Be the change…

I wrote a post months ago about using Skype so that absent students did not miss out on what happened in class.  Here is proof of how well it works!

Here is a video of another student absent from class that wanted to be a part of a fun day in Spanish class.  So we Skyped her in and sat her at her regular table.  Our adorable Fe had a sore neck and could not come to school, but she wanted to participate in our class auction.  We earn different currencies from Spanish-speaking countries for participating ONLY in Spanish during class.  We also lose money when English is spoken.  Our money is saved until the end of each trimester when we get to spend it on items brought in by other students and crafts that I sell them from Mexico, Guatemala and Spain.  I get these from Teacher’s Discovery.  Enjoy the video!  It is six minutes long.

One of my wonderful students sent me an email yesterday morning, here it is:

Hi Senora B.
Have you ever heard of Kiva. If not Kiva is a cite where you lend money to buisnesses. My aunt gave me 50 dollars to spend on Kiva for my birthday. You get the money back when the entrapanuer (that is probably not how to spell it) pays you back. I donated half of my money to a person in Peru. I wanted to share this with you because it mentions the currency in her own summary of why she needs the money. I thought you might be interested.

Now, truth be told, I had used Kiva once over the holidays to donate (as a gift) on behalf of my mother-in-law.  I never thought to mention this site to my students or that they might mention it to me.  How amazing is this child that I get to teach?

Kiva was talked about on Oprah (which is the only reason I was aware of it) but I am just absolutely in AWE of my young student who is aware enough and loving enough to seek and reach out to others on her own.  Below is the woman that my student chose to donate to.  We have just begun to earn Peruvian Soles this trimester for class participation (we change currencies every trimester and learn about the country) and are about to learn a bit about the Peru tomorrow in class. I don’t know why this darling student chose to donate to this Peruvian woman, but she inspired me to do the same!  And what a CHANGE this little bit might make in this woman’s life and my own!

And here is a bit about the woman that my student and I donated to:

Elena is a member of the Virgen de Lujan Communal Bank. It is located in the Tinicachi district, Yunguyo province, Puno department. Elena is 48 years old, single, and has two children (one is independent). She has a first grade education.

She has been working with the Movimiento Manuela Ramos for six years. Her first loan was for 300 soles, and she invested it in her business. She sells handmade items and domestic animals.

She will use the requested loan of 3,000 soles to buy 20 pieces of woven cloth, a pig, and a sheep. She also says that she farms. She grows potatoes, beans, corn, and oats. She works alone.

Her dream is to grow her business. She likes the meetings and the punctuality.

DONATE!  Elena has almost reached her goal!
http://www.kiva.org/lend/282529

This is a QUICK POST…just something that was so noteworthy!

On Friday, one of my students was traveling to Connecticut.  She told me that she was not going to be here in class and asked if we would Skype her in to class because she said she would be at the hotel with her parents during our Spanish time.  I, of course, said SURE that we would Skype her in and sit her at her table where she usually sits.  So on Friday I was using a great website that Lauren Rosen introduced me to called Poll Everywhere.  It allows you to take a poll and text in your results and you can watch it real time on the Smart Board as the answers come in.

I use it with my 8th graders because I really need to change things up and do different things to keep them interested after listening to me teach them Spanish for NINE years and (they truly do not really enjoy much of anything in class because they are so ready to get outta this school where they have almost all been for NINE years) usually using their mobile phones in class MIGHT keep them a bit interested.  So they were texting in their answers to a book activity we had done and it seemed to keep them interested….meanwhile one of my students was receiving text updates from the student who wanted to be Skyped in from Connecticut.  She was not able to get her lap top working or something or Skype not working so she asked if they could use FACE TIME on their iPhone 4 (yes, both of my 8th grade students happen to have iPhone 4s).  So they go on FACE TIME and she was able to be in class with her parents in the background attempting to speak Spanish.  Her parents were so funny speaking Spanish and coming in and out of the video…it was so great!  My students are so wonderful that they made this happen!  I had nothing to do with it!  I wish I had video of it to share.  I have a 3GS and have been wondering if I need to spend the money to get a 4…..I am now convinced that YES.  I want one!

My 6th graders had their first Skype call to Mexico.  We spoke with a school in Mexico City called Jules Verne School.  It seems like such an interesting school.  They are learning English of course and we are learning Spanish.  It is grade preschool-7th grade I believe so that match couldn’t have been any more perfect!  My school is K-8.  I cannot wait to speak with them again with different age groups!

My 6th graders have spoken to an English teacher Greta Sandler in Argentina earlier this school year and they have been so excited to talk to other students!  We finally got to do this last Tuesday.  It was fun to watch the Mexican 6th grade students!  They were so excited and all huddled in front of the screen.  Some of my students were actually freaked out and being SHY.  I could not believe it.  I had to really coax them into introducing themselves.

I made this connection on Twitter and am so grateful for Mayus Chavez.  She is the principal at Jules Verne School and so open-minded and willing to really give this Skype thing a TRY!  Because that is what all of this 21st Century learning tools are….a TRY.  You have to give it all a try and try again until you find what works.  The call did not go perfectly of course, but what ever does?  🙂  It was such a great experience and this is going to be such a wonderful experience for our students!  Enjoy the video!

This post will be short and sweet and have nothing to do with education, my students, teaching nor me…

It is about my father-in-law and his experience with really good people today.  It restored my love and faith in all the people around me.  I know there are good people everywhere, but I just need a reminder sometimes.

