My first experience at #ISTE2015 was, in one word, awesome! I learned about so many neat tools, met some amazing educators and walked away from this conference feeling excited for the start of the new school year- even though it is only July!
Today, I would like to share with World Language folks, some of the best tools & tricks I learned about that can help enhance a language-learning journey. I did also tweet out ideas using #langchat and #ISTE2015 throughout the conference.
Get global!
#ISTE2015 kicked off on Sunday with Global Education Day. With an array of forward thinking, innovative educators, I was mesmerized by their creativity and determination to create global connections with classrooms from all around the world. As World Language teachers, this is a natural win-win for our discipline. Not only do we make the use of the target language truly authentic but we create a real sense of purpose in learning how to communicate in a different language by helping to form new friendships. The hashtag #globaled15 was used to share all things Global Ed on Sunday. Also, this Google Document allowed educators to organize and break out into their own roundtable discussions. I attended another session focused around “The Global Classroom Project” which shared tips and ideas in which teachers connect with other classrooms. The founder & CEO of Pen Pal Schools, Joe Troyen (@joetroyen1) was present and shared his website with all for free use! In addition this site to connect, recommendations were also made for using Skype in the Classroom, Google Hangouts/Communities, Twitter, Tackk’s Global Connections, Digital Promise Global, If You Learned Here, 7 billion Others and many more!
The mind-blowing world of Google
I have always loved the simplicity and ease of Google Drive and all things related to Google. The GAFE Summit/EdTech Team and Google for Education sessions were where I found myself hopping in between and trying to sneak in as much as I could! Big kudos to Monica Martinez and James Sanders for the multiple, thought provoking sessions on how we can explore Google education tools & apps. Some neat Google creations include: The Google Art Project, Google Expeditions and Build with Chrome (LEGO). I had the pleasure of also seeing Rick Kiker’s session and must share his Google Dashboard. Listening to and learning from all of these educators, has inspired me to obtain a Google certification. Thanks to Google’s updated Training Center, I can finally work towards achieving this goal! 🙂
Formative Assessments- Woah!
Continuous formative assessments are key for both students and teachers. There were so many neat tech tools to help educators collect data and see student growth! Here is my list, feel free to add your own!
A Web Whiteboard: An easy way to gather feedback, my students use expo markers and write their responses on a page protector with a white sheet of paper inside. These were our “whiteboards” and although, low tech, worked fantastically! If you are one to one in your classroom and want to use that same idea but electronically, check out a web whiteboard!
GoFormative: Want to see all of your students responding, simultaneously, on the same screen? And then…give them feedback right away? Check out GoFormative soon, this is one tool I would love to use with students.
Socrative: With an updated look, Socrative aims to deliver with their quick assessment tools. Space Race happens to be a crowd favorite!
EduCanon: Still one of my personal favorites for embedding written or audio questions into a video. Use any Youtube URL or upload your own!
Kahoot! : Another crowd favorite- a neat way to game-a-fy your approach to assessment! Already developed Kahoot!s let teachers and students share with each other!
Kaizena: Give audio comments to your students through Google!
Vocaroo: Looking to get audio feedback from your students quickly, this site lets you do that in three simple steps! Record, label, send!
Another #ISTE Highlight~#langchat-ing in person!
I was attending ISTE this year for the first time and wanted to connect with other World Language folks, so I went to Twitter! After a few tweets and direct messages, we organized an in person #langchat at El Vez! It was enriching, fun and collaborative! It was great to meet @theprofspage, @c2westy, @jmattmiller, @NZKLawrence all in person!
What’s next?
As the summer continues, I have on my agenda:
-Attend #langcamp to connect with great WL educators!
-Learn through the Google Training Center!
-Attend NTPRS in Reston, VA soon!
-Continue to plan the first #edcampWL in Piscataway, NJ on Saturday, Sept. 26th! If you happen to reading my blog, check the @edcampWL twitter account for the website & registration details!
sites.google.com/site/edcampwl/
-And, continue to plan for another great school year! 🙂
For all of my #ISTE2015 notes, I used a Google Doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PxyZe5umtWqyVJxuHSZXP8o5BRHN7W-sT9YkWgftQVE/edit?usp=sharing
*WiFi was unfortunately not working at certain times, so more updates to come on the above Google document.
These are great ideas, Noemi. Merci! So glad that you were able to get to ISTE. I’m hoping to make it next year. In the meantime, I appreciate your sharing these highlights.
Gracias and merci for sharing all of these great ways to improve out students’ learning through technology! I hope to attend ISTE in the future!
Another list of amazing resources! Thank you so much for sharing!