Internet Safety

¡Hola, Estudiantes!

Welcome to a new school year! This year in Spanish we are going to be using the Internet in many interesting and exciting ways. I’m confident our explorations will improve your understanding and appreciation for the Spanish language and cultures. In order to use the internet to the best of its potential, however, we need to establish some basic online manners and safety.

1. Always keep in mind that the class work we do in and out of school needs to be school-appropriate, so keep it clean and civil. If you’re ever unsure, ask me and I can help you figure it out.

2. Never post details about you: your last name, your address, your age, your phone number, etc. People may seem friendly and interested online but it’s not safe to disclose this information about yourself. This website offers good advice on "smart surfing." Keep the conversations on topic and always be cautious. For more information on social web tips, check out this website.

3. Do not share your passwords and login names with anyone other than the teacher and your parents. You should be the only one posting information under your name and you should not be “helping” anyone by posting under their name.

4. If you ever come across something inappropriate in your searching, close out of it immediately. Let me know if inappropriate windows continually pop-up or if you mistakenly get stuck in a wrong browser.

5. If you ever feel uncomfortable or bullied by comments or discussions online, talk to me right away. This is serious. You should never feel this way when using classroom web tools and I need to know immediately so we can fix the situation and change the tool if necessary. These two websites offers great tips on recognizing cylberbullying and responding to cyberbullying.

I always aim to create a safe and enjoyable learning environment for all my students. I know that if we follow these guidelines carefully, internet use will only improve your learning experience. 

Also, remember that you need to bring the printed copy of these guidelines, along with guardian permission, signed by both of you to class by Friday. 

I look forward to a great year of learning and discovery! ¡Vamos!

Sincerely, 

Miss Parsons

Blogging in the Spanish classroom: 3 ideas

1. Students can use their blogs as journals to practice reading and writing in Spanish. First students search for and read an article online about a Spanish topic, in Spanish (depending on the class level) about Hispanic culture, history, etc.  Then they write a blog post about it, adding their own summary, thoughts, perspectives, and interpretations. This could be a weekly or biweekly assignment and would include commenting as part of the evaluation. Comments will be in Spanish and on at least two other classmates’ blogs. This would allow students to research something of interest in the target culture, read in the target language, or at least write in the target language, thereby processing and responding to the information in the articles. This would address all of the ACTFLstandards. If I thought the responses were not targeting all areas of these standards I could assign topics or themes for the articles.

2. Students could use blogs as a form of group pen pals with a foreign classroom: I’m not entirely sure how I could start this, but hopefully I could find a classroom in another country and work with the teacher in blogging pen pals. An idea for this would be choosing a topic every two weeks or so (i.e. fast food, popular television, school system, popular books) and have students from each classroom share from their cultural perspective about this topic. We could alternate between writing in our native languages and writing in the foreign language. This could create an ongoing conversation and authentic cultural look at the other country. This could include pictures, videos, etc. to pull in speaking the other language as well. It would be awesome if this led to a study abroad experience, both going to the other classroom’s country and bringing some of those students to ours. This too would address all the ACTFL standards, especially if it led to a study abroad experience.

3. A blog could be used as an organizational and presentational tool for a final research-based project or a semester-long portfolio of their work. Students would follow a rubric including a specified number of blog posts based on research and ideas discovered along the way. Students would have daily/weekly assignments (depending on the length of the project/portfolio) that would reveal their productivity, findings, and thought process as they find and synthesize the information. This could be a neat way to do a variation on a group project. Each group would have an overall theme:  literature, food, or important people. Then students would individually do research on this theme in a separate country. The end result would be a group comparison of this theme in their Hispanic countries to that in the United States. Again, commenting would be involved so as to keep students on top of their group’s most recent findings. The amount of Spanish required would depend on the level of the class. This project would address most of the ACTFL standards; it might be difficult to include the Communities section. The rubric would be geared toward incorporating the different aspects of the standards.