Group items tagged

"Does listening to something, perhaps once, perhaps more than once, perhaps over and over again, mean that it is learned in a way that is useful to the student and that they can retrieve and re-use in an appropriate context at a later date? It is a proposition that seems to conflict with the situated learning theories of researchers like Brown, Collins and Duguid (1989), which assert that learning always lies in the interactions between people rather than in the content itself or in the minds of the individual learners. The general premise that listening is often more engaging than the written word and that diction, intonation and inflection add meaning might be acceptable at face value, but as Hargis and Wilson (2005: 6) point out, 'there are currently no examples which clearly indicate proven foundational pedagogical uses and outcomes for podcasts.'. Though the technology is quite recent, it may tend to lead teachers towards outmoded, didactic approaches to delivery rather than the constructivist, collaborative activities recommended by more recent learning theorists."

"In 2010, a team of approximately fifteen volunteers from seven different CSU campuses and one from the UC system to evaluate the accessibility of Google Apps. The team also recruited student volunteers and screen reader users to assist with the automated, manual, and screen reader testing. We discovered a number of accessibility issues during our testing. These issues are outlined in the report as well as "workarounds" that can be used to improve the user experience for persons with disabilities. When campuses choose to use Google Apps, they are required to provide an equally effective service for people with disabilities and it is critical for campuses to ensure that the "workarounds" meet the educational needs of the student and/or faculty. The March 15, 2011 USA TODAY online news article "Complaint: Google programs hard for blind students" illustrates possible legal problems that may result from adopting the Google Apps for Education suite. "

What is Conjuguemos? Think of Conjuguemos as an online workbook for your Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese or Latin language students. The site stores a large amount of practice activities, with more exercises added during the year by our users. Teachers can also create their own activities. If you just want your students to practice on one of the exercises in the Conjuguemos library, or access worksheets/games for those activities, then you can stick to the demo version. If you want to do any of the following, you should create an account: Modify activities from the Conjuguemos library Create your own activities Receive grades from students Assign quizzes

"The Council for the Advancement of Standards (CAS) seeks to advance knowledge about the use of standards and self- assessment processes in enhancing programs and services to students and in developing designated student learning and developmental outcomes. Proposal Focus: Research proposals should address some dimension of the question: Does the use of the CAS Standards and Guidelines in a self-assessment process enhance programs, services, or student learning outcomes? Proposals with a specific focus on uses of the CAS standards in a Self-Assessment process are preferred. Proposals may be at the department, division, and institutional or multi-site level. Proposals may study a particular functional area. Proposals should not be for the individual use of a standard for campus self-assessment as grants are intended for research purposes. Dissertation research will be considered and is encouraged."

SASLI offers elementary and intermediate levels of modern South Asian languages, as well as Sanskrit. SASLI prepares students for subsequent training domestically and abroad. SASLI is currently held on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Students may only register for one language per summer. This 8-week program offers the equivalent of two full semesters of academic study.

"This blog this the repository for all the triumphs and tribulations as I embark on the newest chapter of my life as an exchange student in Japan. As such, there will be English, Japanese, and pictures galore in this blog. The first purpose of this blog is so that my friends and family can see what I'm up to a world away, but also so that others who are interested in studying abroad can learn through my experiences. A little bit about myself... I'm a student at Mount Holyoke College where I major in Asian Studies and Anthropology. I'm spending two weeks in June in Tokyo as part of an MHC anthropology class before returning to the US for the remainder of the summer (hopefully to work a summer job...). Through the Associated Kyoto Program, I will be attending Doshisha University in Kyoto for a period of nine months starting in September. "

Use gClassFolders Template to create a paperless classroom by automatically create shared folders for students. This script was created to accompany the Google Class Model that I recommend for teachers to help organize the classroom: Google Classroom Model Each Classroom set up a Class Edit, Class View, and Dropbox folder.  Make sure to include both the name of the student and the class so that multiple classrooms are not using the same naming convention.

"Visuwords™ online graphical dictionary - Look up words to find their meanings and associations with other words and concepts. Produce diagrams reminiscent of a neural net. Learn how words associate. Enter words into the search box to look them up or double-click a node to expand the tree. Click and drag the background to pan around and use the mouse wheel to zoom. Hover over nodes to see the definition and click and drag individual nodes to move them around to help clarify connections. * It's a dictionary! It's a thesaurus! * Great for writers, journalists, students, teachers, and artists. * The online dictionary is available wherever there's an internet connection. * No membership required. Visuwords™ uses Princeton University's WordNet, an opensource database built by University students and language researchers."

"In the increasingly interconnected world of the 21st century, Americans must be able to communicate effectively in English and other world languages. Yet while countries around the world are implementing language programs that position their students to become multilingual world citizens, results of a recent national report by the Center for Applied Linguistics (Rhodes & Pufahl, 2010) reveal that opportunities for U.S. students to learn a foreign language have declined.

