tools
January 26, 2016
I love networking with great people. Not only is it how I figure out answers to what I’m doing wrong, it’s also where I get the best tips on new tech tools that will simplify my life without further stressing me out. This tool is a great example. I was talking to Thomas Sauer at […]
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January 22, 2016
I may seem pretty techy to some, but let me tell you, technology overwhelms me quickly. It changes every half second, right? And with all the blogs I follow, some days it seems like I get several blog posts delivered at almost the same time referring to approximately 72 different technology options I must use […]
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August 31, 2015
What items are really perking up the start of your school year? After a year’s hiatus from being in a classroom with students I can’t tell you how excited I’ve been to explore how to make this new situation (small classes of homeschooled students -ages 6 to 14- meeting with me once a week) work […]
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August 24, 2015
This might be my most important resource release this year. First, you can read here about all the things that frustrated me about that snazzy 2011 rubric that I used to use (and that got downloaded from this site a lot). Some of them probably frustrated those of you who used it, too. So I decided to […]
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July 21, 2015
Starting my interactive notebook
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Last spring we had a #langchat on some topics that kept coming up on the suggestion form and either never garnered quite enough votes to be a chat topic or were judged by the moderators to not have enough substance for an hour-long chat. So we polled for a “quick-snapper” chat. We offered eight of […]
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June 22, 2015
After a year “off,” this fall I’ll be back to teaching, in a unique opportunity (homeschool co-op) that I’m really excited about. And apprehensive about. Things that worry me: Mostly, time. I’ll be seeing my students only once a week (60 minutes for elementary, 90 minutes for upper grades). I’ll be finding something for them […]
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April 6, 2015
What do you do when you’re being forced into a textbook adoption that’s stifling the creative community in your school? Sometimes you turn to someone with a generally poor opinion of textbooks for advice. One of my favorite parts of doing what I do is the conversations I get to watch and sometimes even facilitate. […]
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February 3, 2015
Pronunciation gold: Forvo.com
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If you haven’t found this resource yet, let me introduce you to Forvo, where you and your students will find close to three million pronunciations of almost as many words in 324 languages. I’m a teacher of a language with very specific pronunciation rules (Spanish) and I have a pretty deep knowledge of how (and […]
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Regreso a clases! Ciudad on sale
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It’s back to school time and also feeling like time for me to ease back into doing what I love, while I enjoy the memories of my dad who was the conduit of love for Spanish in my life. The events of this summer have delayed several things, including new Black Box Podcast episodes and […]
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May 23, 2014
I just taught my last class for the foreseeable future and what a sweet handful of minutes it was. I decided to revisit the Photopeach final this year, after having not done it for 2 years because of babies arriving at the end of the school year. I’ve blogged about Photopeach and this particular project […]
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January 21, 2014
A few months ago I was at a Starbucks and picked up one of those cards to get a free app download. The app seemed to be some sort of child’s drawing tool, and since my daughter already loves DoodleBuddy, I thought, hey, it’s free, why not. Sure enough, my 4-year-old (excuse me, she’s “four […]
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September 24, 2013
At a conference a few years ago -I can’t even remember which, I think it was Central States in Indianapolis- I attended a workshop by an AP teacher who gave out a worksheet she used to help students through reading authentic materials. I liked the basis of what she’d done so I took it and […]
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