movement and using technology to teach the Civil Rights movement. I really liked how he brought out the local history of the Civil Rights and gave awesome resources to use in the classroom. 

We concluded with analyzing political cartoons. I had never done this and found that quite fascinating. I would like to find some political cartoons related to hispanic hisotry, and even immigration to show students and see if they think the cartoons are portrayed well/persuasive. 

Day ONE

Day one has been pretty good. It was mostly introductions, getting to know the staff and other teachers. We did not get to do our MSU campus tour today due to rain, but that did give us extra time to get parking decals and have a longer lunch break. After lunch we went to the library and learned about the MAGNOLIA database. That was pretty neat to see the resources specific to teachers. I had used the database before as a student, so it was helpful to see it again through a teacher's viewpoint. One really cool thing we learned is that you can actually access old MSU yearbooks via this database! I can't wait to try to look up my parents yearbook later. Back in the IED building, we then looked at standards. I did not realized until now that I should be incorporating ISTE standards and ELA standards in addition to the Mississippi Foreign language standards. I enjoyed collaborating with the other Spanish teacher to come up with an activity to incorporate all three standards to the same activity. I found that very helpful as I learn a lot bouncing ideas with another foreign language teacher--which does not happen a lot unfortunately. We all shared our ideas with the group.

Cool websites I learned about today:
https://piktochart.com/
www.powtoon.com
www.storyboardthat.com