Blog+Full

My blog in full.
//I came to MATSL with an open mind but I wasn't even close to knowing where it would take me. I wasn't sure what technology and literacies had to do with one another but I planned to find out. I had created a website in what I thought was supporting student learning in the past. My web site was created in a two day school-wide training. I had all of my lessons posted, in order, by dragging and pasting the contents of a word document onto the site. There were many links to other websites that had interactive learning tools but the site that I maintained did not link my ideas with design. It just linked everything I did – it was messy!//

//I am much more aware now that everything must be purposeful from the words I chose, the types of questions I ask, the wait time I allow and the opportunities I create for my students. Although I knew that the human mind was rich, complex and physically adept at noticing the subtleties of our complex bodylangua, I was not providing students with opportunities to notice (or identify) the design features that are imbedded in the cultures of the Spanish speaking countries we were “studying”. I was teaching students phrases, clauses and structure within the language while ignoring the other design elements that bring the culture alive and make it possible to truly understand a culture. I wasn’t connecting or knowing how to connect how I was teaching with what I truly wanted students to know. I was not using the “dynamic representational resources” that digital technologies and content based instruction afford. I now know how to connect the activities I choose (and design) and the way I teach with the concepts and understandings I desire for my students. I understand that using texts that are authentic not only immerses students in the language and the nuances of the language’s prosody but it also gives students ways to build identities through the exposure to (and analysis of) the bodylangua that is not teachable but rather experiential. My blog are a representation of what I learned and how I learned it.//