Finishing Up….

As I spend the week finishing up my Moodle Course called “Teaching ESL Online” I just wanted to add a quick post about a new blog that I created. Last week I made it to my first Parent Advisory Committe meeting at my son’s school. He goes to a Spanish-English Bilingual school and they were debating the scholastic book fair. The “problem” is that in Canada, we don’t have access to a lot of Spanish books and Scholastic has some kind of stipulation about what Spanish books we are allowed to buy and how many book fairs we are allowed to operate for fundraising.

I asked about e-books – and the possibility of using them in the classroom and at home instead.

In a recent chat with Alan November, he suggested that in encouraging teachers to use technology in their classes, you have to prove to them that there is a need and that it saves time.

So, I suggested a bilingual reading program (full of eBooks) that I am working on with my son using his iPad called: http://www.footsteps2brilliance.org/ as well as considering focusing on buying e-books for the classroom. Of course that would mean buying some kind of tablet (iPad or android), but then the students would have unlimited access in the classroom to Spanish books and could possibly have access at home.

For the first time in a long time- people listened…I think because they were ready to listen and because rather than “proposing a “Verena’s new idea”, I was proposing a solution to a problem.

After the meeting a few parents came up to ask me about e-books or how to find Spanish resources online. I gave them a few ideas, then I asked them if it woudl be easier if they would like me to e-mail them some links…

Instead of e-mailing links….I created a secondlangauge parent blog, that I hope will be used as a resource and collboration tool for the parents.

We’ll see where this goes….but it nice to be “asked” to do something technological….and now I ahve the “blogging” skills to meet those needs….

Check out: http://secondlanguageparent.wordpress.com/

Verena:)