Digital Footprints for Everyone?

no one on duty

Times are changing.  Just this past month, my principal said he is no longer opposed to social media, our secretary joined Twitter, the counseling department asked for a mini course on digital safety and there are even talks of 1:1 in the future. Fantastic news, right? Yes and no. As a building, we are starting to open our minds to the amazing possibilities of technology. However, we have LOTS to do to teach our students, teachers and parents about Digital Citizenship.  Just having the tools does not mean we know how to properly and positively use them in and out of school. I feel like Jim Steyer, of Commonsense Media,  who says that schools are often "late to the party."  We are late, very late. Educational leaders have been urging us for years to teach our students about Digital Citizenship.  Here are just five reasons why we need to teach Digital Citizenship in schools.

As part of Course Two, I thought I'd start to create and compile some resources that could move us all forward.  Who knows?  We may be late to the party but maybe in the near future we'll be hosting Digital Citizenship weeks like Los Angeles Unified School District or Yokohama International School. Or better yet, creating learning environments where becoming a global/digital citizen will be so embedded in everything we do that there will be no use for special classes, PD, curriculum or blog posts.

Until then, this first lesson was designed to be delivered during our Access period to the entire school. The learning is designed for both students and teachers. The concept of building a positive digital footprint will be just as new/scary/challenging/foreign to our students as it will be to our teachers. I'm looking forward to accessing how both groups learn and grow together.

UBD Lesson Template

Huellas Digitales

Compfight by Reza Vaziri

Huellas Digitales-Digital Footprints

I'm struggling with the desire to help my students learn about building positive huellas digitales while at the same time facilitating a Spanish class and improving levels of proficiency. Much of the language associated with Digital Citizenship is difficult to access for the level of my students. However, communicating (in more than one language) in a global society is one of the major goals for students studying additional languages. So, the topics are truly a perfect match.

I just need to backwards design a few lessons that will make our conversations on Digital Citizenship and huellas digitales more meaningful while also improving their ability to communicate in Spanish.

The plan is to:

1. Generate a list of language associated with technology to start using in class.
2. Use this poster from Edmodo.
3. Have my class of Native Speakers remix/reuse this video (alone or with partners) using voice, text (In Spanish) and their creativity to produce videos in Spanish I can share with my students learning Spanish.

Common Sense Media: Digital Footprint Intro from Joaquin E. Jutt on Vimeo.

4. Lastly, when more confident with the lingo en Español, I plan to have these older students connect with elementary students in Madrid, sharing the importance of building their huellas digitales. 

Gadgets and Widgets are Hooks for WL Classes

I've been experimenting with how to make our student blogs more interactive, communicative and personal while at the same time increasing our proficiency levels in Spanish. I thought the use of gadgets and widgets might help. Widgets are little pieces of code that run small programs on your website.  As for blogs, they are often housed in the sidebars. Widgets can run on any website while gadgets (widgets by definition) are created just for their own sites.  For example, Google Gadgets are for their site like Blogger.

Given so many choices out there, many students first chose PacMan or Donkey Kong to add to their site.  Not downplaying the choice of a game and lack of español, I then encouraged maps of Buenos Aires, weather reports, calendarios, translator programs, horoscopes, Vokis, newspapers and sports reports-ALL IN SPANISH. It's amazing the variety of choices!  All students found something of interest. A favorite, keeping in mind we live in the mountains of Colorado, was the Open Snow widget with over twenty language choices including Spanish from Spain or Latin America.

Students interpreted (Standard 1.2 for the WL teachers out there) authentic language but most importantly, their blogs are becoming more of an expression of who they are rather than just place for them to post their assignments. The variety of widgets on each blog brought more interest to each other's blogs which increased communication between the students.  Language such as How did you do that? and What do I do now? was practiced quite a bit (Standard 1.1).

As I look forward to adding more interactive hooks to our blogs, I think a playlists of their favorite songs with the Spotify widget is our next move.  Next, a Soundcloud widget for oral language samples and our class stories and would be a fantastic way to share with parents and administration how well the students are learning.

Adding a widget is simple.  I just added two to the right on this blog. Many options are included in your blogging platform which makes it easy.

If you are looking for something more specific (target language widgets), find the widget, look for words GET EMBED CODE, choose the TEXT Widget or Gadget under Appearances in your blog and paste the EMBED CODE.  Voilà!

Kiva for WL Classrooms

I first used kiva.org as part of a 5th grade Exhibition years ago with just a small group of students. It then became my go to item for gifts such as birthdays and Mothers Day. It was more recently when I thought about using it to help students acquire Spanish, learn about other cultures, and solve an authentic problem.  My COETAIL Course Two reminded me of the power of connecting, leveraging the web, and then sharing the outcome.

So, this is the process by which my Spanish IV (DP I) class went about helping Edgar with his car, Brenda with her store and José with his farming equipment while acquiring Spanish in meaningful ways.

1. Each student chose a Spanish Speaking country to investigate.  Next they...
2. Researched two or three people to support.  Although in English, you can also VIEW ORIGINAL LANGUAGE DESCRIPTION which is just awesome.
3. Chose a person or group to support.
4. Created a two minute Elevator Speech as to why their person should be supported.
5. Delivered the speech with a few pictures of the country, the owner and the purpose of the loan.  They used the subjunctive mood such as "It's important that..."  "I want you to..."  and "I hope that you..." to make their case.
6. The class took notes (en español) as to whom they liked best knowing they would have to cast a vote the end of all the pitches.
7. Students voted at the end of class as to whom they would support.
8. We then divided the class up among the top four winners.
9. Each person in each group chipped in 2-4 dollars to add to the $25 loan amount.
10. Once money was collected, each group officially made a payment toward the project.
11. Each leader/winner also reported back to the class when the loan was paid back.