Top 5 of 2021

As this semester and 2021 are coming to an end, I am going to take my annual winter hiatus from blogging, but I want to leave you with my yearly Top 5 List of Most Viewed blog posts from this year. Considering how we were still in a hybrid teaching environment for the first half of 2021, it is interesting to note how many in the top 5 are technology-based. As always, I am incredibly thankful for those of you who regularly read this blog and feel that I have something of value to say. See you in 2022!

Top 5 Most Viewed Blog posts of 2021

1. Read, Draw, and Discuss
2. Dragonboy - Movie Talk
3. Using Blooket
4. False Sentences Using Google Forms
5. Giving Grace to Myself and to Others

Using Litotical/Opposite Structures

In my district, we are bound to cover specific vocabulary words for each level of Latin. This districtwide list is based on word frequency found in Latin literature and are specific for levels. While these lists do give us guidance and a map for our district-mandated "pretests/post-tests," I have never been a fan of the lists, because I feel like they squash being able to shelter vocabulary, not grammar. Essentially I end up having to do the opposite. Basically, the list dictates what I must cover; therefore, I end up manipulating readings and passages to include these vocabulary words. Luckily, this post-hybrid year there is a reprieve from these district-level pretests/post-tests for students, so I feel like I can truly focus on sheltering vocabulary, not grammar. At the same time, however, I do have a "responsibility" (to attempt) to cover the vocabulary on this list. 

Last year during hybrid teaching, my Latin 3 colleague/team member John Foulk began to use litotical/opposite structures to introduce new specific vocabulary words which were necessary to target due to this list. Litotes - denying the opposite or saying the negative for emphasis - is a poetic device with which Latin teachers (especially AP Latin teachers) are very familiar! Examples in English:

• Person #1: Are you cold?
• Person #2: Well, I'm not warm!

• Person #1: Do you like your gift?
• Person #2: I am not entirely ungrateful...

We had to introduce the word pauci (meaning "few") but also in a hybrid-teaching environment (may that learning situation be forever cast into Tartarus!) so not an easy task! In my opinion, pauci is just a weird word. As a result, John began to target the phrase non pauci sed multi ('not a few but many"), since students were already familiar with the word multi. John used this phrase over and over again in our readings, and soon the phrase non pauci sed multi became a joke among students due to the sheer amount of repetitions. The phrase even started to appear in student writings, which means that they had acquired it and were now using it on their own.

After this, we began to think that he was onto something and that litotical/opposite structures should be taught/implemented very early in language classes, especially in the lower levels. I know of some teachers who do teach vocabulary in pairs - the target word with its antonym. I used to think that this was overkill and too much vocabulary for students to grasp, but now that I see how students associate vocabulary, it makes sense to me. 

So many topics naturally lend themselves to litotical/opposite structures:

• family members - "not this family member but this one"
• emotions - "not this emotion but this one"
• reactions - "not doing this but this instead"
• size/amount - "not this size/many but this size/many"
• animals - "not this animal but this one"
• occupations - not this job but this one"

Litotical/opposite structures allow for natural repetitions of vocabulary, and students do remember them! As part of language proficiency, you are also teaching students a language pattern which they can manipulate as output as novice learners.

Acquisition Boot Camp (ABC)

While I may be preaching to the choir in this blog post, if you have heard about such topics as Comprehensible Input (CI), Acquisition Driven Instruction (ADI), and language proficiency vs. language performance but do not possess a working knowledge about them, please consider enrolling in the next round of Acquisition Boot Camp (ABC). Beginning in January 2022, this month-long self-directed online course is offered by The Comprehensible Classroom and is led by Martina Bex and Elicia Cardenas.

This past summer I had the opportunity to serve as one of the coaches for this course, and I absolutely loved the format and the lessons. Now the course does take a level of commitment. There are daily video lessons which need to be viewed and daily reflections/discussion board posts on those lessons. The videos are definitely viewable and easy to digest - most range from 5-10 minutes depending on the topic - and a new video is released on each weekday. There is a lot of material covered in these 4 weeks, but wow, even as a coach, I learned much too! Also in the course are three live/synchronous sessions, once a week for the first three weeks, where you will get the opportunity to take part as a student in an hourlong language learning experience led by an experienced CI teacher, and one live/synchronous session in the last week where the coaches each share a CI-based/ADI-based unit plan example.

Allow me an excursus to address this course as an Instructional Technologist. I possess a graduate degree in Instructional Technology, and I can say without a doubt that ABC aligns so much with IT distance learning theory! This course allows for learner autonomy (participants can view and complete work whenever they want, wherever they want within a timeline) so students are not bound by a prescribed physical location or time. Most importantly, participants have access to timely feedback to their discussion posts from instructor and coaches - this is a KEY point in distance learning, and unfortunately most distance-learning courses fail in this important aspect due to logistics and resources. 

Be aware though - this course may challenge your pedagogical beliefs regarding language acquisition, grading policies, classroom setup, etc., You may walk away, saying that this course is garbage and that you completely disagree with everything in it as you take part in the discussions and watch the videos. That is perfectly OKAY - what we do want is that you are open to learning more about CI/ADI and that you are willing to start incorporating what you are able to in your classroom.

So if you are curious about CI, ADI, and proficiency-based classrooms and really wish to learn more about these topics in an academic setting, I highly suggest that you look into this course. 

Acquisition Boot Camp (January 2022 session) information/web page

Picture A/Picture B Listening Assessment

Who says that assessments must be long?!! Here is a very low-key, very quick listening comprehension assessment which I learned this past summer from Martina Bex and Elicia Cardenas while working as a coach for their Acquisition Boot Camp (ABC), and it is very simple for you as the teacher to administer. Simply, you either project two pictures onto a screen or put them on a piece of paper - these pictures are labeled A and B. You read a target sentence aloud, and you ask students to determine if the sentence is describing picture A or picture B. As a teacher, however, it requires a bit of prep work.

Pre-Assessment

1. Taking a story which you have been going over in class, select 7-10 sentences. If it is from a movie talk, you could use screen shots.
2. Illustrate those sentences. 
3. Scan them (or use a web app drawing tool) or illustrate them onto the assessment paper.
4. Place the scanned pictures in pairs onto Google Slides for projection or onto a document. 
5. Label one picture "A" and the other picture "B"
6. For each pair, determine which sentence you read will read in order to match up with the correct picture.