My father-in-law lives six hours away from us in Wisconsin.  He has been finishing our basement for us this whole week and noticed he needed to have some thing on his car repaired.  He took it to a small repair shop about 15 minutes away and had no way to get back to our house because we were both working.  SO he asked a random guy who was also waiting for a repair to be done on his car to drive him to our house.  The guy said sure and drove him here.

My father-in-law had no way of returning to pick up his car before 5:00 while we were at work and called all the cab companies, but no one would come pick him up.  So he went on the slightly busy country road we live off of and put out his thumb.  He waited less than two minutes and the third car he saw picked him up.  (Now, I must say here that he did not HAVE TO do this, I could have driven him the next day, but when he gets an idea in his head to do something…there is no stopping him.)

There was an elderly man driving the truck with a black lab in the back seat.  He told my father-in-law that he hitch-hiked to Florida from where we live back in 1963.  He hadn’t seen a hitchhiker in years and was excited to pick up my father-in-law and help him.

There really ARE good people everywhere!  My father-in-law encountered two wonderful strangers in one day.

I have been so impressed with the student’s innate ability to just DO anything I ask them to do involving technology.  In one class period they were able to begin their own students blogs embed videos in their posts and embed their very own Vokis.

Today I showed my students how Edmodo works to see if they might be interested in using it rather than the emailing we have been doing and they were super pumped and LOVING it!

But there was just one flop today…  I told them they had they whole period today to write in Spanish about ANY THING they wanted to write about in one post on their blogs.  I told them they could write about football, the oscars, Eminem, Ke$ha, baseball…anything and anything they wanted to write about.  They asked how long it had to be.  I said as long as you want so that I can tell you put effort into it and tried your best.  They asked how many pictures they had to have.  I said as many as you want or none at all.  This is your post.  I told them about hyperlinking the text if they wanted to (they already knew how) and we started a Google Doc so that if they did not know how to say something I wrote it on the Google Doc and they added it to their blogs.  I was so excited to read them later because their other posts where I had required them to do certain things “for a grade” were so great!  I thought for sure these would be great too because it is theirs, no limits, no requirements, just them writing about what they want to.

I was so disappointed in SOME of their posts, but others were FABULOUS.  One student actually wrote that he likes steak and followed up with saying that some day he will go to Mars and see aliens.  Another student wrote that he likes mangos because they are juicy.  Another student actually wrote in Spanish, “I am typing in Spanish” that was his post.  Another wrote, I am tired, I need to sleep.  Oh MY!  They seemed engaged in what they were doing.  They seemed as if they were on task working and that was what the produced in 40 minutes?  Oh boy.  I guess I need to give them requirements from now on!  So sad! I don’t want to give them expectations nor tell them what they will be graded on.  I just want them to produce.  Maybe I have high expectations, but I thought these posts would be GREAT, not a FLOP.  Sad face  😦

Here are some of the fabulous posts:

This particular students never disappoints me.  Her work is always fabulous.  Here is a link to her post because a screen shot won’t cover all that she accomplished!

I have been at a workshop for two whole days!  It has been heaven!  I love learning new things.  It brings back my excitement to do what I do!

I’m so spoiled that I got to spend two days learning along with other teachers.  My school district allows me to do so really whenever I please.  I am truly spoiled to be able to do this. I’ve been at the ICE (Illinois Computing Educators) conference.  I have been learning and practicing what I love…”computing”.

But since I have been gone from my classroom for two whole days, that means I wrote sub plans for seven different classes for two whole days, grades K-8!  I am a perfectionist/control freak so this has always been a daunting task for me.  I simply try too hard.  I write too much or leave too much work or not enough or confuse the sub or whatever.  It has never been easy to leave my classroom in someone else’s hand.

It has always been a challenge for me to write sub plans for any period of time because usually my substitute teachers DO NOT speak Spanish and I always had to just leave movies in the past, or left things that had nothing to do with what the students were learning…or just busy work that they would get nothing out of…

But technology and 21st Century learning has changed ALL of that!

While I have been out of my classroom, my students have been learning and producing so many wonderful things!  Here are their new blog posts that I simply emailed them instructions in an email with screen shots of what the screen should look like and check out what they accomplished!

My 7th grade rock star bloggers can be seen here!

My 8th graders rocked their blogs as well!

I explained to them in videos and emails how to embed Vokis and video into their blogs, we went over Quality Commenting thanks to Silvia Tolisano and a great video she shared with me, they created Animoto videos and posted those to their blogs, they all went CRAZY with the comments and really, truly enjoyed themselves commenting on each other’s work appropriately and with such kindness and appreciation for one another.  I was amazed!

I was not physically present for any of this and look at what they created!  My substitute (who did not speak any Spanish) was there present as a warm body in the room to supervise.  I was chatting on Skype while at my conference with a sick student, I emailed back and forth with I think EVERY one of them, commented on their blogs, moderated their work and comments, corrected and created a Google Doc with my 6th graders, chatted on the Google Doc answering their questions …and so much more!

I was not physically present, but present in many other ways for them while learning new things myself at the conference!  What a wonderful educational experience for me and for my students.  All these 21st Century Tools and the ease of technology have made my job and my students’ jobs so much easier and so much more enjoyable.

I will sign off with a chat I had on Skype with a 7th grade student after my first day away…

So they actually “LIKE” what we are doing in class!  So much so that my email inbox has been flooded with questions and comments!