carlatech

Digest of articles related to technology and education

I like this because it is concise. I've been getting it as an email, but now I can add it here.

I've shared some of the apps from Niks blog already, there are some really great student and teacher tools for the language classroom and beyond. Short, easy to follow videos explaining each app are really useful. Watch out, though, found just a few links that are broken. Not all apps are free.

Very interesting postings, many of them with appealing pictures or other visuals. The topics seem to span a broad area within the area of learning with technology. This is Garett, by the way.

Hi Garrett, I was following his blog, too: Niks' Learning Technology Blog (via Feedly). He reviews and demos a lot of great tools. One thing I had a problem with is that nothing seems to be dated. One of is blogs had a bunch of great tools on it and I found links that were useful. Then, other links in the same blog were broken or, even for me, seemed way out of date (hasn't everyone already heard of Firefox?).

One of my friends started up one of these Scoop.it "newsletters" and I get messages weekly from it - automated. I wonder if she even knows it's still running...?

So far in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Portuguese - in three levels.  The Beginner level has pull-downs so you just make a choice.

Awesome resource, thanks for sharing, I can use this for my weekend school. Middle school students would really enjoy it. :D

anyone try the karaoke? or, is there another karaoke site? i have a student trip to Mexico City coming up and my wouldn't that be a fabulous fundraiser!

At the college where I teach, professors have the unique opportunity every May to develop a course outside of their typical curriculum. Teachers get to explore their interests in new courses as diverse as "The Chemistry of Cooking" and "Writing a Film Short."

I just found this article about redesigning the syllabus. Since my students hardly every really read the syllabus, I have to come up with something new. http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/creative-approaches-to-the-syllabus/35621

Thanks for the link from the Chronicle!

I like the ideas offered on this site! I have never heard of web annotation before.

In the reading classes I teach in ESOL, we teach academic reading skills to non-native English speakers to get the students ready for college-level textbooks. These tools would be very useful for students if we ever have any digital texts we read for the class.

I had a hard time reading from the link! Once opened there were a ton of moving pop-ups that were very distracting. Did anyone else have that issue?

I like to share this blog with teachers who are teaching Chinese.  It has many great apps and creative tools to help students learning Pinyin, which can be the most difficult initial hurdle to get over in learning Chinese.

Awesome website, thanks for sharing. :D

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. :)

"the easiest way to communicate and work in groups" - might be good for classes? - communicate via group email, text, and voice messages - host web meetings, conference calls, chatrooms - keep shared calendar - store and edit files in one common folder -poll group in real-time - keep track of group's task, resources

A virtual learning platform that looks very simple to use and can create an environment much like Facebook without the security issues or Twitter exposure

EdX offers free online classes and MOOCs from the world's best universities. Topics include business, computer science, finance, history, literature, math, science, statistics and more. Courses are from some of the best universities in the world including MIT, Harvard, Berkeley, UT and many other universities.

Tex's French Grammar is the integral grammar component of Français Interactif, an online French course from the University of Texas at Austin. Various sections of the website are entertaining (the dialogues are not always appropriate for middle school!) and others provide rote grammar practice.

Dan found this site - for creating online activities with voice recording that incorporate images and video. Limited free version, but only $79/year for the full version.

Online tools for helping foreign language teachers and students get the most out of language education. I have been using this site for few years now. Mira Angrist

I've used this and really like it. The kids adapted to it very easily. You can have students type or record answers to audio, video, or photo prompts. You can also send back verbal feedback! One caution though, we had we not able to get the recording to work with Google Chrome on our 2010 MacBooks. Worked flawlessly in Safari. We're getting new laptops this year, so I'll have to see if we have the same problems. Will keep you posted on that.

Looks like a great tool for students to organize their vocabulary and phrasebook in one place and share it if they want to.

I have used Larry Ferazzo's website in the past and have found it has awesome resources and ideas!  When I was glancing over it today, I found the video "Word Crimes" by Weird Al Yankovic.  I think students would like watching this video about grammar made to a popular tune :)

I agree. I have been following on Larry Ferazzo's website since last week. I already found several useful and interesting tools to use for my students.

Use the search box and look for "online teaching best practices" or "online course quality" - there are a lot of articles here!

Use the search box and look for things like "online teaching best practices" or "online teaching quality guidelines"

I liked this blog because it seemed to be authentic and though I felt like the author is teaching a different audience than I do, I can relate on many levels. - Garett