Assessment

1. Explain to students that you are going to read aloud a sentence from the story, and their job is to determine if the sentence being read is Picture A or Picture B. I project the pictures on Google Slides and have students on a sheet of paper number 1-10ish, and they simply answer A or B.
2. Read the sentence a couple times slowly and then move onto the next set of pictures.

Observations

1. Oh my gosh, why did I not learn about this assessment earlier?? It is so easy and quick to administer (although it takes some type to prepare it) - it took less then five minutes to administer. Students simply had to write down either A or B on their paper. If the pictures are on a sheet of paper for them, they simply have to mark the picture being described.
2. I used this as a formative assessment and not as a summative assessment. 
3. These were incredibly easy to grade too, because I was simply looking for either the letters A or B as the answer.
4. Students liked this assessment, because it was fast and easy for them to complete.
5. When picking pairs of pictures, select pairs which require a close listening and inspection of the pictures. In the example above, each of the pictures involved the phrase "duo comites (two comrades)" so students had to listen carefully to the rest of the sentence to determine what distinguished the two pictures. In other words, I could not have one picture have two people in them and the other picture being of a dog, because when students heard the phrase "duo comites," immediately they would know which picture it was and would not listen to the rest of the sentence. 
6. The picture being described needs to be OBVIOUS for students.

Telephone Relay

It is funny how one can learn a particular CI activity, pass it along to others to use, and then completely forget about it. Just recently, my colleague Rachel Ash shared a post-reading activity with our Latin 3 instructional team called Telephone Relay, and I said, "Wow, how does this work?" and she replied, "I learned this from you!" Once Rachel showed me how the activity works, then I completely remembered it (and vividly remembered when I had demonstrated it at a professional development for Rachel years ago!), but I am shocked that I have not used it in in the classroom since 2016! For some reason, it just was no longer on my radar. I am grateful to Rachel for bringing this activity back to my attention, because I really do like it.

I truly wish that I remembered from whom I learned this post-reading activity so that I can give proper credit (maybe Martina Bex or Cynthia Hitz?), but here are the directions:

Pre-Activity

1. Print out a reading of a known story - you will need a reading for every 3 students.
2. On index cards, write sentences from the story - again, you will need to make copies for every 3 students. For example, if you have 10 groups of 3 students, you will need to have 10 copies of each card. 
3. Number those cards accordingly so that all card #1s are the same, etc.

Activity

1. Divide your students into groups of 3. Groups of 4 are possible but one student will sit out each round. Groups of 2 will not work.
2. Each group will need to have two whiteboards and two markers.
3. Number each person in the group as #1, #2, and #3.
4. Persons #1 and #3 will have a whiteboard and marker. Person #3 will also have a copy of the story.
5. Person #1 will pick up card #1, and read the sentence on the card silently but not showing it to Person #2 or #3. After reading the sentence, person #1 will DRAW that sentence on the whiteboard without anyone seeing it, and then Person #2 (and only Person #2) will take a look at the picture.
6. Person #2 will TELL Person #3 (most likely in English but can be in the target language depending on the level) what was seen in the picture.
7. Based on what Person #2 said, Person #3 will look through the story to find the sentence which best matches that description and then will WRITE that sentence on the whiteboard.
8. As a class, you as the teacher reveal what the sentence was on card #1 - hopefully that is what is written on every Person #3's whiteboards.
9. Erase the whiteboards and move the whiteboards in a clockwise position so that there is now a new person #1, person #2, and person #3. If it is group of 4, there will be a new person sitting out.
10. The new person #1 will pick up card #2, and the activity starts over again.

Observations

1. This is a novel way to review a reading due to the variety of duties/tasks and rotation.
2. I give about 2-3 minutes for a round. Students will work on their own pace during that time, with the goal of having Person #3 finished when time is up. 
3. There are some strict rules about Person #1 which I enforce during this activity:
• When drawing, Person #1 cannot draw with the whiteboard on one's lap, because then everyone (especially Person #3) can see the picture as it is being drawn.
• When showing the picture, Person #1 needs to show it to Person #2 in a way that Person #3 cannot see it.
4. I like how this activity addresses many modalities and that each student does get a chance to experience them.
5. This is a great activity to get students to re-read a story and to do some close reading. 

Hot Potato

This is another activity which I learned from Emma Vanderpool, a Latin colleague and few CI-user in Massachusetts. It is a collaborative activity which can be used to preview a story, to review a known one, or as a warmup using known vocabulary. Here are her directions:

1. Students should sit in a large circle. All should have a whiteboard/marker/eraser.
2. Project the story/reading on the board.
3. Students have a set amount of time to draw (varying from 20 seconds to 1 minute).
4. After the timer goes off, students then pass the whiteboard clockwise.
5. Students should then pick up from where their peer left off.
6. After the timer goes off again, students again pass their whiteboard, and so on until you judge that the time is up.
7. Return the original whiteboard to students to review what should be illustrated there.

Observations

1. For each round, I gave students 25-30 seconds to read what was on the board and then 15 seconds to draw. The 25 seconds gave students a chance to re-read the story/sentences on the board, to look at what had already been drawn, and what needed to be added. Giving students only 15 seconds meant that they had to be quick in their drawing but essentially, they drew less which allowed for more rounds and for the activity to last longer.
2. There is a lot of critical thinking in this activity, because it causes students to re-read the sentences and to compare it with the whiteboard pictures which they have each time to see what is missing. Lots of close reading required!
3. Instead of a circle, I made it one continuous circuit so that the whiteboards traveled about 8-9 students. When we finished, students got their whiteboards back, and it was fun for them to see what had been added to their original drawing. Plus, since they had illustrated the story over a series of different whiteboards, they knew how they themselves had drawn the various parts of the story, so they liked seeing how others had drawn it.

One Word at a Time - Pass and Tell

This is an activity which I just recently learned from Emma Vanderpool, a fellow Latin teacher, and it is based on Bob Patrick's One Word at a Time (OWAT) activity. Emma modified this as a pre-reading activity to introduce new vocabulary, which is the original intent of an OWAT. However, I made some changes and used it as a pre-writing activity to prepare students for a free write and therefore used known vocabulary. Here are directions for either use:

Pre-Reading (to introduce new, targeted vocabulary) - here are Emma's directions

1. Students should sit in columns.
2. Every student has a piece of paper. Inform students that they will cooperatively write a 6-sentence story. 

3. A new target word is projected on the board. The students must use that word in a sentence to begin the story.

4. Students then pass the piece of paper to the student behind them, and a new word is projected on the board.

5. The receiver should read the sentence(s) written, illustrate the latest sentence, and then write a new sentence to the story.

