Today was a great day for South Hamilton Spanish students. Paulino Brener graciously gave an hour of his time to Skype with a packed classroom of students from Spanish II, III, and IV today. My administration willingly allowed them leave their classes and spend some extra time in my classroom to get a real-life, authentic learning experience. Some chose to actively ask and answer questions, while other observed and took notes.
The students prepared questions ahead of time via a Googledoc shared with Paulino. He helped them correct their mistakes in their writing and even chatted with a few who were online at the same time he was. During the Skype session, students asked questions, answered questions, interacted with Paulino via stories, music, and other cultural minilessons.
Adult guests stopped by or stayed for the whole session. Additional discussion followed afterward about how to use additional technology in the classroom.
We can't wait to do this again sometime. There is so much to glean from authentic experiences and we are grateful to have someone so giving to education! Thanks @sr_brener This was all possibly through Twitter!! Check out Paulino's post for this experience: http://bit.ly/fvRUfM
Paulino is also trying to get a $25,000 Pepsi Refresh grant. Please help him out with his project: http://www.refresheverything.com/latinoartminnesota Vote daily through December!
What a great day for you and your students. They are so lucky to have a teacher like you. I love 21st century learning.
ReplyDeleteSo glad that you took advantage of this! I hope to also - though I usually like to have Paulino come into my room in person. And of course, we don't have laptops to use. But I think we will make it work.
ReplyDeleteWhat was the topic that Paulino shared with your classes?
You're always on the cutting edge. Bien hecho!
Keeka
Thanks ladies; you're very complimentary! It was a great day. I am very blessed with awesome kids to teach and to be surrounding by wonderful people to energize me.
ReplyDelete@Keeka, We had many topics. The kids had a googledoc that they posted questions to. These consisted of a wide variety of topics, such as differences in Christmas traditions, cultural differences between Argentina and the US, personal & professional information, Paulino's great talent for the arts. The kids began asking random questions, forgetting they had the doc of questions. One girl eventually became so focused on the questions that she wasn't listening to the conversation and asked a question that he just answered! lol
Keeka, we should do something like this too, you would make a great addition to this project! Let's chat...