Spanish and Computers Collide with Award-Winning Results
Joe McCright, a spanish teacher at Stowe Elementary School, has received a teaching award from Tackk for creating and using tackk websites in his classroom.
Wherever and whatever it is, Joe McCright’s maybe been there and done that. And all of it led him to Stowe Elementary where he’s been teaching for the last four years. He’s officially listed as a Spanish teacher but his de facto position is Jefe of Spanish Technology. He’s the go-to guy for the Stowe staff on IT matters. And he’s using technology as a key tool to teach Spanish to 3rd-5th graders.
McCright has developed 99 mini-websites through a company called Tackk, one of which is spanishatstowe.weebly.com. Collectively they’ve absorbed in excess of 10,000 hits, a track record for which McCright was one of three teachers nationwide to be recognized by Tackk. So now, in addition to Peace Corps volunteer in Africa, EFL teacher in New York City, lawyer in Cincy, Spanish/PE teacher in Louisiana, European wayfarer and general trotter of the globe this fifty-something Marshalltown, Iowan can add “Rockstar Educator” to his dossier.
Friday morning a class of 3rd graders filed into the Stowe library and plunked down in front of a bank of computers. They’ve been studying their colors in Espanol and McCright was going to administer a quiz via the Stowe Spanish site. Besides learning a foreign tongue the students have also been learning the language of computers.
“I informally surveyed the kids in grades 3-5 here, “McCright said, “and they self-report that maybe as many as 1/3 of them have no access to computers away from school. It’s vital that we be teaching these skills in today’s world.”
Once the entire class had successfully logged on the timed quiz began. Correct answers earned the respondents “kahoots” and the excitement grew along with their totals.
The kids call McCright Senor. He calls them ladies and gentlemen and encourages them to help one another with the ways and means of computering. Elizabeth helped Christian log on, for instance. Claire’s desktop crashed so Senor McCright let her use his smartphone. Pretty soon all of them; Nathaniel, Julie, Rico, Asa, Brody, Glen, Unity, Isabella, et al. were all connected. But, McCright emphasized, during the quiz, they were not to share answers about los colores. They were allowed to laugh and cheer and groan about rojo and morado and rosado and the rest of the palette, but no cheating!
When it was over Teresa had racked up more than 10,000 kahoots. “Wow, Teresa, nice going,” someone said. Then they all took a quick survey that rated the quiz on four factors: Was it fun? Did they learn? Would they recommend? How did it make them feel? The responses were overwhelmingly favorable on all counts. The test passed the test.
“When I started here we didn’t have computers,” McCright said. “Now there’s great support. I asked my principal (Jennifer Williams) if I could expand the computer Spanish to 3rd grade in addition to 4th and 5th this year and she didn’t hesitate.”
As an IB school Stowe is a window on the whole world. The curriculum has a global emphasis. Who better to give kids a peek on that scale than someone with a perspective like Joe McCright’s to share? The building where he works at this point on his long and winding road is a century old but inside it’s cutting edge.
