Class+starters

Class starters - ALCs (A la campana) ** ALC ** ALCs or class starters are in intricate part of the classroom procedure. Class begins each day with an ALC. The ALC is a mini quiz when used to review the previous day's lesson. It can be used as a KWL to find out what the students know, There were a variety of prompts to engage the student to start the class.

Before Chromebooks, the starter was done on a paper folded into 8 squares. The left side had the starter and the right side of the paper had the content objective for the day. Each completed square was given a point value of 10. Students were given the responsibility of keeping the paper for 7 class periods, scoring their own paper, writing the score on it and turning it in when all seven ALCs and objectives were written.
 * From paper to technology**

With the Chromebook students kept the same format. ¡Felicidades! Recibiste un punto de crédito extra porhacer la ALC correctamente. Porfavor, pon una foto de clip art de un **chocolate con churros** en el cuadro del objetivo del contenido.
 * Students learned to create and insert a 2 x 8 table. They were taught how to delete extra rows and columns. That was forgotten until they needed to delete a column or a row. Then instruction had to be recalled. They were also taught how to add extra rows with the tab key. Using Google docs, you cannot tab for another row when there are bullets or numbers in a cell.
 * Students learned to use the alignment icons. In the first square they had to have their computer number, and total aligned to the left, ALC #-# centered. In the second square the information of name, class and period was aligned to the right and content objective was centered.
 * Students used the control C and control V keys frequently throughout the year especially to copy paste their ALC into a G mail and send it to the teacher for Credit. If it was correct students were given extra credit. At first a picture was sent to them and they put it in the square of the ALC.
 * ** Problem/resolution - ** for many of the students, the extra credit pic would not load when copied. I then sent them a short sentence in Spanish with instructions to get the pic. Since extra credit was given to any student with the correct answer all students participating could get the point but they had to open their G mail and follow directions. I used this as a means of getting them to read, follow directions and learn a new vocabulary word or show something of culture. I now have a slide on my PowerPoint that I copy and paste onto a reply email. All I change is the word in bold.
 * Within the last few weeks, students learned to insert screen shots on their ALCs due to the fact that the activities that they did were online games or quizzes that would have score indicated how they did and I wanted to see their score.

The format of 2 x 8 table, the ALCs on the left half and the objective on the right half, alignment of text in the first two squares is a set up of what I will continue to do. The modification and fine tuning of having them put an picture of their choice on the content objective side instead of in the ALC area was a good decision. Some of the ALCs were long and the objective short. Putting the pic in the objective square shortened the length of the square and made it easy to see that they did have extra credit and could score it easier. I also use the table format for assignments. This way I can divide the assignment into sections and see which task they are working on as well as if they are doing it correctly.
 * Reflection **