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In Dominique Chargois's Spanish III classes, students interact with native Spanish speakers on Livemocha, a social network for learners of foreign languages. Chargois has used Livemocha Active Spanish as a supplemental learning tool in all of her Spanish III sections in order to engage students and inspire them to learn ad so they could work at their own pace. It also helps expand students' horizons by 'chatting' with individuals who live outside the U.S.

Spanish Proficiency Exercises is a compilation of video clips in which native speakers of Spanish from various locations throughout Latin America and Spain demonstrate various language tasks.

This educational video site has many Spanish resources (and tons of other topics). Though not as organized as Ver-taal or Zambombazo, there are many good grammar videos to benefit Spanish students.

This is a digital library that has English and Spanish stories. These stories can be read to the students, which is convenient for students who struggle with reading or for students who need more input in Spanish.

I love this site, It is a quick reference for a lot of accurate material.

This is the Spanish teacher's go-to website for authentic language, music, and culture activities.

This is widely-regarded as the best online Spanish-English dictionary. Searches yield detailed results, including forum discussions, relevant grammar links, and verb conjugators. (Other languages are included, but I can't personally speak to their usefulness.)

A wide variety of creative, fun, activities for Spanish classrooms!

The World Digital Library provides free access to manuscripts, rare books, maps, photographs, and other important cultural documents from all countries and cultures, in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.

The Spanish section of this language-learning site organizes a wide variety of authentic materials and activities (many interactive). Resources can be sorted by grammar or vocabulary themes: reportajes del telediario de TVE fragmentos de vídeos culturales trailers de película canciones anuncios y mensajes de campañas de información

This website discusses using Twitter in the language classroom. The students could actually tweet or Facebook message others from Hispanic countries (or whatever country they are studying). It would be a great way to get the students communicating outside of the classroom in the language. 

This website allows you to create floor plans for houses. Although it limits you to one floor plan with the free version, you are able to create a floor plan and download or print it, then delete to make a new one. I am excited to try this out in my Spanish classroom when we discuss houses.

22 tutorial videos teaching vocabulary and grammar

Offers many basic-quizzes after mini tutorials of Spanish grammar topics.

Rosetta Stone Shared Talk allows for real-time online chat with Spanish speakers from around the world.

This site has a wide variety of flash cards to facilitate students learning Spanish.

This graduate dissertation was particularly interesting to me since it focuses on K-12 Spanish teachers. The author discusses how communities of practice can be used as professional development and ongoing language training, particularly for non-native speakers. The research includes the use of technology in that the community of practice studied was conducted online.

I can see the use of CoP being very beneficial for non-native speakers. The technologies are the tools that would help to bridge the learning gaps and support learners. Non-native speakers often feel very isolated in learning environments, as having more than one learning group would be helpful. What a great dissertation topic.

In this article faculty and graduate students at the University of Plymouth wrote about the growing use of blogging in higher education classrooms. The authors see connectivism as the theory that helps to legitimize the use of blogging in the teaching and learning environment. They acknowledge that Web 2.0 tools such as blogs give students the ability to easily make connections with their peers and others outside the classroom walls. One of the most interesting aspects of the article was that the authors advocated for the use of course blogs rather than individual blogs for the simple fact that it promotes a single platform for students to share and connect. The authors gathered much of the information for this article from a case study that they did with university students. They asked several students to complete a survey. Instead of a survey, the staff involved in the project were interviewed. Through this case study, the authors were able to produce both qualitative and quantitative data on the use of blogs. Overall, the results showed that blogs are an acceptable medium for using the connectivist model and that by and large, most students achieved the learning goals while completing the assignment.

Kelly, This is a very interesting article especially since I have had to use blogs for many courses and have considered having my own students use them as well. I definitely understand having a single platform, but I wonder if that takes away from the individuality students gain from getting to create their own.

Tiffany, I too am torn on the use of a single platform in the classroom. I love that it would be easier to manage one account rather than individual student accounts. I have over 100 Spanish 3 students (which doesn't include my Sociology and Spanish 2 classes). It could be a nightmare to monitor appropriate blog use of all of those students. At the same time, I agree that students lose the ability to create a personal site, and could be less engaged on the single platform.

This website allows students to experience the Mexico holiday Day tothe Dead by building an altar to a deceased person. Great way to experience the culture.

The global guessing game that gets kids learning about geography, culture, and the similarities and differences of how children live all over the world.