6. The paper should be passed 6 times

Pre-Writing (to prepare students for a writing. This uses known vocabulary) - these are my directions

1. Students should sit in columns in groups of 4.
2. Every student has a piece of paper. Inform students that they will cooperatively write a 8-sentence story. 
3. Two known words are projected on the board. The students must choose ONE of the words to create a sentence to begin the story. Here are my Google Slides which I projected. 
4. Students then pass the piece of paper to the student behind them, and a new choice of words is projected on the board. 
5. The receiver should read the sentences written, illustrate the latest sentence, and then write a new sentence to the story. 
6. The paper should be passed 8 times. 
7. Spend around 4 minutes for each slide. In the beginning, students probably will not need 4 minutes, but as more sentences are added, they will need that time to read over what has already been written and to have time to figure out what to add.

Observations 

1. It was fun for students to read their "stories" afterwards and to see where the stories went based on their original sentence.
2. Giving students a choice of known words for a pre-writing activity allowed for more variety in creating their sentences, BUT I will also try this out with giving new words one at a time like in a regular OWAT to see how it works in previewing vocabulary.
3. Although the stories became rather random, the stories still made sense to a degree!
4. Making students use a particular word(s) for their sentences gave them parameters but still gave them a degree of freedom in how to use that word(s).
5. This activity requires critical thinking, because students not only have to understand what they read but they have to create a new sentence on their own which will continue on with what has been previously written.

Horse and Puppy (Budweiser Super Bowl Commercial) - Movie Talk

This is a special movie talk for me, because it was the first one which was demonstrated to me where the purpose of a movie talk made full sense to me! At the 2016 IFLT in Chattanooga, I saw Katya Paukova demo a movie talk in Russian using this specific commercial, and because I was experiencing it like a student, suddenly, I understood its power! Katya said that the best movie talks are those which appeal to the emotions, and this one certainly will give you the feels. It is a Budweiser commercial from the 2015 Super Bowl involving a man, a puppy, and a Clydesdale horse (the Budweiser mascot). Although the commerical is only 58 seconds, it packs in a lot of emotion!

For Latin 3, I adapted this commercial, because I needed to preview such "odd" words as wander, (to) here and there, have fear, and far away. I had previously used this commercial in Latin 1 to preview words such as home, sad, happy, and afraid, so I was able to manipulate what I scripted before in Latin 1 to meet my Latin 3 needs.

NOTE - the actual commercial ends at 0:58 but is replayed for the remainder of the video

English script

Latin script

Observations

1. Even though this commercial is only 58 seconds, I was able to get a good 30 minutes as a movie talk in narrating, pointing/pausing, asking processing questions, and using PQAs.
2. You may need to explain how this commercial relates to Budweiser, since students asked me: Budweiser Super Bowl commercials traditionally spotlight their Clydesdale mascot and not the beer itself (thankfully). Warning - the man is holding a Budweiser bottle in his hand at the very end prior to the Budweiser logo so you may want to end the movie talk before that. 
3. There is another Budweiser Super Bowl commercial involving the puppy, horse, and man. The previous year in 2014, the commercial was about how the puppy, man, and horse first met, and how the puppy brought about a love connection for the man. I do not know what happened to the woman in the 2015 commercial - did the relationship not work out but yet the man kept the dog? Did the woman tragically pass away? Is the woman on vacation in the 2015 commercial? I like the 2015 commercial much better!

Thank you, Katya, for introducing me to how a movie talk should be done through this commerical!

Lists - Brain Break

This is a brain break, which I learned from my colleague John Foulk, who in turn learned this from Miriam Patrick. The premise is very simple: students individually (and corporately) will create/add to a list based on a category. Call upon students one at a time in a prescribed order (such as seating), and when that student responds with a word to add to the category, write it on the board. Students cannot repeat a word already stated, and the brain break ends when someone cannot add a new word to the list. However, I have changed it so that students can help each other out when a student cannot think of anything new to add in order to keep to the brain break continuing.

Some category examples

• Fast-food chain restaurants - this topic needs a lot of defining if you choose this, as everyone has a different idea of what a fast-food restaurant is. I ended up defining it as "a restaurant where there is a drive-thru window, you have to order at an order box, and then pick up your order at a window." While restaurants may have a pickup window for mobile/online orders or offer curbside service, you must speak to a worker first at an order box! 
• Chemical symbols/names of elements on the periodic table - I have printed out an alphabetical list since I myself do not remember many of these!
• Cartoon characters
• Items found in a kitchen
• Cable TV channels
• State capitals 
• Current Olympic sports (both winter and summer) - Narrow this category just to the sports and not subcategories in the individual sports. For example, Athletics/Track and Field is a category but not the 100m dash since the event itself is part of that category. 

Observations

1. Allowing students to volunteer additional words for students who cannot think of an answer continues to add to the community building of the class. Students did not want the brain break to end!
2. When I did the fast-food category, I could tell which students had grown up in/visited other parts of the country, because they would name fast food chains local to that area/region, such as In 'n' Out, Whataburger, Hardees, Karl's Jr., Jack in the Box, etc. - lots of fun!
3. Because the Toyko Olympics just happened, this topic was current in students' minds.
4. This is one brain break which students constantly request, so I have to keep finding new categories!

Dictations Revisited

In students' return to an in-person, post-hybrid classroom, I have realized that they need A LOT of guided support. We cannot make the assumption that everything is going to be "business as usual" and that we can pick up from where we left off last year. As I have stated before in previous blog posts, I have entered this year with the mindset that students did NOT acquire any language last year (or at least the majority of students did not), so I need to focus on sheltering vocabulary (and not grammar) and giving them a lot of support in the beginning. While last year teaching hybrid in a primarily digital environment was definitely challenging, there were a number of revisions and adaptations which occurred to usual face-to-face lessons which I liked and am now incorporating back into my regular teaching. One of them is the dictatio activity.

The basics of the dictatio still remain the same in terms of the activity itself. 

1. I read aloud a sentence SLOWLY in the target language many times while students write down the words as I say them.
2. After the 3rd time of reading the sentence aloud, I project the sentence on the screen.
3. Students make any spelling corrections to their sentences if any words are misspelled.

