When I first downloaded Evernote, I was less than impressed by the features. An app just for notes? I have notes on my computer already! Since the assignment wasn't to give up on the app five minutes after downloading, I spent some time getting to know it. The more time I spent on it, the more it grew on me. I noticed small features like the ability to make your note into a check list. There is NOTHING more satisfying than checking off things on a to-do list. I loved the PDF annotation feature and was able to engage with my on-screen readings much more effectively. The annotation summary is brilliant as it brings all of your annotated items to the front of the document so if you were looking for key points to talk about, they would be easily accessible. Another aspect I liked is the web clipper with which you can save directly from the internet. You can save websites as bookmarks, articles, full pages or screenshots. This would be a handy tool for research.

When creating the hand-out, I found it difficult to think about how someone who is not very familiar with using technology would need things explained. I think this was a useful exercise because when explaining technology to your students, their levels of knowledge will likely vary greatly. Learning to explain the basics in a step-by-step manner is vital. I originally thought that speaking for 25 minutes would be impossible, but when it comes to walking people through an unfamiliar task, it takes time. 25 minutes ended up passing quickly and I still had more features of the app that I had not explained thoroughly. 

I have incorporated Evernote into my every day life, and for the foreseeable future will continue to use it. In fact, it was a check-list that I created on Evernote that reminded me I need to complete this blog post! See? It is quite useful! Also the icon is a little elephant, and elephants are my favorite. It's a match made in heaven.

The other app that we learned about that I loved was Blendspace. I saw this app as an incredibly useful tool for a teacher looking to create a lesson quickly. I thought the quizzes you could give throughout the lesson were a great idea. You can have your students view the lesson at home as well and keep track of the time that they spend on it. I plan on trying out Blendspace when I start planning lessons!

¡¡Conjuguemos!!

I was introduced to a new online Spanish game called Conjuguemos which I see as a very useful tool both for an advanced Spanish learner needing a brush up and a beginner. On top of being useful for learners, this game can be useful for teachers as well. The direct translation of the title of the game is "We conjugate" in the subjuctive nosotros form of the Spanish verb conjugar, however the site also has practice for Italian, Latin, German, French and Portuguese. My understanding is that the game started as just a conjugation practice game, but then expanded to both grammar and vocabulary.

For the verb conjugation game you can look at a verb conjugation chart of each tense to study before you play the game. Then, you choose a certain amount of time that you want to be timed (or choose not to be timed) and then the site gives you a verb, a pronoun and you provide the conjugation. You can choose if you want to focus on certain pronouns or a certain verbs, for example, excluding the vosotros form since that is only relevant in Spanish used in Spain. The site keeps track of how accurate you are, and as a student, you can send how you do to a teacher so the teacher can keep track of how you are doing. 

I think this is especially useful because you can have different students practice different things that they need to at the same time. It is also fun because it makes conjugation into a competition against yourself. You want to get as many conjugations correct in the allotted time and if you play multiple times, you want to beat your past score. 

There are also grammar activities where you fill in blanks based on certain grammar topics as well as vocabulary exercises you can do based on theme vocabulary. I will be using this game to practice my own Spanish and I definitely see it's potential as a tool in my classroom in the future. 

I'm picturing a student typing with only two fingers struggling through the English portion of the Smarter Balanced Assessments.  I'm picturing a third grader who has never learned how to properly use the computer attempt to maneuver his or her way through the complicated interface of the math portion of the Smarter Balanced Assessments. I'm picturing a student with his or her head down on the desk, sleeping through the assessment. What do all these students have in common? Their scores on these tests determine whether or not some teachers will keep their jobs or not. As a future educator, I see our nation's obsession with standardized testing as my biggest enemy, and I believe that many teachers are on the same page.

When those who are creating policies mandating what standards students and teachers are held to are not the ones who spend their time in classrooms, how can they say with any reasonable confidence that these evaluations will work? 40% of teacher evaluations are now based on student growth and assessment data. With the increasing allegations of various states and cities cheating on standardized tests, one would think that the need for a different evaluation method was clearer. Thinking even on how current teachers tell their students to write their essays for the ACT- write the strongest essay with the most evidence, instead of, write about what you truly believe about the prompt- the system is plagued with questionable methods. I am not saying I have a solution for how students and teachers should be evaluated, but I firmly believe that standardized tests are not fair to all students and judging teacher performance based off of these tests is not benefiting anyone. I lied. It might be benefitting those who make money off of these standardized tests. However, when you think about how our youth are the future leaders of our world, maybe a system that most benefits them would be a slightly better idea.

