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Matt has a lot of great tech ideas - and he's a Spanish teacher, so many are specific to language teaching and learning. If you don't know his blog, you may want to take a look around.

A blog by edweek about education around the world!

Thanks for sharing! I have submitted an application to join!

This is a great resource--I'm looking in to the Global Education Certificate written up on the blog, it sounds like something my students would be really interested in pursuing.

I have selected a digital magazine issued by the Office of the Spanish Ministry of Education in the USA and Canada. This yearly magazine gathers lessons, units and projects around a different cultural topic carried out by Spanish teachers in immersion or foreign languages programs in America or other places outside of Spain. These issues don't have a strictly academic tone but they are actually more like real experiences carried out in real classrooms that can be borrowed or inspired by other educators. The magazine guidelines require a very specific format with objectives, level, materials, etc. to describe the experiences.

Abstract - "Teacher educators have increasingly integrated social media into their education courses with aims including improving instruction and preparing students for a connected world. In this study, the authors sought to better understand the possibilities and challenges of scaffolding 60 pre- and in-service teachers across two universities into professional learning networks (PLNs) through a social media assignment. Participants analyzed educator practices, participated in, and envisioned future uses of teacher Twitter. Consistent with previous studies, education students were positive about the relational and relevant aspects of Twitter use. However, students' participation did not mimic the participatory cultures of affinity spaces often reported by connected educators in the literature. Instead, participants tweeted around deadlines and quit using their accounts for professional education purposes once the class ended. In contrast to recent literature, this article argues that social media integration for education students should focus on relational and relevant engagements and content, as opposed to attempting to build social media augmented PLNs for unknown futures."

Authentic activities for the 3 modes of communication: interpretive, interpersonal, presentational. Great technology tools mentioned.

Amazing resource! I love how this article offers ways to integrate technology through accessing each mode in several ways!

It carries over well into the German classroom too!

Super interesting thread on ways in which other Spanish teachers have incorporated iPads into their classrooms! Maybe some ideas for people?

Just what I was looking for...I have many students whose lives revolve around their smartphones and iPads.

This is an interesting collection (from 2009-but still) of articles/ book chapters around social networking. The author reads the various projectors as communities of practice. Not all articles deal with language acquisition, but are still interesting. One of them delves into why and how students use Facebook. One of them looks at virtual learning communities in the US and Australia vs. Europe. Good spring board to look at some of our topics more.

Wow, this just seems like an awesome idea. I've been toying with the idea of getting an iPad, just for fun, and this makes me want to get one and play around with it before the next school year starts.

I really like this idea! The teacher can give a much more detailed commentary on the assessment and with that the student may come away with a better understanding of necessary improvements.

This is a great idea and I like that there are other gadgets that can be used in conjunction. However I assume this would only be useful if you are a f2f teacher. In Blackboard we have wimba voice authoring which allows us to give audio feedback. I use this tool a lot and I feel that those who actually listen to my feedback profit from it.

A website that helps to optimize language learning.

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)?"

Prezi is a good resource for students to look at a wide array of related topics and choose the angle that best suits their research or class direction. Gradeguru and Notehall are mainly about student exchange of helpful notes and study materials. Dropbox is mainly a storage tool that also allows sharing and exching files. Chegg is a book rental tool.

What do you think of these 15 characteristics? Do you agree? Add a note to the ones you question - and tell us why. Don't forget to look at the responses after the article!

They're fine...but huge to implement on a consistent basis: by 'huge' I mean both in terms of time, and space - to get one's head around them all conceptually. And it can also be a challenge for students to buy into the responsibility for their own leaning. HTML...yes, sometimes, in designing activities writhing my LMS. Blogging...no! Takes too much thought and self- confidence! Tweeting...yes! I love passing on items that have been helpful to me. And yes...II guess tweeting is providing glimpses of great PD resources. Now all I have to do is to go back to them in more depth.

This blog post is about the preparation for a presentation, but there are links to the presentation, and another one someone else did, as well as other resources - a course for parents to do with their children, etc.

This is a fabulous site! Read high-quality picture books from all over the world in different languages-page by page-illustrations included!

Abstract: In recent years, a sharp increase in the number of academic studies around the use of video games and new media for educational purposes has greatly expanded our understanding of their potential for enhancing learning.

Constantinos, this a great resource of information. Thank you for sharing! I haven't sit down to read it all, but skimming through it I found plenty of interesting information. I was always interested in using video games or educational games for language learning, but never took initiative in reading anything on the topic. In the beginning of "From "Authentic Materials" to "Live Materials" section, the author mentions that the culture should not be described to students, but rather facilitate a platform for them to actually participate in that culture. I see how we can do that through games, but is there any of you using other means to do it? Is it possible to do it through social networks or second language learning networks? If yes, how exactly? Any thoughts on this?

Upgrade to Flash Player 10 for improved playback performance. Upgrade Now or More Info. close 79,634 LikeAdd toShare Loading... Sign In or Sign Up now! Uploaded by PBS on Aug 16, 2011 For decades now, people have joined together online to communicate and collaborate around interesting imagery. In recent years, the pace and intensity of this activity has reached a fever pitch. With countless communities engaging in a constant exchange, building on each others' work, and producing a prodigious flow of material, we may be experiencing the early stages of a new type of artistic and cultural collaboration. In this episode of Off Book, we'll speak with a number of Internet experts and artists who'll give us an introductory look into this intriguing new world.

Jon- I totally agree that we should still make them read Vonnegut and can't use new culture/brain learning styles as excuses- how to reconcile the new ways students are and our teaching styles is where we need to research more so we can implement instructional practices that meet them where they are at and get them to the place we need them to be.

I originally signed on to this blog (and downloaded the e-book) because I was so interested in teaching with technology. But Matt is a foreign-language teacher, and I'm really intrigued by the way he organizes his curriculum around Performance-Based Learning and questioning.

A grading help that creates Google forms for you.