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Issues to consider if expanding your business abroad. Importance of language and culture in business and entrepreneurship.

I have been following Shapiro for a little over a year now. I first became interested in him because as a former video-game player I was always interested in game based learning. Jordan covers the gamification of learning but also how ed-tech is changing the culture of learning in the U.S. and around the world.

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?

Telling and listening to stories is an ancient tradition that can benefit foreign language learners of all ages, languages, and levels of proficiency. Stories contain linguistic, paralinguistic, discourse, and cultural features that provide the comprehensible input and output that students need to develop their conversational skills. Instructors and students can select and tell stories that they enjoy and that interest their listeners. Some interactive story telling activities are presented, categorized as: Change the Story, Group Picture Story, Jigsaw Story, My Story, Oral Reading, Picture Stories, Psycho Story, Rumor, Shuffled Comics, Story Hour, Strip Story, and Tell Us a Story. Contains 33 references. (Author/LB)

Are you a 'learner'? Are your colleagues 'learners'? Do you promote a 'learning culture'? Six suggestions to cultivating a learning environment to reflect upon.

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.

Here, native Mandarin speakers teach you Chinese as a second language. Audio and transcripts are available on the website. The lessons also place an emphasis on understanding Chinese culture.

From the website: Use BlueHarvest to help students with pronunciation and oral examinations by recording audio straight from your desktop. Upload your standards, so that students know what vocab, grammar and cultural standards you want them to focus on. Provide feedback by standard.

I am always looking for ways to provide useful feedbacks to students, and this seems like a great tool to do exactly that. Thank you for sharing.

I can't wait to try this out!

Thanks for sharing this incredible resource!

"The purpose of this activity is to encourage students to learn and practice a thinking routine that they can use inside and outside of the classroom. The thinking routine is: Observe. Analyze. Extend. This routine promotes a contextualized approach to meaning making. Practicing this routine will help students wade deeper into self-directed participation with the target language and culture. It provides a reliable sequence of actions which can be easily adapted to structure participation in new and uncertain citations. "

Good discussion of "authenticity" -- what makes a text authentic or not?

"Authentic" appears to mean: naturally produced by authentic source for communication in a native setting. What concerns me is that the call for "authentic" dates back to perhaps 20 years ago? We are still claiming it is important, yet we scaffold authentic text often to the point that they loose their intrinsic challenge.

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.

Spanish teacher blog used CI. Author of wonderful march music competition and Christmas culture activities.

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."

Great source of information, examples and ideas about using Voicethread for digital conversations.

thanks for sharing Roxana. I really like how this blog discusses the language and cultural uses of using voicethread to create learning communities. It provided me many practical examples I can use in my classroom to help students focus on langauge development while using the technology. This post puts the focus on learning not on the technology. The handouts are great supports that help students stay on the learning track and because of this, the coummunity of learning is built. I was a little concerned by the deficit language used on the scoring rubric for asynchronous content. I will probably use something similar by change the wording to be a little more constructive, as meaning can be lost online and harsh wording can be misinterpreted.

"You have no idea what people will do to reach the United States - until you hear their stories". (From reviewed tool NPR Borderline Stories)

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!