Even in Montana social media has become important. It's true it is "en train de changer" the way politics is run. In a place with so few people, each person could really have a direct line to candidates and I suppose a more direct dialogue with the people is much easier. However, as the article states, could this lead to a more polarizing political field--meaning only strong supporters of a candidate would follow them through social media, and thus the candidate is really only talking to people on one even extreme side? Is social media used in politics in Luxembourg? It could have a strong impact here, seeing as how there are even half as many people in this country as in Montana! Oh and off the subject, Montana is so small. The senator Baucus referred to in the article bought my grandpa's car from us after he died.

I wanted to share a blog entry about using the Nintendo DS in school as a learning tool. I chose this because I have already had experience with this gaming device in an educational setting. At the Lushootseed language camp I was at this summer, the tribe had purchased about a dozen nintendo ds and created and installed a few different programs for learning and practicing Lushootseed. I see the value of the tool for language learning, yet in my experience it was not so successful. The kids of course did not want to do the language learning programs and very quickly figured out how to play other games and play with sounds and things. They were so distracted by the device that rarely did they complete and language learning tasks. Part of this was the rather informal non-classroom context (it might work well in a classroom setting) and it was almost impossible to force each child to use the programs. There was some success when the children were engaged in a collaborative game where the teacher would say a word in Lushootseed and the kids would have to write it on the ds. The first person to write it correctly got a point. They enjoyed this and it worked somewhat ok because everyone was engaged and they were competing, unlike all the other "games" which were individual and the kids had no motivation to do them. What do you think about using an individual gaming device such as this for language learning?