The use of technology inside and outside of the classroom benefits both instructors and students. It can make the instructor’s work more efficient in the way that he or she communicates with students and gathers information from them or about them. For students, it offers additional ways to communicate with instructors and one another apart from their email accounts. It also gives them a wide variety of tools to improve their comprehension and skills, and access to materials used in class and other important documents. Using technology in this way fosters communication between students and instructors and exposes students to a variety of media, which, it is hoped, will benefit all learning styles.
Technology which is particularly helpful to instructors and students includes Microsoft PowerPoint software for presentations in class and in ANGEL, which improves their comprehension, and the use of ANGEL for communicating between instructors and students, creating and offering online exercises or quizzes for them to improve and test their skills and obtaining the results from those exercises/quizzes.
PRESENTATIONS
I use PowerPoint to present new information to students each class period, as well as for the purposes of reviewing previously learned information. These presentations include an introduction with the goal of the day, a review of what they previously learned online in ANGEL, a coherent explanation of vocabulary and grammar based around the lives of a few characters, comprehension checks, input activities, output activities, an introduction to the new lesson in ANGEL and a conclusion, which sometimes includes web links for students who would like more information relating to the day’s lesson.
Here is a sample of a brief presentation I created, called a Microteaching, for Spanish 1 on possessive adjectives. It includes input only--there are no output activities. The goal is to present the information in a coherent story which has meaning for the students rather than simply teaching them rules and giving them paradigms, which have no basis in their real lives. Please click on the link below to go to my Lesson Plan page with the Microteaching file.
ONLINE COMMUNICATION
Online communication has been very useful to me and my students in ANGEL. ANGEL offers the possibility of two-way communication through email or discussion threads. Up to this point, I have only used two-way communication in the form of course mail. In ANGEL, I can send the entire class messages quickly and efficiently and each student is able to respond if he or she wishes. I am also able to send messages to particular individuals. One of the reasons ANGEL is preferable to regular email is that it has the option not only to post the message to the students on ANGEL, but also to send it to their email account. Even more importantly, in my opinion, it offers the option “do not disclose recipients” which is a quick and easy way to protect privacy more efficiently than email.
Here is a sample of course email I have sent to my students. My messages include reminders, clarifications or additional information that the students may need prior to the next class.
One-way communication has also been extremely useful to both my students and myself. I am able to post documents, links, and PowerPoint presentations from class online. I have two folders set up in each section I teach, one containing class presentations and another containing student information with word documents and departmental links.
Here is a sample of information I post for students which they are able to access throughout the semester. As an instructor, I also have the option to make any folder only temporarily available to students; however, up to this point, I have not had a need to do so. This image includes a word document they can download with my contact information and other documents and links I have posted, including links to the department for evaluation criteria, syllabus and policies.
ONLINE EXERCISES, QUIZZES AND GRADING
In addition to the classroom instruction, instructors and students are able to benefit from the use of ANGEL outside of class for further instruction on grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation, as well as increased opportunities to practice learned skills. The information is presented in PowerPoints just as in class, and students are able to watch videos about students studying in foreign countries and an instructor who explains grammar and can be watched for a better understanding of pronunciation. Furthermore, students work on various exercises dealing with testing their comprehension of the presentations, grammar, vocabulary, their ability to discern correct pronunciation, etc. Instructors can create additional quizzes to test the students’ skills in any area. The instructor has the option to offer only one attempt to take the quiz or multiple attempts. Once students complete exercises/quizzes, the instructor is able to gather information about their performance and view their lowest and highest scores (in the case of offering students multiple attempts to complete a quiz). For Spanish students, we gather the information about the students’ performance and import it into an excel spreadsheet in order to calculate their online homework in conjunction with their class participation, exam grades and essays.
Here is a sample of two ANGEL quizzes I created for students. The first was created in a group with other instructors and the second was done alone.
This is an example of one of my classes and the way the grades are collected in ANGEL. These are results of quizzes based on information presented in ANGEL.
INCREASING COMPREHENSION AND OPPORTUNITIES TO PRACTICE SKILLS
ANGEL offers multimedia to students, from PowerPoint presentations to videos and audio files. The use of ANGEL offers students opportunities to see PowerPoints in addition to those presented in class (which, as I mentioned before, are also available online for review). These contain more information about vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation and offer students chances to improve their listening skills. The presentations amplify the students’ knowledge of Spanish beyond what they learn in the classroom and offer them opportunities to work in the environment of their choice at their own pace outside of the classroom. Students watch videos of an instructor or interviews with other students learning Spanish in a foreign country. Furthermore, they take quizzes in ANGEL to practice the skills they’ve learned in grammar, vocabulary, spelling and pronunciation. One of the skills tests I like the most involves asking students two listen to recordings of words pronounced by native and non-native speakers and then they must determine which it was, the native or non-native speaker. I think this really helps fine tune students ears to what is correct and incorrect pronunciation and it is something we don’t have a lot of time to work on in class.