Technology in the classroom

How can I include technology in my Spanish classroom without it becoming a distraction?

This is something I ask myself every time I am planning a new lesson.

My students and I are fortunate to have a classroom where each student has a computer. This is both a blessing and a course. The attention span of a teenager is limited... add a computer to the mix and POOF! that minimal attention span disappears!

I am a huge fan of visual representations of the things we are doing in class. This visuals become conversation pieces and can lend themselves to many follow up activities. I even use them in our games! My students are also aware that I am not the best at drawing. That is where storyboardthat.com comes in!  It is a user friendly app (free for the basic features) that allows your students to create scenes and customize them!

This unit we talked about our daily routines. We had many conversations about what a person does, what we do as a group, and how we do it, etc. At the end of the unit I wanted to do something a bit different when it came to assessing their knowledge of reflexive verbs, vocab and adverbs (the other piece in our unit), as well as telling time and transition words. That is when my coworker suggested letsrecap.com! Wonderful app (free for the basic features) that allows students to record themselves.

The activity:  Select one storyboardthat.com product from one of their classmates. Project it on the screen and allow students a couple minutes to think about what they see. **No writing is allowed and no notes or textbooks are allowed ** When the timer goes off, everyone must start recording their own story about their classmate's routine.

The result: Check out some of the cool representations they created. As for the verbal responses, I was so impressed! They had finally reached a point where they could tell a story! There were fewer concerns on grammar - because they really knew it -- and they allowed themselves to tell the story while including lots of details. Since they all recoded at the same time they were not worried about their classmate's opinion.
*Downfall to using letsrecap* currently they do not have a way to download the recordings so I cannot share samples with you nor keep some favorites to share without accessing the app itself.

Grading:  I set up a simple rubric of what I was looking for in the assignment and clicked on the PLAY ALL button on my let's recap queue. Easy and fun and I am going to show some of my favorites to the class!

How do you include some technology in your classroom? Please share in the comments!

FOLLOW ME