Mentimeter Modifies Warm-ups

Description of Student Work

With Mentimeter, students answer daily questions using their Chromebooks.  The difference between work done by posting a question on the board or in Google Classroom is what Mentimeter does with student replies once they are submitted.  Instead of having each student write on the board or post to a shared space, Mentimeter instantly posts student replies anonymously.  This anonymity gives students the confidence to take chances with their work that they might not be willing to take if they thought everyone in the class might know they made the mistakes.

Examples of Work

Examples of Mentimeter Screen

How this fits with SAM-R

Mentimeter modifies warm-ups by changing the way warm-ups work for both the individual student and the class as a whole.  For the individual student, he or she receives instant individualized feedback on the quality of work when the teacher talks about the merits and misunderstandings of their sentence.  Mentimeter allows for this feedback because each reply is quickly easily displayed for the teacher to talk about.  Also, the class as a whole benefits from seeing each sentence discussed with the teacher.  Everyone gets to learn about what makes certain sentences good and how to fix the weakness of others.  

Mentimeter also modifies this type of work by bringing the element of anonymity.  Because students do not have to worry about if the class will know an answer belongs to them or not, they are more willing to post replies to Mentimeter than they are to write on the board or post to Google Classroom.  This means that more students are receiving quick, quality feedback about how to answer warm-up questions than with traditional non-technological warm-ups.

Redefining Homework in the Modern Language Classroom

Description of Student Work

Students are expected to use the online program Memrise Students are expected to use the online program Memrise to practice for French class.  Through the program students practice with teacher-created content.  Students can add pictures to help them remember the concepts, review material that they are currently learning, have learned, and will learn.  Students earn points for correctly using the material.  Students can compete with each other to see who can earn the most points.

Screenshots of Memrise Content

Example of words to learn

 Example of how vocabulary is presented to students

Example question

Example of Leaderboard

How this fits with SAM-R

Memrise helps redefine homework for students.  Without technology, students would practice with the material in workbooks or creating flashcards.  Students who wanted to study with someone else would have to go to that person's house.

With Memrise, students can get tailored help with their studying.  The program identifies which words each student does not know and repeats those words more often according scientific research about the memory curve..  This is something that would be nearly impossible for students to do without the aid of technology.

Memrise awards students points for answering a question correctly.  More points are given to words that students need to review, as opposed to words that they already know well.  This feature allows for students to quantify the amount of time and quality of studying the students are doing.  This is something that they could not show without technology.  This feature also allows students to compete with each to see who gets the most points; another feature that is not available with traditional studying.

Overall, using Memrise for homework helps redefine the works that students.  Now, students and teachers can get valuable feedback about the quality of studying that is happening at home.  Students can feel more empowered about what they are studying at home as they receive information about what they know in a way that would not be possible without technology.

Travel the French Speaking World!

Description of Student Work

For our French-speaking countries unit, students typically make a PowerPoint about a French-speaking country.  This new assignment pushed students to think like advertising agents, using technology to create interactive advertisement for the country of their choice.

Here is how the project was completed:

1. Students used online research tools to answer the following questions about the French-speaking country of their choice:
1. What can a tourist do in your country?
2. Why should a tourist do this activity?
2. Students collected information about different attractions and wrote descriptions of the places paying attention to using words that would engage the reader.
3. Students used Google Drawing to make a collage from pictures they found of the attractions they chose.
4. Students uploaded their collage into ThingLink.  
5. Using ThingLink, students were able to create interactive advertisements for their country.
6. Students then viewed each other's advertisements.

Examples of Student Work

http://www.thinglink.com/scene/609452697891897345


http://www.thinglink.com/scene/609460923194671106


How does this fit with the SAM-R model?

This assignment fits with the Modify definition of SAM-R.  While, in the past, students could create a travel document for a French-speaking country, technology helped students create an advertisement that could not have been made without technology.

Here are some ways technology helped improve this assignment:

• Broadband Internet access and individual devices allowed students the freedom to choose whichever country they were most interested in.  Students were not limited to the countries that the school library had information about.
• Google Drawing allowed students to create a collage with real pictures.  Students did not need to print pictures and cut and paste them together.
• ThingLink allowed students to create an interactive image.  No  longer did the pictures require captions.  Lengthy descriptions do not detract from the overall image.  Students were also able to add links to more information about the attractions.

Weather Videos en Français

Description of Task:

During our weather unit students worked to create real weather reports in French.  Here is how we were able to do this:

1. Students watched the weather in French from this website: La Chaîne Météo.  After watching the video, students discussed what they understood and what elements made this like weather reports that we hear in English (talking about multiple days, talking about multiple places, an introduction, a goodbye)
2. Students chose groups to create a weather report with.  Students used Météo France to read the weather in French.  With their groups, students chose multiple days and/or places to include in their report.  Students worked together to summarize the weather they read about in words they had learned.
3. Students worked together to write a script for their project.  Students worked on memorizing this script.
4. Students went to the library to work with the school librarian to find Creative Commons pictures to use in their videos.  Students learned how to collect pictures to share with a group by using Google Docs and Flickr.
5. Students recorded their skits in front of a blue screen so they could insert the pictures they found behind themselves during the editing process.
6. Students learned how to use WeVideo to remove the blue screen from their video and replace it with the pictures they found.  
7. Students finalized creating their weather videos in WeVideo.  Students used a variety of elements including: transitions, words, and final credits.
8. We watched all the videos as a class.  Students critiqued each other videos.

Example of Student Work:

How does this fit with the SAM-R model?

The use of technology allows for a completely new task to be created that would not be possible without technology.  This fits the Redefinition mode of SAM-R.

Some elements that allowed for the new task to be made are:

• Online access to French weather and news.  Without broadband Internet and individual learning devices, students would not have been able to access the weather in French cities in real time.  Students would not have been able to choose whichever city they were interested in.  Without technology, students would have to use teacher-created materials or old resources.
• Use of WeVideo allowed students to incorporate actual pictures into the project.  Without technology, students might have drawn pictures.  The use of technology gave the project a realism that could not be achieved without it.
• Use of WeVideo allowed student work to be edit by the students.  By uploading the video to WeVideo, students were able to add transitions, words, and pictures to create a more realistic product.
• Use of WeVideo allowed work to be shared.  Because the videos are hosted online, student work can be shared with parents.  Without technology, students would have presented skits to the class, something that parents would not be able to watch.