E-Portfolios

 When I first began my teaching career I had created a physical teaching portfolio which consisted of a binder organized into the work that I had done. A lot has changed and now my portfolio is digital! If you'd like to check it out click HERE. I have restricted access turned on, so if you click the link I will have to okay you before it will allow you access. Although my portfolio is digital, I still wanted the privacy and control that I get with the current settings I chose.

I created my e-portfolio using Google Sites. I found it to be user-friendly, accessible from any device, and I have peace of mind that it automatically saves my work. 

Assistive Technology

 Assistive technology has made a big impact on my students' school day and my instructional practices. Due to the fact that there is only one ELL teacher (me) for all of our elementary ELL population, I am not always right there to support my students. One way I found to help classroom teachers and students bridge this gap, was to introduce students to the Google Translate application. This application has several features that offer support to students when they feel they need it. The first being the ability to hover over a text and have it automatically translate to a native language. This enabled my students to "read" the directions given on independent assignments within the classroom. Students were also able to take a picture of text and select portions of that text to be read aloud to them in their native language. This feature was extremely useful for my newcomer ELL students. Many of them have limited reading skills in their native language, making the text-to-text translation somewhat useless. I also found the conversation button to be supportive for students when teacher lecture or instructions are being presented. This allowed for some of my students to understand or get a better idea of what was being said. This function allows the listener to push a button which then records what is being said in one language then converts it to the language selected in real-time. This tool would then read the translation aloud so that no reading is necessary. There are several drawbacks to this particular tool. The translations are not always accurate. Depending on the teacher's volume when speaking, their annunciation, and tempo, the device sometimes has trouble picking up what the initial speaker is saying, which in turn is mistranslated and can cause greater confusion. Another downfall is that the teacher must be aware that the translation takes a bit longer because it reads it off to the listener before picking up on the next dictation. This makes it very necessary for the speaker to be aware of their wait time between directions, or conversation. 

Throughout the two years I have implemented its use, Google Translate has different outcomes. A lot of this depends on the student's motivation to help themselves. For example, I had one student who would recognize they needed help understanding something, so they would get out their iPad and go to the Google Translate application and navigate to the tool necessary to help themself. On the other hand, I had a student who hated using the app for help because they felt that it made them stand out when all they wanted to do was fit in. I also think that this student lacked the motivation to learn at times, therefore avoided getting help so that he did not have to complete all the work. Therefore, the biggest takeaway from this being that the tools you provide are only as helpful as the user wants them to be.

Freedom!

 Allowing students the choice of how to express what they know is sometimes almost as important as what they know. In the English Language Learning (ELL) world the way that students are "allowed" to express what they know can be a handicap in truly seeing what they are capable of.

I had a student who would sometimes shut down. This student would simply put their head down and give up. It was frustrating and I couldn't figure out what to do to encourage him to become involved. I gave frequent breaks so he wouldn't be overwhelmed by all the English, but that didn't seem to be working. So, I changed my methods. I began incorporating more games into my instruction and when it came to assessment I offered my students choices of how they could express what we were learning. They could create a poster, puppet show, or any other teacher-approved project. I found that instead of assessing students by having them fill in blanks, or pick from the word bank, my students were more engaged in their learning, worked harder to accomplish work within the classroom, and offered a more comprehensive picture of their skills than would have been attainable in the form of a paper and pencil test, or even a cut and glue activity. 

If I hadn't offered choices to this particular student, I am not sure I would ever have truly seen the amount of knowledge he had, simply because he didn't feel like sharing it in the way that I initially sought it out. 

The lesson I learned was that students sometimes have many funds of knowledge we are unaware of because the path that we set out on isn't a path that leads to them. Being more student-centered and allowing students choices resulted in higher levels of engagement, student intrinsic motivation, creativity, a lower affective filter, and stronger rapport with students.

Social Media in the Classroom

 Social media in the classroom can cause quite a conversation. Decorah Community School District does allow the use of social media and other telecommunications to promote and enhance learning in the classroom. They do require employees and students to sign an acceptable use policy. 

Student Use of Social Media

One way to incorporate the use of social media into the classroom is by creating a classroom-centered account, allowing parents and family only to have access. This allows for home-school connection to occur, but still maintains some level of privacy. Many classrooms have a "star student" or one student that acts as a leader in some way for the week. This student could be in charge of posting to the social media platform throughout the week to keep followers informed of what's been happening in the classroom. 

Teacher Use of Social Media

Teachers can also be the one in command when it comes to a classroom-based social media platform. This could be how they communicate what students are learning in the classroom, as well as upcoming events to remember. I have seen teachers use their social media platform in replacement of a more traditional paper newsletter that summarizes what has been happening within the classroom. 

Game-Based Learning

 Research has shown that English language learners (ELLs) affective filters are lowered through the use of games as a learning tool (Reinders & Wattana, 2015). Given my work with ELL students, I fully support the use of game-based learning in order to teach, reinforce, and practice skills and concepts. Not only does it make learning exciting, but it offers the added possibility of collaborating and working with others. As long as a student is not playing a game independently, playing with others allows and often demands the incorporation of turn-taking, speaking, listening, strategizing, and even sportsmanship. 

Another positive of including games to teach concepts is that students are sometimes able to teach others how to play the game. This helps to build their self-confidence and also promotes their learning as well. ELL students have an additional opportunity to practice using their speaking skills to communicate with others. It can help them practice using academic-specific vocabulary. Games can promote the intrinsic motivation of student learning. The student does not expect to get anything in return for participation, except maybe the joy of playing and the gratification of winning the game. This type of motivation is important since some ELL students have reservations about learning due to their level of acculturation. 

I think it is important to be sure that students understand the main concept that you are teaching or practicing when applied in a context outside of a game-like situation. Once I have used games to strengthen or teach a skill I am careful to give students the opportunity to show their learning in a variety of contexts so that I can ensure the transfer of their knowledge is happening. If it appears that this transfer is not happening, I may work to explicitly connect what the student is doing in the game to the skill within a different context. 

Reference:

Reinders, H., & Wattana, S. (2015). Affect and willingness to communicate in digital game-based learning. ReCALL, 27(1), 38–57. https://doi-org.ezproxy.morningside.edu/10.1017/S0958344014000226

Social Bookmarking

 I had no idea this existed until I was reading for my technology class. Social bookmarking is essentially a way to easily share the webpages you bookmark, with select people, automatically! I am going to test out Diigo, which is one that my textbook shared as a free extension. I liked that it allows me to highlight on any webpage and it also allows me to make notes, and organize my bookmarks. 

So far I have been struggling to figure out how to share it with others within the extension. I am wondering if that isn't an option with the free version. 

Reference: 

 Maloy, R. W., Verock, R.-E., Edwards, S. A., & Woolf, B. P. (2017). Transforming Learning with New Technologies (3rd ed.). Pearson.

Digital Citizenship

 What is it? Digital citizenship means we use technology safely, responsibly, and appropriately. 

This is a topic that is important to teach students, especially with the growing amount of technology use by students of all ages.

Common Sense Media is one resource that has great information and lesson plans for teachers to use for teaching digital citizenship. You have to create an account, but it is free for educators. I really appreciate that this source has resources in Spanish!

To help your students learn more about how to evaluate the sources they find, I like to use this website and the CRAAP test to teach students about the reliability of their sources.

Since writing this post there have been changes to what was formerly used to evaluate sources. The CRAAP test is no longer proving to be unreliable as a way to test for reliability of sources. If you'd like to read more about this, please see my colleague's blog post here. Here is a video she shared about using the technique known as lateral reading that may be a better way to identify valid sources.