Languages from a Distance

There must be a mistake. I’m a Virgo. Virgos are meticulous, neat, well organized and especially fastidious when it comes to finances. Ahmmm…that is –unfortunately– SO not me!

I’m a teacher. Another mistake somewhere? After all…teachers relish and excel at multitasking. I dread it and am less than stellar at it. I love a morning when I can think about ONE thing.

Why am I writing this? Well, I’m at it again. Doing fourteen things at once and feeling like I’m not quite covering the bases… The new course is coming out soon. And therefore when a little serendipity comes my way, it is most welcome!

I’m still working on a way to incorporate LinguaFolio into the plan. I was so excited about the prospect of being part of the LinguaFolio online pilot. It was the answer to my prayers I was sure. How much more manageable an online option would make incorporating LF in K12 Distance Learning courses! How difficult a paper-and-pencil LinguaFolio would be to monitor over the miles and miles that separate me from my students.

Well, I just learned today that the online LF is not gonna happen this year. And for the whole afternoon I was trying to figure out how I was going to make this work. Then I checked my twitter page and behold the following Tweet from Mandy Lindgren appeared before my eyes.

E-portfolios! That’s it! That’s what I need! I clicked the link and eventually found materials by Helen Barrett. Check out her blog entry on e- Portfolios here. She’s got an AWESOME slide show with step-by-step instructions on how to create an e-Portfolio. To access it, go here.

By referring to Helen’s instructions, I was able to develop a thinking guide (using Exploratree) that is helping me feel quite a bit more at ease with all of the concepts to consider when dealing with LF. The guide is still quite rough and definitely not finished (see below). But I’m beginning to feel like I can do this.

April is not yet here, but the showers have begun. I feel inclined to include some of my favorite lines from the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales (translated into Modern English):

When April with his showers sweet with fruit
The drought of March has pierced unto the root
And bathed each vein with liquor that has power
To generate therein and sire the flower;
When Zephyr also has, with his sweet breath,
Quickened again, in every holt and heath,
The tender shoots and buds, and the young sun
Into the Ram one half his course has run,
And many little birds make melody
That sleep through all the night with open eye ……

With much work, successes, and setbacks in between, I feel compelled to write again. Most of all, it’s about thinking. I need to think. And so I will write…again.