Group items tagged

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 looks like a good resource for new classroom activities for any language.

I really like the idea of doing an email activity with my students! Thank you for posting this article! Great ideas!

Now I have another question: what role does a textbook play in our instruction? Do we need to get rid of materials written for language learners?

This posting provides MULTIPLE ways to use Padlet. I found those activities that allow live interaction to be very interesting.

I love the idea of using padlet for exit ticket questions!

I really like padlet as a survey tool or an exit pass type of activity

Why do the terms "nature," "landscape," and "wilderness" have such positive connotations in German? Why do humans yearn for nature and protect it? How does this differ from culture to culture? Dossier article from the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung

Here is a guy who is doing presentations on "60 web tools in 60 minutes" (60 seconds each).  This is a page with the current 60 listed - do you know them all?   and there is a link to the recording of his presentation/webinar, too, so you can see the whole presentation.

I'm always frustrated with sites that say they have free images and then link to a bunch more sites that say and do the same thing. Here are 7 sites to find photos and images that are copyright-free or friendly, in addition to Flickr. Do you remember how to search using Creative Commons??

Take note! How are you using your whiteboard? For those of you who don't have one, would the type of whiteboard mentioned in this article be useful for language learning? How would you use one? For those of you who DO have a digital whiteboard, how do your STUDENTS use it? Let us know! add your ideas here in a reply!

I don't know much about this, but Pablo was looking for somewhere you could post a video and then have students do audio replies to the video. This does that in a sort of blog-like format. YouTube can do video replies.

for teachers who would like to build a digital portfolio - LinguaFolio is a good online app to do this - and here is set of free, online modules to teach you how to do it.

I noticed that I was only getting about 3 days' worth of tweets in Seesimic and then they didn't show any more - especially in the group hashtags for the "storytweeting" activity - so this interested me. You may also be interested in how to keep student tweets for classroom purposes.

What do you do if you need to go back to find an old tweet or want to assess a student based on a series of tweets-archive the tweets. here are 10 ways to archive the tweets.

"Test scores should never be a surprise." And the way to know that your students are understanding as you go is to do formative assessments. Here are some tools to help you do that.

These are good tips - there is more of a focus on what students can do for themselves with the tools they know, rather than what we need to teach them to do.

ACTFL 2012 presentation "Emerging technologies are changing the way we do things, and teaching a world language is no exception! Learn how Web 2.0 technology can enhance what you are doing in your classroom, what the 21st Century Skills are, and how you can support them through communicative world language teaching strategies. Best of SCOLT Presentation."

"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."

Thanks for sharing, Carmen-- I am also considering students who do not have Twitter, or parent concerns, and I wonder if small group work might be a solution- Using the twitter account of one student, another student or group of students help to compose responses, stay hidden from their online contributions.

Thanks for this suggestions, Carmen-- will use it!

Especially middle/high school parents/students may feel more comfortable using a platform provided by the district. I am also planning to use the discussion board in the district's platform. I can definitely use the tips in this article.

Fun ideas for Twitter use

So many great ideas in this article. I hope I will get to use more this coming semester - Padlet, for instance.

So many ways to engage students in virtual classes. Great ideas!

I attended a webinar and the presenter emphasized taking breaks. I must remember that one as well as putting these ideas in my toolbox.

"What do highly effective teachers do in online classrooms? We combed through dozens of studies to find the best research-backed ideas."

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!