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This slideshare ppt has some practical ideas for synchronous learning on slides 19, 20, & 21. It mentions the use of 2 FREE tools that are excellent for foreign language use: makebeliefscomix.com & devolver moviemaker. Check it out!

This is a short article discussing advantages and disadvantages of tools such as SKYPE, FB and Second Life.

"CALICO (Computer-Assisted Language Instruction Consortium) is devoted to research and development of technology in second language acquisition."

"the European Association for Computer Assisted Language Learning. EUROCALL aims to provide a European focus for the promulgation of innovative research, development and practice relating to the use of technologies for language learning."

"This is a step by step guide on how to use Teacher's Pet, a fantastic toolbar for Microsoft Word or Open Office which cleverly uses macros to create language learning exercises in a matter of clicks. A wonderful timesaver for busy teachers, Teacher's Pet is ideal for preparing paper worksheets instantly or for using on the interactive whiteboard as a starter or plenary. By simply highlighting some text and clicking one of the exercise types on the toolbar's dropdown menu, you can produce activities which practice vocabulary revision, grammar, reading comprehension, spelling and dictionary skills."

This seems like a very useful digest of edtech resources that appears to be well-organized.

A lot of ideas for using tech in your teaching!

Very interesting postings, many of them with appealing pictures or other visuals. The topics seem to span a broad area within the area of learning with technology. This is Garett, by the way.

Hi Garrett, I was following his blog, too: Niks' Learning Technology Blog (via Feedly). He reviews and demos a lot of great tools. One thing I had a problem with is that nothing seems to be dated. One of is blogs had a bunch of great tools on it and I found links that were useful. Then, other links in the same blog were broken or, even for me, seemed way out of date (hasn't everyone already heard of Firefox?).

One of my friends started up one of these Scoop.it "newsletters" and I get messages weekly from it - automated. I wonder if she even knows it's still running...?

Discussion on how technology is being used and why we're still struggling to give more control of learning to students. A good read!

"A 2014 paper by researchers at Michigan State University, in East Lansing, provides a tangible example: Teachers and students in the small-scale study were found to be making extensive use of the online word-processing tool Google Docs. The application's power to support collaborative writing and in-depth feedback, however, was not being realized. Teachers were not encouraging group-writing assignments and their feedback focused overwhelmingly on issues such as spelling and grammar, rather than content and organization." This really gets to the heart of the idea of combining education and technology: the technology has to serve the goal and it doesn't sound like the teachers' goals were the same as the stated goals of the assignment. So obviously Google Docs is a fantastic tool, but it has to be utilized appropriately for it to be effective.

I must say I have sat through many workshops in my tenure at my university that included the modification of some practices and even included, to my frustration, the basic structure of a lesson from stating outcomes to assessment. The problem with our particular situation is that usually it is directed to a "one-size-fits-all" use of a given technology that may not apply to many disciplines. I have found them somewhat useful for upper-level courses at times, but the language classes often pose the need for a kind of collaboration and interpersonal technology that isn't presented. Hence my desire to take this course. Another difficulty is the overwhelming number of technological applications presented--I can't tell you how many--and the students really become overwhelmed, since they often have to learn new technologies in almost many courses. Some work and some don't, and since they are the guinea pigs and there are no guarantees that everything will work as planned, and given the astounding changes in tech, the newness never seems to end, neither for the student nor the teacher. So focusing on just 1 or 2 to begin with seems like the only way to deal with it. Finally, I think that, at least in our university, the huge courses found often in the sciences reflect the slowness to adopt meaningful change. Many in these disciplines have simply used the tech to deliver more lectures on topics students must memorize, perhaps adding clickers for comprehension checks. There seems to be a great disconnect between what happens in the classroom and the amazing advances in tech they have made for their hands-on work--labs, collaborative work, etc.

I found this site on Feedly and started following it; this guy travels around the world learning foreign languages; this article in particular discusses how to learn minority and endangered languages, however I find the innovation and his motivation to be the greatest factors in his success. He's not following someone else's path and as the actual process of learning a FL is such a personal thing, I think he's really on to something! From the site: "There are almost too many sites and resources for big languages like French, Spanish and German. When you're learning a language like these, the problem is usually deciding which resource to use rather than not being able to find one. But what about those of us who want to learn a less popular language (minority or endangered)?"

ACTFL's Language Educator is looking for responses to some questions, including Tech use. Perhaps we have something to offer...?

includes ideas for using Diigo in the classroom

No matter which device you choose, recording on an iPod couldn't be easier. Each device has a button that calls up the iPod Voice Memo screen. A click of the iPod's wheel is all it takes to start recording.