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Pecha Kucha: Speaking Spanish Without Fear

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“I’m a Spanish teacher,” I say. “Cool! I took 4 years of Spanish in high school and I can’t remember anything.” Cringe. How can this be? I wondered. After hearing this time and time again, from person after person, I began to question my practice, wondering, do my students leave my class feeling the same way? Do they feel like they can communicate in Spanish? Is real learning happening in my classroom or am I helping to create good test-takers? It is important to me that students can produce language after leaving my classroom because otherwise, what is the point? I noticed students had no problem memorizing verb charts and vocabulary, but in turn, they were disengaged and bored. Traditional grammar and vocabulary learning was working to keep their grades up, yet it had very little connection to the real world. The students barely relied on one another for information, hardly collaborated, and almost never were asked to perform a real-world task using Spanish.  ...
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Question: What is the relationship between Turkle and Wesch? Do you see them as allies, or opponents in this discussion of new media and technology? Sherry Turkle's “ The Flight from Conversation ;” and Wesch’s “ Crisis of Significance ” really both resonated with me in their own ways. I would consider Turkle and Wesh allies with a mindset that human collaboration and engagement is key to learning. While I read Turkle, I found myself highlighting and pulling so many quotes that I wholeheartedly agree with. I find that in this day and age, most people (who aren’t teachers) that I talk to about technology don’t even notice the negative effects technology and social media has on us all. Her point about us being together but separate in our own little bubbles is what I witness each and every day as a high school teacher where smart phones and earbuds are part of the standard uniform for teenagers. She writes, “Always-on/always-on-you devices provide three powerful fantasies: that ...
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The Magic of Disney

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I was born in 1985 and a bulk of my childhood entertainment was watching VHS Disney movies at home. When thinking about my relationship with Disney, I immediately called up my Mom to ask what she thought. Mom claims I was obsessed with watching The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, and Cinderella movies. In addition, I also loved Disney movies where animals were the characters. I grew up on movies such as The Lion King and The Fox and the Hound. She claims I was so obsessed that I had every VHS and watched them over and over. I never dressed as a Disney princess for Halloween (see this news story on parents weighing in on their little girls dressing up as Moana) nor did I have all the Disney themed toys and games, but I was always entertained by watching the movies. I do specifically remember making my mom fast forward through the parts in certain movies where the villain was present and threatening the princess. At one point, I felt I connected most with Belle from Bea...
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