Here is how I have changed the way in which I do dictations:

1. I write all unknown/new targeted words on the board prior to the dictation with their English defintion in order to establish meaning right away for students and will point/pause at those words when they come up in the dictation. This way when students are writing down unknown words, they are able to understand the meaning immediately instead of waiting for me to project the sentence and having to ask then.
2. I now give students a handout/digital document that has three boxes: sentence, corrections, picture/translation. This is something which my instructional team did with students when we were trying to conduct dictations virtually via Zoom (it did not work well at all!).
3. Students will transcribe the dictation in the Sentence box.
4. When I project the sentence, students will the correct spelling for any misspelled words in the Corrections box. If they had no spelling errors, they write Optime!
5. We now do a choral reading of the projected sentence to establish meaning.
6. I then give students one minute to either write down a translation of the sentence into English or to draw a visual representation of the sentence. At an IFLT many years ago, I saw Annabelle Williamson do this with elementary school students, and I was amazed at how focused they were in doing a dictation!

Observations

1. Establishing meaning of unknown words for students during the actual dictation has been very helpful for students, because now they can have an immediate understanding of these new words as they write them down.
2. The format of the handout gives structure to students as they perform this activity.
3. The choral reading afterwards continues to establish meaning for students with the dictated sentence.
4. The one-minute of writing down a translation of the sentence or drawing the sentence gives students something to do with that sentence (albeit for a minute).

Destiny Movie Talk

This is a great movie talk if you are introducing rooms of the house, numbers, or directional verbs of motion. I just recently introduced this movie talk in my Latin 3 classes, because I needed to target the words appropinquat (approach) and abit (go away), but this could easily be used in level 1 to introduce intrat (enter) and discedit/exit (leave).

Latin script

English script 

Observations

1. Because the main character is reliving an episode in his life, there are tons of repetitions in this animated short.
2. The first time I did this with a class, it went okay - students were kind of engaged but not overly excited. The second time I did it with another class, I made students pay attention to the number of clocks in each room by asking Latine how many clocks were in each room when I paused it (and then did a running total) and to what time it was on the clock when the man woke up each time - students really got into that and were A LOT more engaged in the movie talk, because the plot began to make much more sense.
3. There is an end-credit scene to watch at the end too!

Read, Draw, and Discuss

This is an activity which I had done often in the past to introduce a new reading but had forgotten about during the Covid hybrid interim. However, returning to a post-Covid classroom, my colleague Rachel Ash did this with our Latin 2 classes, and I saw that this was an excellent way to introduce students to a new reading with lots of scaffolded support while addressing various modalities. The activity is exactly what the name says: read, draw, and discuss.

After the 2nd full week of class with my Latin 3's, I did a vocabulary ranking survey where students let me know digitally what new targeted vocabulary they really knew, knew, kind of knew, and did not know at all using a Google Slide sorting activity. Using those results of the top 5 words which students felt that they kind of knew and did not know, I created a story which furthered the Pullo et Vorenus story but deliberately targeted those words with which students had informed me that they did not possess much familiarity. Essentially, the reading "circled the plane" a bit in terms of story but got in lots of repetitions in new ways in order to keep the reading novel.

PreClass

1. I created 6 Google Slides which had the new reading on them. On these slides, I underlined those words from the survey and glossed them at the bottom of each slide. 

During Class

1. Students had a whiteboard, marker, and rag.
2. I projected the first slide and read the Latin aloud to the class as they followed along. 
3. I asked if there were any words which they did not know in order to establish meaning. If students had questions, I would translate that particular word for them and re-read that Latin sentence but translate the word in English when I came to that word.
4. Following this, we did a choral reading of that particular slide in order to establish additional meaning. 
5. After this, I gave students three minutes to illustrate that paragraph/sentences on their whiteboards.
6. Once the three minutes were up, I told the class to show at least one other person their whiteboard picture and to tell in Latin what they had drawn or point to specific parts of the picture and to use the Latin from the projected reading. If they wanted, they could also write the Latin on their picture with arrows pointing at the specifics.
7. I then have students show me their pictures. I looked at their whiteboard pictures as a comprehension check and then picked three pictures to show the class. I have a document camera which allows me to project the pictures onto my screen.
8. Using their pictures, I asked circling questions, processing questions, and PQA's based on the pictures.
9. I then repeated the process again with the next slide.
10. This activity took 2 days.

Observations

1. This activity got in "a lot of bang for its buck," i.e., I felt that students really acquired much from doing this. Although it took two days to complete, I was able to get in lots of necessary repetitions with a variety of activities embedded into it which appealed to so many different modalities.
2. Projecting the pictures gave students novelty in seeing what others drew and that I might choose their drawings.
3. After this, I felt that students felt much more comfortable with those words which they had told me that they kind of knew and did not know. That does not mean that all students acquired all those words, but they still received lots of comprehensible input, exposure, and repetitions. 

Visiting "Sheltering Vocabulary, Not Grammar" Again

Now that I have returned to the classroom, one of my biggest challenges has been to see where knowledge gaps exist in students, i.e., what language did they actually acquire last year during hybrid teaching? And quite honestly, I have come to this conclusion: it is a futile attempt in many ways to do this. Several students have been very honest in telling me that they cheated on the majority of their work last year in all of their classes, because quite simply, they could. And my response to them has been, "And yep, we teachers knew that students would cheat when we assigned work. But based on the situation in which we were, there was not much which we could do about it."

So instead of trying to pinpoint specific knowledge gaps (which could take forever to find), I am really focusing on sheltering vocabulary, not grammar these first few months. Here is what I am doing:

1. I know that there are specific vocabulary and language structures which were covered last year, but I am going to assume that students never acquired them. For me, at least that levels the playing field for everyone, and I am not projecting wrong assumptions onto students.
2. In terms of vocabulary from last year, I am focusing on specific words which I know are important and then "chucking" the rest (see Carrie Toth's Vocabulary Chuck-It Bucket).
3. I am slowly beginning to introduce specific vocabulary words which I know students will need for this semester.
4. Using this limited set of vocabulary, I have created readings where I am using them in LOTS of language structures which we "covered" last year. As a result, there will be TONS of repetition of vocabulary in different grammatical forms, of which there will lot of repetition there too.

Example - Latin 3 reading:

Target words

milites, vocabatur, ostendere, fortior quam, celerior quam, nemo, cum, semper, odi, exercitus, iubebat ut, vehere, in castris, hostis, appropinquare, dux, ad defendam

Part 1

Olim erant duo milites. Primus miles Pullo vocabatur et semper fortitudinem ostendebat. Pullo erat fortior quam elephantus. Pullo semper exclamabat, “Nemo est fortior miles quam ego!”

