Comparisons

This week in Spanish II we learned how to compare things using the formula más/menos + the noun, adjective, or adverb+que. Using this formula, we are able to compare things by saying that one is better or worse than the other. We did a project on Animoto to show what we learned. For the project, we found Creative Commons pictures on the internet and made a slideshow that compared the pictures. Here is the project:

Photo Credits for These Pictures

Magnus Manske

andysternberg

Aaron Frutman

Keith Allison

Valerio Capello

Pink_Fish

Joi Ito

G. S. George

Hyku

Tage Olsin

Mi universidad favorita es la Universidad de Texas. Me gustaría asistir a la Universidad de Texas A&M. Me gustaría estudiar allí para ser ingeniero. Esta universidad estar en Texas. Es cara y yo tengo que estudiar mucho para ir allí. Yo pienso tener una familia después de terminar escuela.

Photo Credits:   Anonymous Jeffrey K Edwards

The creative commons experience was definitely something new. I never realized that the pictures on the internet belong to someone and that they may not want them to be used. Using creative commons was a little stressful because it took quite a while to find the type of picture that I wanted. There isn’t as much of a variety of creative commons and finding a good picture is harder than just using an unrestricted search. It is strange to me that people would post things on the internet and not expect other people to use them. Although I can see their reason for wanting the picture, it seems contradictory to publish something that you want for yourself. Giving them credit is something that I understand, but not being able to use the picture at all seems a little ridiculous. Overall, the creative commons experience wasn’t too bad, but it definitely wasn’t the same as going to Google, searching what you need, and instantly getting quality results. For my creative commons I used Flickr.com.

This semester of blogging has definitely been a unique experience that I feel like I have benefited from. I enjoy getting to create my own posts on my own site because it allows me to add my personality into it. Before this blog was created I didn’t really know what a blog was or what the point of one was. I now understand the difference between blogging and social networking and can use this knowledge as I get older. I love embedding my own work because once again, it is mine. It means more to me because there is an element of sentimental value in this blog. Other people’s comments can be very beneficial to a blog because you get different insight and ideas about your blog. You also get to see some mistakes that you might have missed and now have the advantage of being able to edit them. Blogging could be beneficial because of your career or a club you join later in life. Many people use them to share ideas and help each other with various things. I hope we continue doing projects and things like that in the 2nd semester because they add an element of originality to the assignments and we are able to edit them at any time we are near a computer.

Learning New Things

In the 3rd six weeks of Spanish II, we learned new vocabulary and grammar concepts that help us to tell about our daily routine. We learned what reflexive verbs are and how to use them correctly when speaking or writing. By combining all of the things we learned, we were able to write sentences about our daily routine.

Testing Our Knowledge

After we got these concepts down, we had to show what we learned by creating an avatar on voki.com that would tell the listener about our daily routine for getting ready to go to school. To do this, we had to:

• Write a script of what we do each morning

• 
  

  Present a rough draft to our teacher

• Allow her to point out areas where errors occurred

• Realize what we did wrong and correct it

After correcting the script, we practiced pronunciation of the words and used our phones to call in and record our scripts. Once we saved the recording we emailed the avatar to our teacher and embedded the avatar at the end of this post.

Looking Back

This project was a unique one to me because I have never done anything like this for an assignment. I liked using the avatar because it is a different way of applying what we know. Instead of paper and pencil, we got to show what we have learned in a fun way. I like using the avatar for speaking tests because it eliminates nervousness. You don’t have to get up in front of everyone and present; you get to simply talk on the phone. This project was valuable to me as a language learner because I had to put many different components together to create a fluent paragraph that made sense.

Get a Voki now!

In the first semester we reviewed sentence forms and how to write them. The tener que form is the “have to do something” form. Immediate future tells something that is going to happen. Present progressive tells something that is happening right now, and present tense tells what happens. We created a Stixy board to display this information.

This is my Stixy board: Verb Tense Review

After reviewing adjectives, we created a project describing our favorite person. We used the Stixy website. We found pictures on the internet and described what our person was doing using the verb “ser.”

Here is my Stixy board of Lauren Conrad:

In the 2nd six weeks we reviewed some adjectives that we knew and learned even more. We reviewed the adjective rules and learned how to use them in sentences. We created a slideshow of 5 of our favorite things.

Hundreds of insects are crawling down trees,

While different colored leaves float in the breeze.

Plants of different kinds cover the ground,

While birds and grasshoppers show off their sounds.

Ants building houses to defend their queen,

Birds being heard but never being seen.

The soil is soft and nutrient rich,

It feeds the plants and fulfills its niche.

The temperature is nice and the wind is blowing,

The sky is cloudy and humidity is growing.

Trees are swaying and branches are bending,

Nature goes on, its never-ending.