It seems like forever since last we had the chance to talk and I take full blame for that! In the past few months I have been exploring the world of technology integration, using Discovery Education Streaming and all of the amazing tools as well as completing my Master’s Degree from Northern Arizona University!

I can honestly say that it was because of the Discovery Educator Network National Institute that I found the inspiration for my capstone project. Please visit my project and let me know what you think!

World Language Technology Integration

My classes this past semester began using wikispaces, Google Docs and most recently Xtranormal.com for some amazing digital storytelling in Spanish.

What a great way to spend Saturday morning! The DEN Fall Virtual Conference is in session and will also be archived. Currently Thinking Outside of the Slide is running.

This past Saturday 10/3 the AZLA fall conference was held at Glendale Community College. I had the honor of being one of the presenters and I shared many resources gathered from the DENNI. My session earned the title “Best of Arizona” and I will now be attending and presenting at the SWCOLT Conference in New Mexico in April of 2010. The presentation focused on the use of Digital Storytelling in a World Language classroom.

Thank you to all of the DEN members who help to share and spread the word of technology integration!

After attending the DEN National Institute I was really excited to try out Google Docs not only with my co-workers but with my students as well. I am a BIG fan! The students are all really excited about the collaboration that they are able to do on projects and the faculty love the ease of use. I had a Google Page webpage last year but I switched to Google Sites and it is super easy to integrate Google Docs within this site.

As a Spanish teacher I am always curious to see if accent marks and punctuation are supported and they are in Google Docs which is an added bonus.

Listening to Hall Davidson give awesome tips about digital storytellilng. There are lots of awesome web 2.0 tools. For example just do screen captures of Google Earth and use those within your movies!

Today’s staff development on campus included a session which I led with 20 teachers in attendance. We had the opportunity to establish IDEAL accounts and then explore the Discovery Education website. Our main focus was the shown them ways to save time, money and make use of resources that are already out there for us to use.

The feedback was positive (yeah!) and hopefully the teachers will make use of these items in the near future. A few of the resources handed out where from the DEN and others are items I have either created or compiled.

http://sites.google.com/site/ridgetechieteachers/

In all we are spreading the world one small group at a time! Do you have any ideas for great training sessions or activities? Please share them!