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Although this article is about British language education and it's two years old, my interest was piqued when I read it: ""Languages cannot be taught, they can only be learnt. The best way is to tell students right away that they are responsible for their own learning process, and the teacher is just a guide who has to motivate them."" Made me think about relevancy and how Tech is only one part of that.

Really interesting. I wonder if we changed the setting to the U.S. if the same difficulties would apply. I never really thought about grammar being discarded simply because students don't know it well enough. While I've found that most students we teach don't understand their mother tongue, I still think that the shift to task-based work had as much to do with the lack of real communication skills. Just teaching them grammar and relying on them to go abroad to learn to speak wasn't doing it. That being said, I think the mixture of methods is best, and by mixture I mean the integration of many methods into accomplishing a task. And I agree that the meta-learning is key.

I remember getting a comment from a student once, many years ago, that she had learned more about English grammar in my Spanish class than anywhere else... (sigh)

Ok - so this article isn't on the interpretive mode...but it makes some good points - pro and con. The author is an entertaining self-described rabble-rouser!

This blog has information not only on practical things, such as how to use VoiceThread, but also on how to create community in online courses. Seems interesting so far.

Interesting to read about her progression throughout the years using these different sites.

A lot of valuable information here. Thanks for sharing.

HCC Conjugations Back Our goal at TeacherTube.com is to provide an online community for sharing instructional teacher videos. Upload your lesson plan videos or watch student video lessons at our website.

Description - from the website "VoiceThread can be used to teach Chinese in a high school setting. Students have to repeat the words and then make sentences with the new vocabulary. They record themselves and they have to be creative. I show the end project in the class and the students love it!"

Hmmm, what do you think of this ban?

It seems like the legislators have not been advised of the many positive attributes of a social networking site in the classroom. At the same time, they are probably acting out of fear and intense need to decrease liability. Unfortunately, as the article also states, such legislation probably won't stop inappropriate communications from happening. If a teacher and student decide to cross that line, they will, undoubtedly, find other ways of communicating.

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.

For those that are interested in knowing a step-by-step process in setting up a facebook account for your school district. Article talks about all of the different things that one must think about when setting up a site.

A school district in Florida is advising teachers not to "friend" students on social networking sites, claiming that teacher-student communication through this medium is "inappropriate."

Interesting that these regulations are listed in the teachers' handbook. I live within walking distance from the school I work at, and often see neighborhood kids. One in particular is my student, in fact I was standing outside my home last night talking with two friends of mine and he walked by. He's a great kid and we always say hi and chat a little, but it's in the back of my mind that even that could be used against me by someone who is twisted. The weird thing about the inappropriate internet stuff is that there is always a paper trail, so it seems so obvious to not do certain things. I'm surprised FL advises teachers to not even use a "professional" user account with students, but apparently they feel the risks outweigh the advantages.

Facebook isn't just a great way for you to find old friends or learn about what's happening this weekend, it is also an incredible learning tool. Teachers can utilize Facebook for class projects, for enhancing communication, and for engaging students in a manner that might not be entirely possible in traditional classroom settings.

interesting article -just read it myself!

An article about using Twitter in an English class to train communicative and cultural competence at a Distant College in China.

Twitter has become a powerful tool for community organizers, marketers, and others who want to share and receive information in a fast, friendly environment. It's no wonder, then, that teachers have also found success on Twitter, using the tool to connect with students, share information with parents, and find useful resources. Here, we'll take a look at 100 tools that can help twittering teachers make the most out of this helpful microblogging tool.

"What are the best apps for teachers? We asked TED-Ed Innovative Educators and the TED-Ed community. Below, 25 awesome apps recommended for teachers, by teachers."

This empirical study indicates the positive effect on synchronous communication between students in Japan who learn English and students in US who learn Japanese, using Skype.

"Abstract Currently, language educators experience difficulties in facilitating oral practice effectively in the foreign language classroom. Regularly, they face introverted and passive learners who fail to embrace speaking opportunities (Poza, 2011), or simply do not find the time to promote speaking practice in the classroom (Meddings & Thornbury, 2009). In this light, many asynchronous computer mediated communication (ACMC) technologies have emerged to confront this situation. However, central research studies do not seem to acknowledge ACMC as viable in accommodating oral development but, rather, frequently attribute this merit to synchronous CMC (Levy & Stockwell, 2006; Kervin & Derewianka, 2011). By employing a mixed-methods approach, this small-scale case study examines, firstly, the extent to which ACMC speaking practices are suitable for language learners' speaking development. Secondly, and by extension, it investigates the salient characteristics of the ACMC tool myBrainshark, that makes it appropriate for fostering linguistic growth. The data is obtained from post-beginner Spanish language learners by means of an online questionnaire and an online structured stimulated recall. The findings show, on the one hand, that ACMC oral practices can be beneficial in developing speaking aspects in lower-proficiency language learners and, on the other hand, that myBrainshark has characteristics that can potentially promote linguistic development. Finally, this paper calls for experimental research on the improvement of oral competency in post-beginner and higher-proficiency learners."