We are using open source teleconferencing technology to conduct 1-on-1 and group classes via video, voice, flash technology for displaying Chinese characters and shared whiteboard where the teacher & student can observe each other's Chinese writing capabilities. In addition, we offer video clips of Chinese culture events also. As student learn the language, and they will be able to learn the Chinese culture as well.

VICTORIAN LITERATURE | Spring 2008 STUDENT PROJECTS Students filmed projects enacting and interpreting Lewis Carroll

Whether you're administering an ESL entry exam, evaluating the language and cultural skills of an offshore customer service representative, managing executive candidate assessments, conducting foreign language proficiency tests to students studying abroad, or teaching languages to students of ANY age, OWL Testing Software can simplify and expedite test authoring, administration, and scoring in ways you never thought possible. What's more, no technical or programming skills are required.

Wenlin is CD-ROM software for the Macintosh and MS-Windows operating systems. Wenlin tackles the most frustrating obstacles for students, scholars, and speakers of Chinese with its versatile and easy-to-use interface. It is like having a seasoned scholar on your desktop! An integrated solution, Wenlin combines a high-speed expandable Chinese dictionary, a full-featured text editor, and unique "flashcard" system all in one intuitive environment. Wenlin is a comprehensive tool for beginning students, life-long speakers, and scholars alike. Wenlin 3 includes an expanded and improved version of the already huge ABC Chinese-English Dictionary edited by John DeFrancis, giving it a total of over 10,000 characters and approximately 200,000 words and phrases.

"CorpusLAB is a new FREE site for language learners and language teachers. CorpusLAB is designed to promote language learning based on real English used in different settings. Students can use the site to take a variety of exercises created by teachers. Go to the Student pages and select a topic area (phrasal verbs, Academic English etc.). If you register, you will be able to keep track of your progress. Teachers can use the site in different ways. The central engine of the site is a series of exercise authoring tools. The exercises, which include fill-the-gap, multiple-choice, matching, reorder, and categorise, are designed in a way that promotes the learning of collocations and phrasal patterns. For example, the matching exercise allows up to five columns of items rather than the usual two. One of the aims of the site is to build up resources for specialised English: Medical English, English for Tourism, and so on. "

A high school teacher writes about how his students get interested in using Twitter in the classroom.

The French Heritage Language Program was created in 2005 by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and received additional support from the Alfred & Jane Ross Foundation. It is designed to support and enrich the teaching and learning of French language, literature, and culture for students of Francophone background enrolled in New York City public schools. The primary objectives of the program are to help these students develop proficiency in French (reading comprehension, writing, oral expression and other literacy skills), and keep a connection to their respective cultures and identities, while increasing their opportunities for success in their new environment. Through university partnerships, this project also hopes to contribute to scholarly research in the field of heritage language learning. As a pilot program, it is a place for pedagogical and methodological exploration, and a way to build new partnerships. We seek to develop curriculum models that can be replicated and adapted in other cities in the United States, in France as well as in other countries. The French Heritage Language Program works closely with the Internationals Network for Public Schools, which includes nine high schools for new immigrants in New York City and one in Oakland, California, all working at the development of models for global education.

Edmodo is a private microblogging platform that teachers and students can use to send notes, links, files, alerts, assignments, and events to each other. Teachers sign up for accounts, and then create groups. Each group has a unique code which is distributed by the teacher to the class. Students then sign up (no email address required) and join the group using the code.

The room is nothing less than a state of the art information dump, a physical manifestation of the all too pervasive yet narrow and naïve assumption that to learn is simply to acquire information, built for teachers to effectively carry out the relatively simple task of conveying information. Its sheer size, layout, and technology are testaments to the efficiency and expediency with which we can now provide students with their required credit hours.

The Foreign Language Teaching Forum is an integrated service for FL teachers. Resources include this WWW site, the email LISTSERV Academic Discussion List (FLTEACH@listserv.buffalo.edu), list archives, and the FLNews server at the State University of New York College at Cortland. FLTEACH was founded in February 1994 and runs on a computer at SUNY Buffalo. The moderators, Jean LeLoup & Bob Ponterio, both teach at SUNY Cortland. Our broad topic is foreign language teaching methods for all levels and all languages. Specific areas of discussion include school/college articulation, training of student teachers, classroom activities, curriculum, and syllabus design. Students in teacher training programs, teachers both new and experienced, administrators, and other professionals interested in any aspect of foreign language teaching are invited to participate in our discussions.

Every couple of years, a hot new electronic device comes along that promises to transform education, if not life in general, and a few colleges give one to every new student. In the 90s, it was laptops. Three years ago, Duke University tried an iPod giveaway. And last month, Abilene Christian University announced that it would give every new student an iPhone (or an iPod Touch, which can connect to the Internet via a campus or other wireless network).