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This Web site by the Irish polyglot who gave a TED talk about speaking from day one is billed as foreign language and travel hacks. Any brief perusal of social media sites like Pinterest or Tumblr will show that hacks are a popular topic -- life hacks, cleaning hacks, Disney hacks, etc.

Very interesting. thanks for sharing. :)

Discussion on how technology is being used and why we're still struggling to give more control of learning to students. A good read!

"A 2014 paper by researchers at Michigan State University, in East Lansing, provides a tangible example: Teachers and students in the small-scale study were found to be making extensive use of the online word-processing tool Google Docs. The application's power to support collaborative writing and in-depth feedback, however, was not being realized. Teachers were not encouraging group-writing assignments and their feedback focused overwhelmingly on issues such as spelling and grammar, rather than content and organization." This really gets to the heart of the idea of combining education and technology: the technology has to serve the goal and it doesn't sound like the teachers' goals were the same as the stated goals of the assignment. So obviously Google Docs is a fantastic tool, but it has to be utilized appropriately for it to be effective.

I must say I have sat through many workshops in my tenure at my university that included the modification of some practices and even included, to my frustration, the basic structure of a lesson from stating outcomes to assessment. The problem with our particular situation is that usually it is directed to a "one-size-fits-all" use of a given technology that may not apply to many disciplines. I have found them somewhat useful for upper-level courses at times, but the language classes often pose the need for a kind of collaboration and interpersonal technology that isn't presented. Hence my desire to take this course. Another difficulty is the overwhelming number of technological applications presented--I can't tell you how many--and the students really become overwhelmed, since they often have to learn new technologies in almost many courses. Some work and some don't, and since they are the guinea pigs and there are no guarantees that everything will work as planned, and given the astounding changes in tech, the newness never seems to end, neither for the student nor the teacher. So focusing on just 1 or 2 to begin with seems like the only way to deal with it. Finally, I think that, at least in our university, the huge courses found often in the sciences reflect the slowness to adopt meaningful change. Many in these disciplines have simply used the tech to deliver more lectures on topics students must memorize, perhaps adding clickers for comprehension checks. There seems to be a great disconnect between what happens in the classroom and the amazing advances in tech they have made for their hands-on work--labs, collaborative work, etc.

MindShift explores the future of learning in all its dimensions. We examine how learning is being impacted by technology, discoveries about how the brain works, poverty and inequities, social and emotional practices, assessments, digital games, design thinking and music, among many other topics.

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)

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.

Group bookmarking and setting up a teacher account in Diigo

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?

I don't think that the facebook craze has effected us THAT much, goodness!!! I am 22 and am part of this generation, and I can say that most of my friends and I have grown out of the facebook phase, we aren't obsessed like we were at the end of high school and start of college.

An amusing article ... and perhaps with some degree of truth to it ... but I am unsure why the opinion professor of pharmacology who has done no research on the topic warrants an article.

Facebook vs. Google + -----interesting article comparing the two and it brings up some interesting topics

All about hashtags and using them. Popular education hashtags. Using TweetDeck

FlipGrid tutorial that helped to walk me through setting up different topics for students to participate in.

I so needed this!

It seems somewhat self-explanatory, but by watching the tutorial I came up with a few ideas that would not have otherwise come up. Among them, I can use FG as a scaffolding activity to match student progress over the course of a quarter or semester. It offers a few features that could appropriately match this growth-- I can write a prompt with an image, video, video + link. Anyway, I can see now more clearly how to FG can be a great resource for my classroom.

Thanks for sharing this incredible resource!

Examples on how to use Whatsapp in the language classroom

The use of Whatsapp in the language classroom to promote conversation in the target language

This one worked! and I can see your highlights! =)

Your share of MovieTalk makes think of playposit tool: Play, Pause, discuss/interpret, repeat. I will definitely use to variety my practice.

This is "a how to" resource to help you prepare Presentational Tasks.

PDF of presentational communication strategies. Includes both speaking and writing strategies and ideas for technology inclusion.

Center for Applied Linguistics Resource

Thanks for sharing!

Thanks! Feedback is such a hard topic.

Podcasts on Education-Social Emotional Learning, Mindfulness, character education-- For healthy classrooms and teachers. Images and topics that can be useful in the WL Classroom.