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"Over the past academic year, my students and I have been experimenting with the use of a number of web based applications (often known as Web 2.0 tools). My aim has been to enhance our schemes of work by providing our students with new and exciting learning opportunities. In my opinion, using technology effectively has clear benefits for both teaching and learning and can help to improve motivation by engaging pupils in activities which, perhaps, step out of their ordinary school experience and which show them that it is possible to teach and learn about a subject using tools similar to those they use daily outside school. In other words, we have tried to use the types of tools with which they are often already familiar. I have written about each of these individual tools in separate posts, but I thought it would be useful to list the ten most used internet applications on one post. As ever, I aim to provide, not only a list of the web applications we have used, but also examples of practice which you may wish to follow or, indeed, improve upon. Therefore, each of the entries below has links leading to lesson plans which have incorporated the tools as well as working examples of students' work where appropriate. Without further ado, and in alphabetical order, my ten tried and tested internet tools for teachers are:"

from a FL teacher in England - who tries and tests a number of tech tools. Here are his 10 favorite web 2.0 apps.

Here are a number of articles and resources on using mobile devices in education - from Edutopia

This issue - Languages, Cultures and Virtual Communities - has a number of articles on CALL and online learning.

If you are really into Twitter, here is a site that investigates a number of tools that will help you use Twitter in different ways.

A good article in favor of learning multiple languages!  The first part mentions a number of tech apps for assisting in global learning collaborations.

Voki speaking avatars are great tools for the classroom. Teachers and students alike can create avatars and use them in a number of ways to make learning fun and more accessible.

Fabulous Class Comic in French. Another brilliant activity that can be conducted over a number of months and allows a fair bit of freedom to students to be creative as well as engage different intelligences in the classroom (visual, verbal, logical, etc.). Plus, it is highly collaborative for all and takes the teacher away from being the knowledge expert to the a more authentic creative position. 

IAnnotate (Mac and Android), and a number of other apps for tablet or laptop can help you digitize your grading routine. This article talks about how iAnnotate is used with DropBox for grading, but be sure to read the comments for other ideas and apps, too.

Sorry, you may have to go to your own library access to see this, but it was interesting for a number of things: 80% took all classes online, 74% indicated interaction with peers was not or only a little important, among other questions in a survey given to middle and high school students.

"Five Two Zero So Much"

Wow!! 150+ iPod/iPhone apps charted by price, grade level and subject. There are only a couple that mention language learning (Spanish), but I think a number of them could be adapted.

A number of you wanted to know more about Google+ and how you might use this in the classroom.  This one is not language specific, but it would give you a good start?

There are a number of FL webquests listed here by grade level. We should check out the tool for making webquests -

Abstract: Over just the past decade, online learning at the K-12 level has grown from a novelty to a movement. Often using the authority and mechanism of state charters, and in league with home schoolers and other allies, private companies and some state entities are now providing full-time online schooling to a rapidly increasing number of students in the U.S. Yet little or no research is available on the outcomes of such full-time virtual schooling. The rapid growth of virtual schooling raises several immediate, critical questions for legislators regarding matters such as cost, funding, and quality. This policy brief offers recommendations in these and other areas, and the accompanying legal brief offers legislative language to implement the recommendations.

How to collect a number of URLs and get them to your students easily. Most of these would work for F2F and online.

"On International and national levels, a number of frameworks, self-assessment tools and training programmes have been developed to describe the facets of digital competence for educators and to help them assess their competence, identify their training needs and offer targeted training. Analysing and clustering these instruments, this report presents a common European Framework for the Digital Competence of Educators (DigCompEdu)."

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

Abstract from publisher - The difficulty for teachers is in understanding how to integrate, use and maintain course blogs so that they are a strong and positive educational force in the classroom. At the core of using blogs is the development of blog management strategies. Based on the authors' use of blogs in undergraduate courses, the current paper outlines an approach to blog management.