Secundus miles Vorenus vocabatur et semper celeritatem ostendebat. Vorenus erat celerior quam equus. Vorenus semper exclamabat, “Nemo est celerior miles quam ego!”

Pullo et Vorenus erant non amici. Cum Vorenus vidisset Pullonem ostendentem fortitudinem, semper dixit, “Pullonem odi!” Cum Pullo vidisset Vorenum ostendentem celeritatem, semper dixit, “Vorenum odi!” 

Part 2

Pullo et Vorenus erant milites in exercitu Romano. Exercitus Romanus erat in Gallia, quod Gallia erat provincia Romana. Exercitus Romanus erat in Gallia ad defendam provinciam. 

Dux Modestus vocabatur. Quod Modestus erat dux, iubebat Pullonem et Vorenum ut aquam in castris vehant. Quod Pullo erat fortior quam elephantus, vehebat plus (more) aquae quam Vorenus. Cum Pullo vidisset Vorenum vehentem minus (less) aquae, exclamavit, “Cur tu es miles in exercitu Romano? Tu es non fortior quam puer! Non difficile est mihi vehere multam aquam in castris, quod nemo est fortior miles quam ego!” Cum Vorenus audivisset Pullonem exclamantem verba (words), dixit, “Pullonem odi, quod semper fortitudinem ostendit!”  

Subito, hostis appropinquabat! Cum Modestus vidisset hostem appropinquantem, iubebat Pullonem et Vorenum ut vehant arma ad milites in castris ad defendam Galliam. Quod Vorenus erat celerior quam equus, vehebat arma ad milites celerius quam Pullo. Cum Vorenus vidisset Pullonem lente (slowly) vehentem arma, exclamavit, “Cur tu es miles in exercitu Romano? Tu es non celerior quam testudo (turtle)!! Non difficile est mihi vehere arma ad milites, quod nemo est celerior miles quam ego!” Cum Pullo audivisset Vorenum exclamantem verba (words), dixit, “Vorenum odi, quod semper celeritatem ostendit!” 

Cum dux Modestus audivisset Pullonem et Vorenum exclamantes, dixit, “Pullonem et Vorenum odi, quod semper hi (these) duo milites sunt molesti (annoying). Nemo est molestior miles in castris quam Pullo et Vorenus!” 

Observations

1. Some may scoff and say that the reading is maybe too easy and overly repetitive for beginning Latin 3 students, but considering last year, I really have no idea what/if students acquired any language during hybrid teaching. It is completely wrong for me to assume that they did or to place the blame on them if they did not.
2. Students found the reading to be very engaging and want to know more!
3. In many ways, part 2 is an "embedded reading" of part 1 (although the plot is moving forward), since so many of the same sentences are repeated verbatim. That is intentional - this way I could get in more repetitions of language in a new context. Having those repetitions of exact sentences from part 1 actually helped students feel successful when reading part 2 (and repeat them again for those who may have struggled when reading part 1 the first time).
4. Because I had limited vocabulary, I was able to use circling, processing questions, and PQAs as a way to get in lots of oral/aural repetitions of the words in many different ways which did not seem repetitive.
5. Because I had limited vocabulary but not grammar in the readings, I was able to get in a lot of different language structures and throw in pop-up grammar timeouts. Because so many of my students were digital last year and since I do not know what language they acquired, I have made many of my students be the grammar experts for particular language structures. Every time I want to ask about a particular structure, I call on that student to tell me about it. 

Feeling Rusty

I have now been back face-to-face with students (in a completely masked classroom setting) for almost three weeks now, and I am SO glad to be teaching again where I am no longer bound to remaining behind my desk in front of a computer Zooming my lessons! After 18 months of digital/hybrid teaching, I feel like I have been chomping away at the bit like a racehorse ready to blast away at the starting gate, just waiting for the opportunity. I have SO missed teaching the way in which I was accustomed pre-Covid. I have missed being able to interact with students and to get them to interact with each other and with readings in the target language.

However, at the same time, I have noticed that I am SO rusty in many ways when it comes to teaching face-to-face again. I have been trying to get back into circling, asking processing questions, and doing PQA's, and often I find myself asking, "Now how I do this again? How did I ask questions before?" This past summer, I had served as a coach both for the online Acquisition Boot Camp summer class and for the IFLT Conference, where we addressed how to ask questions and I even demo'd how to do them many times this summer. But now face-to-face real time with students, I find myself hesitating at times, asking, "So what comes next again? What kind of question do I want to ask?"

But I also know this: it is perfectly okay to feel rusty doing this. Much like an athlete feels rusty in spring training after not having competed in a few months, so will I when it comes to teaching. If I as the teacher am feeling rusty asking processing/PQA questions in the target language, I am certain that students are definitely feeling rusty answering them! Heck, considering that I know that several of them NEVER showed up for a synchronous Zoom session last year, for many of them, they have not even heard Latin for 18 months!

I am finding myself re-reading so many past posts from my own blog both for instruction and for inspiration. This is the post which I have been re-reading to get myself back into circling, asking processing questions, and doing PQA's.

•  Circling - the Art of Questioning

Most likely, I will write up a script of questions to use as a reference until I start feeling like I have regained my foundation. 

Where are you feeling rusty?

Back to School - 2nd week Observations

On May 4, I wrote the following blog post: I am So Ready. Now 4 1/2 months later, I am back to teaching face-to-face (in a masked classroom), and I am LOVING it. Everything which I had listed in that blog post (outside of teaching wearing a mask) I am finally able to do again! After two weeks, I am so feeling like myself again as a teacher after the weirdness of last year known as hybrid teaching. This week, one of my students whom I had last year in-person but still hybrid-taught said to me, "You are SO different as a face-to-face teacher. You're a lot more fun, and you talk to us much more." I had to laugh, because what else could I do but congratulate him on his remarkable perception?

However, as COVID cases continue to rise and the uncertainty of how this new wave of the pandemic is going to play out, I am learning to cherish the moments which I do currently have with my students in a face-to-face setting. I am savoring the types of learning activities and language interactions which I am able to have with students which I was not able to facilitate at all last year. As the possibility of going digital again for a time looms overhead, I am definitely not taking this time for granted. I am truly enjoying my students and my time as a face-to-face teacher. Maybe I am still in the honeymoon phase of it all and perhaps the novelty has not worn off yet, but I am still going to treasure this window of opportunity for as long as I can.

