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45 minute presentation on evaluating web-based tools for language teaching use. 

Sign-up for the 30-day, but a year - free! Here's info I got in an email notification: We are glad to announce a free WizIQ individual membership for K-12 and College teachers. To be eligible for this offer, teachers need email addresses associated with their educational institutes (e.g., aprofessor@college.edu or ateacher@adistrict.k12.ma.us.) If you are a teacher from K12 or a College, apply and claim your free membership by following the steps below: Steps to get free WizIQ membership: 1.Sign up for a 30-day trial by clicking on the 'Apply now' button below 2. Verify your email address from your email inbox 3. You'll receive a confirmation email from us once your free membership is approved Apply now  WizIQ's free teacher accounts give educators at accredited institutions access to a range of teaching tools. To many educators, the virtual classroom for which WizIQ is best known only means live classes, which they might not need considering they see their students in person every day. But with the WizIQ Virtual Classroom teachers can also: Offer online courses for their school Run virtual office hours and homework help Run summer school online to address transportation and facilities issues Give AP students a jumpstart with virtual summer class sessions Let athletes or homebound students work with their classes, live, even if they can't be there Easily set up classes - without IT help Bring subject matter experts into their classrooms virtually Support group and project-based learning Engage hard-to-reach parents with: Virtual parents' nights Virtual conferences Adult education and community outreach Virtual math and literacy nights Broadcast live school committee meetings on the web Record lectures or flip their classrooms Conduct virtual field trips Run professional development when and where staff are available Share teaching resources among schools Teachers can take full advantage of every WizIQ feature, including screen-sharing, polling, video-confe

The annual list of the top 100 tools for learning - a good place to check out some new tools, if you're looking.  The analysis page is interesting, too - see what's moving up or down, in or out - http://c4lpt.co.uk/top100tools/analysis-2013/

Anant Agarwal runs EdX.org, the Harvard-MIT open-education site, and he's here to talk MOOCs, those "massively open online courses" that have generated both excitement and skepticism throughout the chattering world of the digital classes. Agarwal shows a picture of a lecture hall in MIT from 50 years ago.

The changing face of the MOOC - they will stay free for all, and charge if you want a certificate (not for credit yet).

Larry Ferlazzo writes a column for the New York Times about using the NYT for ELLs - but these ideas could easily be adapted for FL teachers using news sites, too.   You should also check out Ferlazzo's blog.

Get around firewalls by using Google Translate - does this really work?  Those of you who have blocked access to YouTube movies at school - let us know!

I was in this class - wanting to see how things were handled along with what the content was - it was really a mess!  I'll be interested to see what changes they make if they offer it again.

Flipping the Classroom. By Cynthia J. Brame, CFT Assistant Director Printable Version Cite this guide: Brame, C., (2013). Flipping the classroom. Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. Retrieved [todaysdate] from http://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/flipping-the-classroom/. "Flipping the classroom" has become something of a buzzword in the last several years, driven in part by high profile publications in The New York Times (Fitzpatrick,...

A very recent article, published August 2016. from Vanderbilt University website. This paper praises on the idea of the benefits of the flipping classroom across disciplines (humanities, economics, sciences, etc.) This article can lead to think beyond those disciplines and to deepen into the already going research on this subject applied to World Languages.

Language learning supreme guru. Also has a tweeter account: http://t.co/FOlLwQyeCO He's a serious and influential language researcher and theorist whom you may know.

Thanks for sharing this one, Mark. I am a big Krashen fan and am now following him on twitter because of your reminder.

I like Krashen, too. Thanks for sharing!

There was a hyperlink to an article about whether we should still teach cursive. Apparently high schools are not doing it any more. My son stopped cursive in about the 5th grade and didn't have to use it and now he is struggling at the university because he can't read when the professor uses cursive in anything, like comments on his papers. I have to print when I leave him a note. Wow, technology is wiping out one of the long-standing activities that took humans decades to develop.

I like the balanced way this piece presents some of the pros and cons of technology in education. Just this week I had a conversation with another educator who has encountered recent studies suggesting a link between handwriting (of any kind) and certain cognitive development. Some schools are now emphasizing handwriting instruction because it helps boost students' academic achievement.

My daughter is 8 years old and she started learning cursive this year. So it must be back! I'm not sure if will help boost her achievement or not, but I'm glad she is learning it. I think the article made a good point about how students today have a short attention span and easily get off track. If they are typing a paper on the computer, for example, they can open a browser and start surfing the web. They don't necessarily stay focused on the task at hand. It is even hard for me sometimes. If I don't ignore email (just put it off until later, I mean), I would never get anything done!

I do audio slideshows as an end-of-semester project in my level 2 class, but I have only ever used PhotoStory. PhotoStory is loaded on our language lab computers so that students do not have to register or create any types of accounts. These resources seem to be just as easy, however

Blog about free audio tech resources

Thank you Isis. I like all those ones that are useful without signing up. I will keep looking in this page. They have lots of articles!!

Voki speaking avatars are great tools for the classroom. Teachers and students alike can create avatars and use them in a number of ways to make learning fun and more accessible.

I thought this was pretty interesting.  How do we teach students to judge the quality of information they are getting?

Amy, I like the graph. There are so much details to think about when it comes to look for "the tool" for our students. Thank you for sharing!