Final Blog Integrated Unit

Lisa and I met last week to discuss the teaching process of this integrated unit. It must be said that Lisa’s students are generally more adept with Spanish at the end of the year, so this unit would normally be taught then. Because of EDU 584 taking precedence, I forged ahead and taught the text and completed the projects with my students. Lisa did what she could (given her students ability early in the year) and completed portions of the unit (watching/reacting to 30 days “Immigration” and having a discussion concerning illegal/legal immigration in the United States). Luckily, a great deal of the work from this unit (at least in Spanish class) can be moved around and taught at the end of the year. In world literature and cultures, I had to forge ahead with little technology and a program (Museum Box) that was less than stellar for my purposes. We did have a chance to chat about what we were doing, but true integration was difficult. I think we’ll have better luck next year when we can teach the entire unit at the same time.

The teaching process with the unit was great. Having everything laid out and tied up neatly beforehand really helped. None of the lessons needed tweaking, except that my students didn’t have their laptops yet. Because of this, I had to reserve library time when possible. This is hard to do when a building of 70(ish) teachers becomes reliant on 10(ish) computer carts and we are left with 20(ish) library computers.

Students definitely learned from and enjoyed the unit. The worst part for them was creating the final product. I’m not certain what other web 2.0 tool I will use the next time I do this project. Glogster or Wallwisher may be my best bet. Lisa and I will need to test them out when we have a moment.