Brags and Vents

As we return back to face-to-face classrooms after such a disruptive year of hybrid teaching, it is incredibly important that we focus on creating community once again in our classrooms. Even if we had students who were in-person last year, our classroom culture was so unlike to what we were accustomed. Honestly, last year I found it so difficult to establish any type of connection and relationship with any of my students (digital or in-person), because I never left from behind my desk! 

Last week, I began to implement a "check in" activity called "Brags and Vents," and it is exactly what the title implies: a time for students to brag and to vent about themselves, stuff in their lives, etc. I learned this activity from Christopher Emdin's book called For White Folks Who Teach in the ‘Hood And All the Rest of Y’all: Reality Pedagogy, which my instructional team read a few years ago as professional development. My colleagues Bob Patrick and Miriam Patrick have been regularly doing this in their classes as a way to build community in their classes. I had tried it out before with less than success in my classes, so I had put it on hold. 

However, upon returning to the classroom, I noticed that due to the disruption in schooling, many students really did not know each other in my classes. In many of my classes, students were silent and did not talk to each other - granted this could have been for many reasons: introverted personalities, not knowing anyone in the class, and just adjusting to being in a classroom of 30 other students again. But an unexpected rain storm (we are talking a HUGE downpour) one afternoon which happened right when school let out led to a perfect opportunity to begin doing Brags and Vents. Since this was a common experience shared by all students where most students were drenched, the next day I decided to let students talk about it in class. Wow - every student wanted to vent about their experience of getting caught in the rain. For times sake, I only allowed a few students to share, but gosh, it really got students talking because they all had a common, shared experience about which to share. Now I am seeing students beginning to feel comfortable in the class with each other and with me. 

How to lead a Brag and Vents

1. Set a time limit for Brags and Vents - I set a timer for 2 minutes for brags and 3 minutes for vents. To me, the time limit is very important, because it is very easy to get sidetracked with this if you do not set a timer. 
2. At the beginning of the class, explain that you are going to give students a few minutes to share a celebration or brag about something IN ENGLISH. It just so happened that the first time I did this last week, it was a student's 16th birthday, which led me to ask when he was going to get his driver's license. That then led to a student sharing that she was getting her driver's license that day. In each of those instances, it gave me a chance to ask them some questions and to guide their brags some. 
3. When the two minutes are up, explain that you are going to give students a few minutes to vent about something. This first time, I simply asked, "So who got caught in the rain yesterday at the end of school." Immediately everyone felt like they had something to share since it was a common shared experience.

Observations

1. This has been a great way for me to get to know students, for them to know each other, and to feel comfortable just back in a classroom again. 
2. So far, I have only done this 2-3 times a week in order to preserve the novelty. Some teachers do it daily.
3. I am loving what I am learning about students during the brag time: one student told me that he is involved with a male roller derby association in Atlanta (I did not know that one even existed!) and is now a junior referee! Another student told me that he just got his first job. I probably never would have learned this about these students nor would their classmates have. 
4. Look for students who are involved in extra-curricular activities such as athletics, band, drama, etc., and during the brags, give them an opportunity to tell about their games, concerts, etc.
5. Before class when students share something with me, such as getting their driver's license or their team winning a game, I now tell them to save it for Brags and Vents so that they can tell the whole class.
6. It is important to set rules and parameters for this activity:

• Only one person speaking at a time.
• The timer is king, i.e., I tell students that since we are bound by a timer, please be brief in their brags/vents so that others have a chance. Once the timer rings, we are done. 
• For vents, I give them a topic or two so that there is some degree of commonality during that time (or else, students will be all over the place with their vents). Topics which I have done: Who had multiple tests or quizzes today? Tell me about the traffic in the morning. How is your lunch period in the cafeteria? Who has first lunch vs. who has 6th lunch? Is it difficult getting to class on time?
• Students cannot make an ad hominem vent about a particular teacher or person, i.e. no naming of names! 

Consider doing Brags and Vents in your classes - the activity has really helped establish community in my classes after these past 18 months of weirdness, and you and your students wil learn much about each other.

Back to School - 1st Week Observations

Today, I am finishing up six days of classes with students (we began last Wednesday with a staggered face-to-face return of students. Monday was my first official face-to-face day with all students). After 18 months of digital/hybrid teaching, I am SO ready to return back to a "normal," face-to-face teaching environment where I am no longer teaching hybrid completely behind a desk. I have felt SO FREE to be able to move around the (masked) classroom and to teach how I did pre-Covid.

However, after these past six days of teaching, I have come to a number of realizations. For those of you who have yet to return to the classroom and want to know how it has been, let me pass along some observations/words of wisdom:

• When it comes to COVID concerns and the classroom, you do you - In other words, based on your school's/district's COVID guidelines, do what you feel is best for you and your students. If you are face-to-face but do not feel comfortable teaching like you did pre-Covid, then don't. It is okay to teach still from behind your desk.
• Have realistic expectations and goals for your students this year - Now is not the time to set high expectations and to expect all students to rise to a very lofty standard. Do not think at all that you will be able to pick up where you left off last year. Due to the variety of learning situations and environments which students have experienced since March 2020, a WIDE range of knowledge gaps exists among them. Spend the first few weeks finding those gaps and holes - heck it may take all semester. Fill those holes which are necessary, and do not worry about those which are not. Most likely, your curriculum coverage for this year will definitely look different from past years.
• Have a realistic outlook about last year's learning situation - Every year, I have students in the beginning of the school year who will say to me, "I do not remember any Latin from last year." Pre-Covid, my response would always be, "You remember more Latin than you think you do." This year, my gut feeling is, "Yep, that is probably true."
• Therefore, if ever there was a time for this, SHELTER VOCABULARY AND NOT GRAMMAR! Just because you "covered" vocabulary last year does not mean at all that students ever acquired those words. Most likely, the majority of students did not. Although students may have completed assignments digitally, that is the extent of what they did - they completed the assignments, and that is probably as far as the acqusition process went. Therefore, focus on a limited amount of target/necessary/high frequency words in the beginning and milk the heck out of these words grammatically to ease students back into language so that they can feel successful again.
• Ease students into routines and your expectations - Today in my upper level classes, I began doing circling, asking processing questions, and doing PQAs with students. Since I had not done this in-person for 18 months, I went all-in with it! However, I quickly realized that many students were not ready for it and became overwhelmed. Although I was certainly ready for them to get back into hearing Latin and interacting with the language again, many were not after not having been in-person on campus for 18 months. 
• Survey your students about their language learning experience last year - This was one of the first things which I did with students, and I was very surprised at their honesty about how it was very difficult learning in a digital environment (even if hybrid) and that many relied heavily on Google Translate. A number of them were nervous about not remembering anything from last year. Here are questions which I asked students:
• What was your learning situation last year?
• How was your Latin learning experience last year? Be honest!
• What did your teacher do last year which helped you acquire Latin?
• What is something which you liked about your Latin teacher last year? Be positive!
• Last year was traumatic for us as teachers - Last year's teaching situation was unlike anything which we had ever encountered before. When it came to teaching, the name of the game last year was simply survival, trying to come up with lessons which would work digitally, how to reach students, what to do with students who never showed up for Zoom sessions and never turned in any work, etc. I think that we are still healing from all of that. 
• Love your students right where they are at!

