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In my district, we are always being asked to connect our language teaching to other disciplines. Using Smartphone to do so is smart. However, not all of my students have these devices. They can definitely share a device. I like how this article is geared toward adult learners who can't or don't have time to attend physical classes. The App allows them to access this knowledge anywhere anytime. Thanks Akiko.

I love the statement about the importance of Math Literacy--YES!!!!

Great suggestions in this article for using Flipgrid. I really like the idea of keeping track of completed assignments (in my school that would be considered a Habit of Work as we do not grade homework anyhow) and perhaps using Flipgrid as part of a summative assessment at the end of the semester...lots of no stress practice and, by the time the assessment comes, they are all familiar with the technology.

Thanks for sharing this article! I liked the idea of different context and different identity :-) Sometimes students express themselves more comfortable at the beginning through the use of alternate identities. Specially if they have to video record themselves when they are learning the language.

My only concern is that how much the material they use in video can be authentic.

This is a good reference that was made as a blog for Arabic Grammar, that I use all the time when teaching Arabic.I think the group can use the same idea and create simple grammar lessons in FL, these lessons can be useful for all the teachers teaching for example French, German all over the world.

For all of you Padlet fans - here's a ton of ideas for putting it to more use!

More ways to use Padlet in class.

These are good tips to keep in mind as I plan my online classes for fall.

Thank you for sharing! This will come in handy as I'm prepping for hybrid teaching this fall.

I used Screencast-o-matic for sharing my presentation while creating a video and it was a great program. Kaltura is also a great way to create presentations.

This can be a handy direction (in both video and writing) for using Voice Thread in Blackboard for people like me who are using Bb. Thanks for sharing!

Due to issues I've encountered lately with opening sites and links that did not like my laptop, I've decided to stick with tools offered in BB which is what is used at my school. The explanations look clear enough for EVEN ME to figure out so I am thrilled to be able to access this tool AND use it!

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."

Get around firewalls by using Google Translate - does this really work?  Those of you who have blocked access to YouTube movies at school - let us know!

Great ideas for using Voicethread in a Language Arts class

The most valuable part of this article is the ppt at the end (25 interesting ways to use VoiceThread in the Classroom) Check it out! Great ideas that can be applied to the WL classroom.

I really liked the suggestions to do collaborative play scripts and to perform a poem!

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!

several examples of SNS use in the FL classroom

inding productive media examples to use in the classroom can be time-consuming and challenging. Here are media examples other teachers have found useful along with descriptions and information about the teaching contexts in which they were used.

Original illustrations with no words

Media can be used in almost any discipline to enhance learning, both in class, and also for out-of-class assignments. Short film and television clips, written articles, and blog postings can be viewed to reinforce concepts and spark discussion. Songs and music videos, especially when the lyrics are made available, can be used to the same effect.

I used Socrative last year with first grade. Easy to use, you can add pictures to the questions. And kids can solve them at their own piece. No more papers to review any more!! Google forms is also great!!

If you want ideas for how teachers use Animoto, check out this video. at about minute 3:40 it talks about how students can use it.  

This is a quick tutorial for embedding audio into QR codes. it provides a couple examples of how this might be used in an educational setting.

Adrianne, I like your link a lot. QR is a great helper. I have used it last year and make easy to my students to get faster to pages I wanted them to go.

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.

Create different color QR codes in order to separate the groups by task. Differentiated instruction but more discreet with the use of QR codes.