GCE L2 Units 10 & 11 Reflection
I love all of the ideas for student encouraging student voice and student agency agency in the classroom. Many students struggle with staying organized and staying on task when they are given the time to be autonomous learners and it is so important to have a structure to the class and provide tools that aid in this as well. Although the term "20% Time" is new, the concept is something that I incorporate into my class to give students individualized practice with concepts and work time on projects. However many students struggle with staying on task and often get overwhelmed with all of the technology (emails constantly popping up, the chat feature in the gmail, multiple tabs open, etc.) I love the idea of the time sheet to help students track time in and out of projects. This is such a practical skill for the workforce too. I also like the idea of using Google Keep in the research process to save articles, images, and other information. I personally use it to organize my multiple to-do lists- What a great way for students to have a built in graphic organizer to organize parts of a project and check off their progress as they go along. They can even set reminders and color-code sections for each class. Many students no longer use paper planners to organize their assignments, so this could be a great digital option.
If I were teaching upper level Spanish classes I would love to use Blogger or Groups as a way for students to communicate their ideas and comment on each other's thoughts. For the lower level language classes I'm not sure how I would implement some of these ideas with limited language production abilities. As I've mentioned in a previous blog post, students are still quite limited in their technology abilities and there simply is not enough time to deliver content and teach technology skills, especially this year! I also think that the Google Educator promotes the ideal way a classroom should be, but in reality, especially post-pandemic, I find that a lot of students have anxiety about sharing. This year we could not even get students to show their face on Google Meet (and our school didn't allow teachers to require it due to equity issues).
I'm 100% behind teaching students about Google Keep for managing life! It has all the features a planner did, but it has so much more!!! And the timesheet in sheets would be a great tracking feature. You could put it in a google classroom and have students access it after working on their projects. Much like we do the timesheets for this cohort! That way you can look in on it anytime and they can signal when they're done by turning in their timesheet. You could even set up the template so it has everything they need before giving them access and then assigning a copy for each student. :) I agree with you. everyone has been THRUST into a tech-heavy world due to the pandemic. Most are doing everything they can to keep their heads above water. I think this past year will give us a lot to reflect on and discuss moving forward including best technology tools, best practices, etc. We're all going to be glad we survived, and hopefully come out the other side wiser and more purposeful! Great job, Sarah!
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