Conclusion

=**In conclusion...**=

 I have designed blog entries with hyperlinks, tweeted and used hashtags within a tweet, explored Flickr, webquests and wikispaces and created thoughtful activities guided by my essential question. Four weeks ago I was researching terms on-line so that when I arrived to technology class I would at least know what everyone was referring to. I feel comfortable using tumblr, twitter I can see how I would incorporate these technologies in my classes when it is an affordance to my lesson.  I have come to understand that thoughtful use of technology can support student learning by giving them access to authentic texts in the L2. Exposing students to authentic materials such as a news cast from Spain provides them with many more design features than I could incorporate in my classroom without them. When students are immersed in these authentic experiences they are not only presented with new linguistic forms and accents but also with the subtleties of gestures, personal space, and less subtle design forms such as dress and landscape. These are important aspects of the culture that are easier “experienced” than discussed. In learning about other identities and ways of doing things, students gain perspective on what is cultural rather than what may be considered different. Awareness of these differences and identities build on student’s repertoire when negotiating meaning in other formats. Students begin to think critically. The key to all of these digital literacies is providing a way in which students can stand back and reflect on what they have taken in. They must assimilate meaning before transforming it.

 As I have learned through my experience here, a community of thinkers is an integral part of negotiating for meaning and finding understanding. As one individual begins to share ideas and thoughts, another considers what has been said and may “muck about” to determine meaning. Discourse around a communal topic will inevitably offer different perspectives and a new “twist” on what the others may have previously thought. What I have gained in the classroom and out has been a result of a carefully crafted process that is contingent upon the community of thinkers.

As a result of this class I have learned the validity of rethinking what is often taken for granted or assumed to be universal understandings. I have learned to step back, analyze, reflect and re-see literacy as much more than reading and writing. As social beings we interact with each other, ideas and texts all of which shape our experience give us perspective and create new ideas, perspective...and context? As a middle school teacher, I can say, we have been looking at technology as more of a constraint rather than designing it to be an affordance.I look forward to using the tools from MATSL and taking advantage of the authentic texts at our disposal. I am excited, I will be taking an entirely different approach to the way I teach this year. I will be using materials from this my content class and the unit which I have developed here.

 //It is hard to put into words all that I have learned in the last three weeks.I came here very uncomfortable with digital technology. Personally I don’t like to have my name “out there” in cyberspace.As a teacher I have always felt guilty about showing my class a video even though it was an appropriate way to provide them with images of a country we were studying.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.Students had “no excuses” to not do their work – it was all there…along with the rest of the curriculum.I have been a traditional teacher (although I didn’t see it that way!).I felt as though I needed to control the class including the types of conversations we would have.If students got “off topic” I would intervene and redirect them.I felt as though I had to be talking or leading activities in order for students to be learning.I’m almost sure the majority of my questions were divergent ones.I wonder now if I had any wait time at all after kids spoke. I tried to get kids to think about the bigger picture but I had no idea what picture that was.I taught the language with what I thought was a “bigger idea”, I used UBD and backward design although my essential questions changed from theme to theme, there was no connection between units. I attended many “new” foreign language method training.I used TPRS for a while after a few professional developments but it wasn’t getting the kids to where I wanted them to be or where I knew they could be.I was looking for something new in my approach –I knew that this couldn’t be the right way to teach a language because what good was it doing my students to conjugate verbs correctly and remember that adjectives have to agree in gender and number when they weren’t able to communicate? //

 //Welcome to Bennington! //  //This is tough!I’ve been tired and frustrated and confused and writing and thinking and writing about thinking and trying to figure out what I am actually thinking and how any of this makes sense for…and then I’m finishing up with my lessons and my rationale and the e-portfolio and I’m suddenly understanding what Carol was talking about when she said “trust the process”. //

 //And now I’m looking back at the opening paragraph (for this conclusion) that I worked on this afternoon while I still hadn’t finished my rationale and here is what I started with: //

 //And I was __stuck__! I read it, it sounded o.k. but I didn’t buy it.I had to put it down.I needed to work on my rationale which was a pain because when I actually went back to write I had to answer all of those questions; why I chose what I chose, how that would help the student,what kind of evidence I expected, what that might look like, how that might sound, was that the best way, did it did it tie back to my essential question, did it fill the 4 design principles by the New London group, would it provide students with a community of thinkers,…and it didn’t always.And then I had to go back.I had to change the activity because now I realized that wasn’t the best place for that activity or that I really hadn’t considered the fact that what I was really wanting out of the kids and what I had designed in order for them to get there really wasn’tthe same thing.Once I reexamined my essential question, I was right on task again and I could move forward again. //

 //As a result of this class I have learned the validity of rethinking what is often taken for granted or assumed to be universal understandings.I have learned to step back, analyze, reflect and re-see literacy as much more than reading and writing.As social beings we interact with each other, ideas and texts all of which shape our experience give us perspective and create new ideas, perspective...and context?As a middle school teacher, I can say, we have been looking at technology completely backwards!What kind of illiterate future will our students have if we don’t prepare them for it? Now, having rationalized all the criteria for the evaluation activity that I designed using the Guernica 3D movie I know that by not providing our students with the digital technologies that meet the criteria, follow our essential questions and support a community of thinkers, we are doing our students a disservice.I use the Guernica 3D example because it is an incredible tool to use to explore the painting.The small photo in my textbook provides no stimulation or feeling. I am looking forward to teaching with all of the tools that I got here. I’m excited to teach the unit that I created and to share with others. //

<span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -10000px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 0px; width: 1px;"> //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">This course offers students opportunities to explore relationships between digital communication technologies, literacies, and second language learning. Wikis, blogs, chat, e-mail, and social networking as well as commercial technologies such as Flickr and Youtube are analyzed as both the means and the context for communication in ways that sponsor new views of what language is, what it affords, and how second languages can be taught and learned in context. Theoretical knowledge, technical training and hands-on exercises link technology, literacies, and language for education. //

<span style="display: block; height: 1px; left: -10000px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; top: 0px; width: 1px;"> //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> This course equips teachers to rethink and redeisgn relationships between people, content, and context with a view to both understanding and transforming classroom practices for students’ benefit. Creating communities of thinkers about the place of digital technology in the teaching and learning of foreign languages is the focus for this course. //