Linda Bilak’ Blog

Today I got my first Spanish comment on this blog. Pedro, my new friend from Spain, and I have been emailing each other and trying to set up a global exchange of email between his English learners and my Spanish learners. We have typed each other in both languages. I always type in Spanish when connecting with native speakers-it is a courtesy, as well as a good practice for me to maintain my adult Spanish literacy abilities.

Pedro has taken to typing me in English-probably for very similar reasons.  He has visited my classroom web-page. I have seen pics of his school and students(they look like mine in size, attitude and composure).  His students can view my class montages from onetruemedia.com on my page.  Recently on twitter, the question was posed by Clarence Fisher(AKA glassbeed) do you let your students use translator programs to learn languages? Only Susan Roustan (byndpdcstng) and I responded. Both of us stated that computers have not yet mastered the nuances of languages. There is subtlety to knowing the right expression and how it is used by the people within their culture.

Tonight I watched this google video by Luis von Ahn, Ph.D, Asst Professor  of Computer Science at Carnegie Melllon University.  He talks about Human Computation. There are still many things we can do better than computers. If you have not tried his game esp-it is addicting! He was recently on PBS Wired Science.  He is from Guatemala and I love his ability to explain how his culture helped him think ‘outside the box’.

If you watch the video- you will know why I feel secure in my job as a Foreign Language teacher at this point!

We may have the need to help a Spanish colleague out. If you have been following my “Fluvi” blogline, you know we offered to host the aqueous mascot of the EXPO 2008 Zaragosa in our suburban Western New York town.  The sponsors of the Expo offered 20 mascots free to a  Zaragosa school to mail to schools on every continent. The “Fluvis” can stay at their host schools, all you have to do is mail pics and stories about his(her?) adventures back to the home school. I offered assistance to the organizing teacher to spread the word. The theme of the Expo is “Water and Sustainable Development”.
You can send me information if you are interested, I can pass it on. Can’t promise a mascot-but this is something we should be talking about anyway in our classrooms.

I have finally figured out how to compartmentalize the twitter vs. pownce face-off.  As a classroom teacher that tries to be active in the eduweb 2.0 realm, I have sometimes felt awkward and out of my element. Since you are reading my DEN blog, you can see where I come from on this discussion.  I am not a tech specialist by trade.  I am a teacher of Spanish who happens to integrate technology in my classroom. I learned by trial and error along the way.  My access to a professional learning network has greatly enhanced my acquisition of new skills and tools.  I have used voicethread, blabberize, vozme, all because of mentions on Twitter.

I do have to admit the conversations fly on twitter. Sometimes I am lost in the discussions because of two things:

a) I am only getting a piece of the conversation because one of the respondents is someone I don’t follow.(or doesn’t follow me)

OR

b) It is a technical discussion that leaves me in the dark because I am not one who has the knowledge or desire to find a program that converts wav files to widgets and back again.

I can seriously now say-twitter is sometimes best left to the technical gurus.  I know you are there if I need you(And I know I will need you!!!)

 Here is the thing, I know I cannot contribute on that level. I know my tweets may seem like I toss softballs in the big league arena.  Remember this. I have read many of your blogs.  There is a frustration that comes through about teachers being unwilling/unable/uncooperative about embracing technology.  I am a teacher.  I am not a technician. I love teaching with technology. Bring teachers along by bringing them into the network.  Maybe twitter is not the place to start for them(me).  Perhaps Pownce as an alternative is the place to bring the classroom instructionalist into the PLN.  I am going to try to utilize them both as I proposed them in the title. 

Global collaboration has been the subject of a few blog postings recently.  Topics ranged from how to encourage teachers to participate effectively, to the components of a successful, well managed project. There was even a parable authored by Graham Wegner.More online project pitfalls were highlighted  by Susan Sedro here  as well. I read them all, added a comment occasionally, and checked my epals account faithfully.  I had recently reactivated my account and began looking for a motivated school to connect with my Spanish learners.  I was contacted right away- A public school(un instituto) in Villajoyosa, Valencia, Spain found us.  We were thrilled. It was  like being  a hot commodity on match.com.We did not linger longingly awaiting a suitor to court us. We were chosen by a very chic seaside community on the shores of the glorious Mediterranean.   Kids eyes were agape at the photos we viewed of our new pals hometown. Impressive, very impressive.

Emails were exchanged, student accounts created, test emails sent and received.  Students were prepped in online etiquette. The discussion of teacher monitored email was gone over and over again so that the idea of young email ambassadorship was understood by one and all. I checked my email faithfully except I had not received anything since 12/31/07.  I explained away the lack of contact knowing full well the culture and the holidays that occur beyond our celebrations. Family holidays would keep one from returning to a more  daily routine chore of responding to email.  School in Spain would not resume until 1/8/08… there was no need to feel panic.  We took our midterm in classes and were otherwise occupied anyway. And I checked my email faithfully. My students began to use the accounts I created for the exchange to ask for review sheets, additional practice, a grade inquiry. I responded via the epals account- even if it were meant for a higher purpose- it lent itself to teacher-student communication as well.

And now it is 1/15/08. There has not been a response to my emails since New Year’s Eve.

The students are starting to squirm a bit now. I have searched out other schools  to line someone up in case this all falls apart(has it already?).  And I check my email faithfully…….so as I read blogs about the lack of true global collaboration happening in most schools-if anyone has a Spanish class to write to my 65 students…. we are ready willing and ABLE.

I know many people have added a clustrmap to their blogs or webpage.  I did shortly after reactivating my epals account to find classrooms around the world to begin correspondence in Spanish.  I had no idea what effect it would have on my very hard to impress 8th graders.  Since it is on my webpage that students use to access class information- we see it often during the day. They NEVER fail to notice a new dot on the map.  Then we investigate geographically where our visitor came from…….. Of course, we are excited to see Zaragosa, Spain has paid us a visit. We are awaiting our visitor(Fluvi) see “Fluvi Mania” for more on that. (What you don’t know is whenever we say Fluvi Mania in class we have all taken to saying it á la the Govenator-no idea why- but it stuck)So if you would like to make some 8th graders very excited, click on the link to my webpage-they will go nuts to see the added traffic/dots. You can also click on a class page and see who they are-they are the stars of my new onetruemedia.com addiction for montages.

¡Feliz 2008!  My first blogging of the new year…..I recently revisited my epals.com account and updated my profile. Epals has been a leader in teacher-friendly international collaboration for many years.  Within a day of my update, I was contacted by a school in Villajoyosa,Valencia, Spain.
Already updated my website so our new friends can see my students and get a glimpse into our personalities at school.  I have to say the montage feature at onetruemedia.com is a class favorite. My newest show is here.

Not only did I get to find a school to practice Spanish with my 8th graders-but I saw another city in Spain was looking to have students all over the world sponsor the mascot of the 2008 Zaragosa Expo. “Fluvi” is derived from the word for water. The official website for the expo is here