For those of you who begin after Labor Day, enjoy your last weeks of summer!

"Is This Relevant?" Activity

This is a really great post-reading strategy which I learned from Carol Gaab back in 2014. I have not implemented it in years and just flat out forgot out about it (hence I had not written up about it here on my blog), but in looking over past years' lesson plans (as I prepare to teach face-to-face again. I feel like I am having to reteach myself how to do it all again after 15 months of digital/hybrid), I came across it again. I absolutely LOVE this activity.

The premise of this activity is quite simple: based on a reading which you have been reviewing, project a list of additional "facts" onto your screen and ask students if that fact is particularly relevant to the story or helps explain something or why characters act/react the way in which they do.

Example:

Latin (adapted from CLC Stage 7 Model Sentences):

Grumio et Clemens per viam ambulabant. canis subito latravit. Grumio canem timebat. "pestis!" clamavit Grumio. Clemens erat fortis. sed canis Clementem superavit. Quintus per viam ambulabat, et clamorem audivit. canis Clementem vexabat. Quintus canem pulsavit. Grumio et Clemens erant laeti, et Quintum laudaverunt.

English:

Grumio and Clemens were walking through the road. Suddenly a dog barked. Grumio was afraid of the dog. "Pest!" shouted Grumio. Clemens was brave, but the dog overcame Clemens. Quintus was walking through the road, and heard a shout. The dog was harassing Clemens. Quintus punched the dog. Grumio and Clemens were happy and praised Quintus.

1. Grumio patrem canis necaverat (Grumio had killed the dog's father)
2. Clemens felem habet (Clemens has a cat)
3. Grumio fratrem habet (Grumio has a brother)
4. Canis est rabiosus (the dog is rabid)
5. Quintus est pugilosus (Quintus is a boxer)
6. Quintus in magna domo habitat (Quintus lives in a big house)

Observations

1. What I like most about this activity is that it truly facilitates higher-order thinking in students. However students respond (yes or no), they have to justify their answer.
2. This activity leads to some great discussion either in L1 or L2.
3. Many times, students come up with valid reasons for yes or no which others (even I as the teacher) in the class did not think of.
4. Often, students will change their minds after hearing the arguments of their fellow students.

I Got Through It

My school year has come to an end...finally, and quite honestly, I am currently running a gamut of emotions about it all. The following best describes how I feel about this past year:

Now that I have slowed down and am beginning to process it all, I feel raw. I feel like I am suffering some small form of PTSD, because I am finally allowing myself to feel all that I experienced this year. I feel mad. I feel frustrated. I guess that I did a good job of repressing all that I was feeling and just plowed through this year.   

• Was this year ideal? ABSOLUTELY NOT IN ANY WAY! 
• Did I "lose" many students in this digital setting whom I probably wouldn't have in a regular, face-to-face setting? ABSOLUTELY!
• Did I experience frustration in administrative policies during this pandemic? ABSOLUTELY!
• Did I have a clue of what I was doing in the classroom? ABSOLUTELY NOT!

In the moment of it all, these past 10 months have been SO HARD as a teacher, because I have never had to do something like this before while simultaneously also adapting to a pandemic. There were so many times where I wanted to leave the world of education during this and questioned my role as a teacher.

BUT when I take a step back from it all and truly reflect on these past 10 months, I am absolutely amazed, because quite honestly, I got through it. As I have said before, there is only so much which I can control, but I can control my own actions and reactions. And if I do not look for the positives in all of this, then I will become bitter and will not be able to move on, since I will still be stuck in this moment. I need to celebrate my victories here (because they certainly do exist in this situation) so that later on, I can reflect back on this and realize that this situation has created a foundation for me and has prepared me for future "get-through-its."

Quite honestly, I have learned that life is a continuous series of "get-through-its," of which some are small, some are large, some are daily, some occur sporadically, and some are long-term. As much as we want to deny this, no one is every going to be immune from any type of trial, tribulation, or suffering. But I am learning to "welcome" (and I use that word loosely with much hesitancy) "get-through-its," because trials, tribulations, and suffering will show you exactly of what you are made. If you allow them, trials and tribulations will cause your own personal shortcomings and faults to come to the surface - and this is not a bad thing. Covid caused everything to come to a standstill for me as a teacher and to take a long look at how I was reacting, to give up control over so much of this, to throw out that which was chaff, and to make firm that which needed to remain. I also know that I will have a TON of "get-through-its" in my future, so I may as well accept it.

That is why it is important for me to look back at my "got-through-its" and to celebrate my victories as a teacher this year:

• I did the best that I could in light of the situation, and very early on, I resolved to be an "adequate" teacher this year. As a result of those self-imposed boundaries, I felt so free from any internal pressures and self-imposed expectations which I would place on myself as in past years.
• I was truly stretched as a teacher this year in how to teach concurrently and to adapt my curriculum to this weird, hybrid learning environment, but wow, I learned just how "stretchable" I am. Because this pandemic situation has been so fluid these past 15 months, so has teaching. However, much like muscles adapt to more weight over time, I have learned that my borders of what I am capable are so much further than they were previously.
• Apparently students got something out of my class, as these past few days, I have received a great number of emails and Remind messages from students, thanking me for being their teacher this year. Honestly, pre-Covid when we were 100% face-to-face, I rarely received any type of thank-you message at the end of the year, so I am cherishing these.
• Back in July, I truly did not think that I would be able to do this. Fast forward ten months later, and it is over. There is a sense of accomplishment and joy in that. I got through it. 

This summer I do not want to think about anything academic or lesson planning for next year. I need time to heal. I need time away as a teacher. I need some space from education.