I feel unprepared to fully delve into the issues that teachers face with standardized testing. I am but a mere education student with no true practice in the classroom, and no personal experience in these struggles that teachers face with standardized testing. I don't think this withholds my right to an opinion on the matter, but I do think that I cannot fully understand what it means to be held to these evaluation standards without experiencing them first hand.

After reviewing the Smarter Balanced Assessments and attempting some of the math portions of the assessments, I am concerned about the formatting. The third grade math had a complicated interface that it took a significant amount of time to understand even as a graduate student. Each question had a different format of how the answer was submitted, which made the test feel choppy and threw off my thinking process. The point of these tests was to move away from the traditional bubbling in of answers, but wasn't there some benefit to consistency? The math for higher grade levels was difficult, even for the math major sitting next to me taking the 9th grade math exam. That in itself should raise some questions about this test. What motivates students to want to do well on this test? Who teaches them the technology necessary to perform well on the test?

I have much to learn about the Smarter Balanced Assessments and how teachers and students are evaluated, but the way I see it now, I see standardized tests as an obstacle, not a useful tool. How can we change that? I think if someone had the answer to that question, there would not be so much turmoil in the education policy world.

"I believe that if nine-tenths of the energy at present directed towards making the child learn certain things, were spent in seeing to it that the child was forming proper images, the work of instruction would be indefinitely facilitated" John Dewey 

John Dewey presents an incredibly vivid and insightful view of education in "My Pedagogic Creed" that even 117 years after it was written, is still affecting educators worldwide. I was highly intrigued by the quote above because it is a bold statement to say that educators are devoting so much of their energy towards the wrong type of education. At first I did not understand what Dewey meant by "images," because it was clear to me that his view of this word was not image in the traditional sense. What I took away from his interpretation of an image was that it is the way in which a child understands how he/she is connected to the information and experiences that they encounter. These images are meaningful because the child is able to form his/her own opinions on the matters and they are unique since they embody how the child sees themselves in relation to these matters. Children have such powerful creativity, and it has been proven that they way in which we currently educate children, they start out with all this potential for ingenuity and when they end their education have lost the majority of this power. If we let student's have more of an influence on what they are taking away from education, maybe they would be able to harness more of their creative abilities and go out and change the world.

However, I do not think that just because Dewey did not believe in the way students were being educated that he thought teachers were irrelevant. In fact, I believe he saw teachers as powerful tools in the process of educating youth. He understood that "purely discovery approach was insufficient... the teacher's role is rather to provide students the correct guidance through the process of learning" (Rich, Reeves, 2006, pg. 55). I am a firm believer in this form of teaching. If the teacher assumes the role as a guide on this journey in the path of gaining understanding, they are able to play a part as learners just as much as the students are. In the vein of Freire's "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" I am firmly against the "banking approach" to education and feel that student's will learn more if they understand that their teachers are not there to bestow knowledge upon them but instead help facilitate learning in a more authentic way.

The way that I see my future classroom, I do not see technology as a prime method for students to obtain information. I do see technology as a useful tool as it allows access to a world of knowledge and images. I think that student's also need to know how to utilize technology as it is an integral part of most occupations. Although I am not entirely set in my opinion, I think I am leaning against the concept of "BYOD" (Bring Your Own Device). As Gary Stager states in his argument against BYOD, it "allows more affluent students to continue having an unfair advantage over their classmates" (2012, pg. 6). Effective teachers strive for equity in their classrooms and it seems that allowing student's to use their own technology perpetuates the inequity that plagues the education system currently. If all student's had access to equal technology, then having them bring their own devices could function, however, this is simply not a reality. As a Spanish teacher in a world where some schools are eliminating language teacher's in place of solely virtual classrooms, I do not want to view technology as the enemy. Technology opens up possibilities in the classroom that were not available in the past and I hope to be able to utilize it. However, I would like to do so in a way that does not give some student's the continued boost they are allowed by their socio-economic privilege.