Learning and Leading

LEARNING CONNECTIONS

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Ryder McEntyre, a ninth grader at Sonoraville High School in Calhoun, Georgia, created this image (far left) about the Dominican Republic, and Meghan Twietmeyer, also a ninth grader, created the Guatemala image (left). The students used these images to write a script in Spanish to describe the countries’ history, geography, economy, and art, as well as at least one notable person.

how engaged they were in each of the activities using the heat factor of peppers. They chose a range of sweet peppers to habaneros and so became familiar with an essential ingredient in Spanish and Latin American cooking. The students consistently rated their engagement as either jalapeño (very hot) or habanero (extremely hot).

We used a checklist to evaluate the presentations. We allowed students several chances to improve their final oral and visual presentations. Students used self-evaluation and peer evaluation in verbal and written form, so we had evidence of how well they understood the assignment.

We have the oral and visual presentations in a DVD format to use as examples for other classes. Photo Story allowed us to listen to and evaluate the students’ oral Spanish language skills at our convenience. We also used the DVD of the final presentations to evaluate the students’ oral skills as well as their knowledge of the cultures and people of their chosen countries.

We required the students to take notes while watching the final presentation. Each student selected two questions from their presentations, and the teacher combined these to create a knowledge assessment for the class.

Overall the evaluations were very positive, and we look forward to using the skills we learned with other classes.

Resources

Culturegrams: http://online.culturegrams.

com//world/ index.php ePals: www.epals.com

Grolier Online: http://auth.grolier.com/login/ go_login_page.html?bffs=N

Modern Language Association: mla.org/style PBwiki: http://pbwiki.com

—Cawood Cornelius is a library media specialist at Sonoraville High School in Calhoun, Georgia. He is working on his EdD from the University of Alabama.

—Terri Vest is a Spanish teacher at Sonoraville High School. A teacher since 1987, she has taught in Peru, Chile, Croatia, and the United States.

2008 ISTE SIG Media Specialist Technology Innovation Award

Cawood Cornelius and Terri Vest are the high school winners of the 2008 SIGMS award.

This annual ISTE award, sponsored by Linworth Publishing Inc. and Follett Software Company, is presented to two teams of a school librarian and collaborating teacher who have conducted an exemplary technology program extending beyond the library to meet the needs of classroom students and teachers. The purpose of this award is to identify, promote, and sustain excellence in collaborative and innovative technology-based projects driven by the school library media center in support of curricular and instructional needs in elementary, middle, and high schools.