So for those of you who have yet to finish the school year, it is almost over, and the end is in sight. I completely understand and empathize that you feel emotionally raw and wounded, and so many of those wounds are still hemorrhaging. And as you drag yourself towards that finish line, clawing into that ground with every ounce of strength, I will be there cheering you on with this simple message: you can get through this.

As you reflect on this past year, what victories can you celebrate?

End of the Year Survey - The Hybrid Year

Normally at the end of every school year, I give my students a survey to garner feedback about the past school year in terms of what activities worked in helping them acquire the language, what do they want to to see more of next year, what they enjoyed, etc. This year, because of the teaching situation, I was very hesitant to give students a survey since this school year was, for lack of better words, so weird and as a teacher, I really had no clue what I was doing. However, I still gave the survey to my Latin 3 students (I only teach Latin 2 and 3 this year, and we have not done a survey for Latin 2) but with revised questions. I was very surprised and touched by their responses. Let me share what some of my Latin 3 students had to say about this year in Latin:

1) This year's Latin class has been very different from your previous Latin classes due to the pandemic. What are some digital activities which you enjoyed or helped you learn Latin?

• The Gimkit and the Pictionary dictionary really helped with learning the words and phrases.
• The Nearpod assignments helped a lot they engaged me and also taught me the Latin.
•  I enjoyed playing Gmkits (sic). It was a fun competitive game that allowed us to compete while still learning.
• i thought that the assesment where we would hear the reading and have to match it with the correct sentence helped a whole lot for my understanding of the passage.
• I enjoyed booksnaps because I am a visual learner.
• The assignments involving getting pictures and being creative
• I enjoyed doing dictionary pictionaries and answering questions about the readings on Google Forms. 

2) What are some face-to-face activities from previous Latin classes which you missed this year and would like to see return next year?

• Latin bingo, story scavenger hunt
• Some Face to face activities which we missed this year due to covid, that I would like to see return for other students next year, i'm graduating so I won't be here, is the activity where we used whiteboards with expo markers to illustrate sentences from stories. I missed doing that. Also when we would draw the definition of words and then they would be pasted on the wall for future references, which was a cool little activity as well.
• The highlighter game
• I miss that drawing game where there would be teams, and each team would have to draw a specific scenario, and one team wins best drawing. I also miss the basketball game. I also would like to see that guessing game with the people who sit at the front draw, and the teams guess.
• The thing that I really missed was just being able to work in groups and the group activities.
• To be honest, I don't really miss any of the physical activities we did the last few years in Latin class. This new chill atmosphere to the class is what I prefer most.
• I missed Hot Seat, Trashketball, and teaming up and drawing pictures that represented the sentences on the projector. 
• Brain breaks and drawing stuff on whiteboards.

3) As difficult as this school year has been in many ways, what did you enjoy most about Latin class this year?

• I enjoyed the stories. This year had the most interesting stories. I also appreciated the use of different learning platforms like gimkit, nearpod, and more. 
• I enjoyed the short assignments on google classroom, they were easy, not much writing involved. 
• The fact the assignments could be done at many times and in many places, there was the time in school but nothing held anyone back from doing it whenever they thought was best.
• It was still very fun and engaging 
• I enjoyed that the class was fun even though it was digital.
• the flexibility with due dates and how we can resubmit our assignments to get a higher score.
• I loved how Mr. Toda was very chill and understanding while making sure we were actually learning and having  fun. 
• Having some asynchronous days for when the workload for other classes can sometime pile up.
• I enjoyed the versatility this year. The activities ranged from drawing to answering questions and it was doable. This class, unlike many others, was easygoing and it wasn't so much of a load. It was definitely a class that helped to relax a little bit in that I could find images or draw. This is what I mostly enjoyed. 

So now as this school year is ending and as I begin to look ahead to the next school year, based on this feedback, the question for me is what will my post-digital classroom look like? What are digital aspects which I wish to keep, because they worked and students found helpful?

Is My Classroom Better Now Because of Technology?

These past months of teaching digitally in a hybrid learning environment and of having to rely so heavily now on technology for delivery of instruction and for digital assignments have definitely taught me a lot. I will say that I am quite proficient now in Google Classroom and Zoom, two web app tools which I had never used before July 2020! So now with only 1.5 weeks left in the school year and as I look ahead to next year, I have to ask myself: Is my classroom better now because of technology?

As I ask myself this question, keep in my mind that I am viewing this through my own lens of personal classroom experience and of having a graduate degree in Instructional Technology, so I have both personal experience and academic theoretical knowledge on the topic. 

I think that we need to be careful when we think about technology facilitation in our curriculum because it is easy to make a blanket statement by responding with a hearty "yes, my classroom is better now because of technology. Look at what I am using!" Rather, we should divide our technology implementation into two categories: 

1. Technology which makes my job easier as a teacher.
2. Technology which aids in student acquistion of material, raising critical thinking among students, and allowing students to create new meaning with the material.

Allow me to explain this further. When implementing any type of technology or web app tool, the question to ask is cui bono - who's to gain from this? And honestly, there is no clear cut answer for this when evaluating technology facilitation because in and of itself, hopefully classroom technology usage fulfills both categories when used properly. However, just because one may use a learning management system such as Google Classroom, that does not necessarily equate to facilitating student learning; its primary student usage may be solely for turning in digital assignments and viewing grades. Throwing technology at students does not equal proper implementation.

if I am going to assess my own technology implementation this year, here is what it looks like:

Technology which makes my job easier as a teacher	Technology which aids in student acquistion of material, raising critical thinking among students, and allowing students to create new meaning with the material
Google Classroom Zoom Brightspace learning management system Remind	GimKit Blooket Movie Talks EdPuzzle Whiteboard.fi Screencastify Google Docs Google Slides Nearpod YouTube

While I can pride myself in that the 2nd column is longer than the first, I must then ask myself: how closely did these web app tools correspond with the higher levels of the SAMR model (the Bloom's taxonomy model for Instructional Technology)? Did thse web app tools actually lead to student acquisition of material? Or was I just entertaining students? Could I have achieved the same student learning outcome without technology? Was only lower-order thinking activated in students when using these web app tools?

Of course, this past year's teaching situation dictated a full "technology-centered" classroom, but next year looks like we will be returning to a somewhat, pre-Covid, face-to-face learning environment. What are web app tools which I will continue to use? What are web app tools which I will bring back that this year's teaching situation would not allow?

I do not profess to have any answers to my original question of "Is my classroom better now because of technology?" but this type of reflection has been very helpful to me as I look ahead to next year.