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Want to learn French cooking, while learning French? Forget Julia Child! Go to the Digital Kitchen. This is a task-based learning "ambient kitchen." A computer gives cooking directions in French, and you try to follow them. All the cooking utensils are embedded with Wii-type movement sensor technology, so if the instructions are to stir with a spoon, the computer can tell if you have completed the action correctly. If you leave the oven on too long, the computer can give you feedback. I think this is absolutely crazy technology that could (with a lot of money) be applied to other areas of language teaching. Watch the video on the website. I think you will be impressed. I was.

Voxopop is a social network based on talk groups. Talk groups can be set up by a teacher, and the teacher can invite students to join. Within a talk group, the teacher can set up strands based on an assignment. For instance, a prompt (an initial recording post) might ask the students to record five sentences using the present progressive tense. Students would then record themselves providing these sentences. Some of the major advantages of Voxopop include the ability for students to listen to the audio posts by other students in the class. Also, whereas using phones with Google Voice require students to respond to a listening prompt immediately (in real time), Voxopop allows students to listen to a prompt, prepare their answers, and then record. In this way, the site may be beneficial for students in lower levels. One of the major disadvantages of Voxopop is that it can be a taxing process to get every student in a class signed up. Additionally, students must have access to computers with microphones to complete tasks outside of class. Moreover, rumor has is that Voxopop has a history of being "down" and therefore is unreliable.