Mini Lesson on The Sagrada Familia, Barcelona Spain

Teaching about culture!

I'm currently teaching my Spanish II students about their travel vocabulary and we're talking about Barcelona, Spain. One of the topics we've talked about is the famous architect Antonio Gaudi - this video is about "La Sagrada Familia" Gaudi's masterpiece which has been under construction for three centries.

This is a video about "the collapse of the Sagrada Familia" but its a video that was created to help gain support for people to complain about the government approving the construction of an under-ground train system, which would run right under the Sagrada Familia.

I could show my students this video and use it to spark a class discussion and even possibly have them write a e-mails supporting this organization.

They could find more information about this cause and the Sagrada Familia at: sossagradafamilia.org

ePals Global Collaboration

ePals is a collaborative global community and learning network. It is a protected, project-based learning network that connects with classrooms in over 200 countries and territories. "ePals makes it easy o connect learners locally, nationally or internationally." There are four major features that ePals offers: ePals Learning Space, ePals Global Community, ePals School Mail, and In2Books. 1) ePals Learning Space: A safe virtual workspace for K-12 communication, collaboration and learning, and to store school work and documents online. There is an educator workspace that includes web 2.0 tools like: blogs, wikis, forums, digital lockers and much more! 2) ePals Global Community: This is the world's largest network of K-12 classrooms from over 200 countries and territories. Its free access to collaborative projects, join discussions in community forums and to search thousands of classroom profiles to engage with others in authentic exchanges. 3) ePals School Mail: An e-mail community designed with SchoolSafe technology and that is embedded student learning support. A cloud-based solution so districts will save a substantial amount of resources annually. 4) In2Books: An e-mentoring program for students that matches students with adult pen-pals, who read the same books. It is a place that is teacher-monitored, for students to exchange e-mails with their pen-pals and ask questions that will help further develop their understanding and opinions about a text they are reading in or out of the classroom. ePals has a lot of valuable resources which are a safe and effective ways teachers can teach their students valuable educational lessons as well as appropriate social media skills. I would have my students use their Spanish to communicate with classrooms from the Hispanic-Speaking world. They will be able to develop valuable cultural knowledge. They could ask foreigners various questions to reinforce their knowledge of topics we discuss in class: daily routines, traveling, lifestyle, sports and wellness, shopping, etc. Then my students could share the results from their research and collaborative communication with their peers and community.

Casa Batallo - Barcelona, Spain

Casa Batllo by vgm8383 Attribution-NonCommercial License

This is a great image I could use with my Spanish II students.

We are currently talking about their travel unit and concentrating on Barcelona, Spain. I've already introduced them to Antonio Gaudi and he was the mastermind behind Casa Batallo. I could show them this image and have them write down any words they'd use to describe the picture and then if they liked the design or not. I could then show them other pictures of the house (inside, outside, roof, etc.) and have them make additional observations.

Next, I could show them a famous house from U.S. history and culture like the white house or traditional home and have them compare and contrast the two using a Venn Diagram.

Finally, I could have them have a class discussion where they will have to express their opinions and observations.

Flickr Photo for a mini Spanish culture lesson

Happy New Year Lesson Idea:

I could use this photo I found on Flickr to start a lesson on Plaza Mayor in Madrid, Spain. I could have students come in and describe or write about what is going on in this picture and where in the world they think it is. We could use this as a conversation piece and it would be a great lead into a mini cultural lesson about different plazas in Spain and Plaza Mayor in Madrid.

Photo By: Urugallu

The photo was taken by Jose Rodriguez who also has other similar photos and his website that I could incorporate into the same lesson.

Creative Common Licenses

Creative Common Licenses

"The Creative Commons copyright licenses and tools forge a balance inside the traditional 'all rights reserved' setting that copyright law creates." - It's a simple... - It's a quick... - It's an easy... way to grant copyright permissions to your own creative work. You can change your settings on Flickr or other photo sharing sites to public or private, so the photos you want to share and mark as your own work will be exposed to the public. Through Creative Common Licenses content can be copied, distributed, edited, remixed, and build upon. "All Creative Common Licenses have many important features in common. Every license helps creators- we call them licensors if they use our tools - retain copyright while allowing others to copy, distribute, and make some uses of their work -at least non-commercially." The important thing to remember is that licensors always get the credit they deserve for their work! So share your pictures with the world! There are 3 "Layers of Licenses" for the Public Copyright Licenses 1. Machine Readable: Which is mainly in a format that is readable by different kinds of software or search engines. The Internet plays a huge role in the creation, copying, discovery, and distribution of different content. 2. Human Readable: A quick and handy reference for licensors and licensees which summarizes and expresses some of the most important terms and conditions is a more user-friendly way. 3. Legal Code: A traditional legal tool that uses more legal terms then the other formats. This can be hard for someone to interpret if they don't have a legal background. The diagram below is from the Flickr: Creative Commons website and it summarizes the different copyright settings that you can pick from when showing your work to the public.

For example, this photo was created by: Paige_Elizabeth Photography