Given the topic, strategies, etc. that were shared this semester, which ones influenced your practice?

Feeling like an "old dog trying to learn some new technology tricks," I have worked to incorportate technology in meaningful ways into my lessons. I do not have a smart board in my room (although I hope to get one next year), but I do have access to a projector that connects to my computer. Because of this feature, I have been able to type notes and project them to my class, type up tests and quizzes and project them for my students, all the while saving paper. Moreoever, I have been able to show students websites relevant to topics such as Old English and "Beowulf" and Middle English and Chaucer. I have also used Youtube to introduce The Canterbury Tales, The Fall of the House of Usher, a poetry explication, and an excerpt from Rachel Maddow's show on the Conflict in the Middle East. The students have enjoyed these posts and been inspired to make their own "introductions" to important pieces of literature to post on Youtube. For my World Literature class, the students completed a Webquest and then used that research to create a Powerpoint presentation of a persuasive speech. I created a blog for these seniors to share ideas, post questions, and to share information in preparation for their speeches. They actually used it! I will continue to use this blog for the remainder of the year and will actually have students do exactly what we are doing now: respond to questions and then respond to another student's post.

Beyond technology, after each class, I have shared what we discussed or what I have learned with my students. For example, after our discussion about what we were doing to help our ESL students, I had to confess to my students that I had not done much to help them! They actually appreciated that acknowledgement. The "40 meaningful interactions" with vocabulary has certainly had an effect on me! Each week when we discuss our new words, I mention our need for these interactions, and we have found fun and meaningful ways to improve our writing, grammar, and sentence construction by working with vocabulary. The students had a blast with the story they wrote using two vocabulary words! They laughed as they read each other's paragraphs and begged for more time as they raced to incorporate the vocabulary into a clever story.

I know I have learned more but these are the prominent ideas.