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This webinar explores the purposes and uses for performance assessment in world language classrooms. Many language instructors and learners want to know the extent to which an assessment can capture how well a student will be able to complete real-life tasks when using the target language (Bachman & Palmer, 1996; Stoynoff & Chapelle, 2005). The webinar will begin with a description of performance assessment, how it aligns with learning and teaching purposes, and its uses for the classroom. Next, we will explore how to integrate performance assessment into language classrooms, including developing tasks and rubrics that will support such activities (Norris et al, 2008). During this part, we will examine one or more typical performance assessment tasks, and we will discuss how to adapt them to your needs. Finally, we will discuss the logistics of performance assessment and brainstorm ways to integrate meaningful performance assessment within the constraints of available resources

HistoryPin is a free Web 2.0 tool that allows users to "pin" photos, audio, or video to a particular world map location, much like the Google Earth program. The main idea is that, with enough participation, users will be able to get a sense of the history a location - both the visual and narrative aspects of it - as photos or videos from various time periods are pinned to that location. I can envision my students using it in partnership with another class of L1 students to share the concept of how people and places can change. For instance, both groups might focus on how a major city in their own country has changed, in order to demonstrate that to the other class via HistoryPin. Students would collect and upload photos or videos that show how the respective cities grew, how building or even fashion styles changed. They would use the HistoryPin audio option to describe the changes, my L2 students in Spanish, the L1 students in English. Once the L2 learners had "pinned" their photos on the map, L1 students could review and e-mail corrections so that L2 students could return to HistoryPin and edit their contribution. My students would do the same in return in English for the L1 students (assuming they are learning English, possibly). In this way, through collaboration, all students can gain a new perspective on how people and places look and change in another culture, while honing "technical" language skills.

Today's Front Pages is a dynamic feature of the Newseum website, providing pdf versions and links to prominent newspapers around the US and around the world. To access today's news in another country and in another language, view the collection via the "Map"view which allows you to choose the region of the world you want to explore. As an activity for world language students, have them research a current event that appears on the front pages of several international papers, in English and in the target language. Use this activity to not only learn about current news and culture, but to explore how a singular event is reported differently by different newspapers.

Fabulous compilation of key suggestions for How-Tos on literacies, rubrics, PLNs, website creation, collaboration and tools for creating classroom products.

Amazing compilation of key suggestions for How-Tos on literacies and creating products for our classrooms.

This site is supported by Glogster and has many resources for not only how to use Glogster in the classroom, but lesson ideas, rubrics, and a bunch of 'how to" video tutorials

Many of us have been talking about how it is hard to find time to take advantage of all the technologies that are out there. I thought this page offered an interesting perspective on how 21st technology can be incorporated into daily life.

This is a tweet from Educational Technologist Kathy Schrock that gives a link to her online presentation. The link expires after a set time, hence the link to the tweet that includes the link. This presentation guides users on how to use the iPad and iPad apps to create learning materials for your students.

Are you inspired to create amazing interactive courses, but don't know how to code? Versal is a simple publishing platform with everything you need. Add text, videos, images, quizzes and interactive learning gadgets and bring your expertise to life.  I could see using this as a means for differentiating instruction within my class, as a means to support learning, and more. 

This tool allows you to create an online portfolio that your students can take pictures of their work and add it to their portfolio, which you can access for free online.

Sabine, With regards to cost, it is free. I am unsure about how much storage that they give you to use on the site. That was something that was not talked about at the conference where I discovered the tool.

Can you upload video and/or recordings?

This is an Animoto presentation that I found and tweaked to use with my classes this year. It gives some guidelines to my students about how to effectively participate on Edmodo.

A slew of resources to help learners of all ages learn how to read and report on charts and graphs.

students work together to accomplish a task - and this is done in the target language.  Students can also change the language of the game they are playing, and log onto a server in a target-language country.  They then learn how to communicate with them.  You can ask students to write about their experiences and perhaps give a narrative about the quest they went on (in the TL, of course)

This "Social Media Citation Guide" is from the Educational Technology and Mobile Learning Website and shows a easy display of how to site blog posts, YouTube videos, Twitter tweets, Facebook posts, and email in both MLA and APA styles. It's formatted as a neatly designed table which can be enlarged for viewing.

This site provides comprehensive resources to learn how to read and write about graphs and charts. Especially useful for EDTC 615 students.

When it comes to searching for educational apps to install on your iPad it feels like you get drowned in an avalanche of apps and resources from which you emerge empty-handed. Everyday new apps go viral and to keep up with the updates in this field is really a daunting challenge. Thankfully, there are many trusted educational resources ( this blog is one of them ) where educators and teachers can get to discover and learn about new useful apps to use in education.

I was looking at the applications familiar to me under Bloom's Taxonomy for iPads and for some reason it was surprising to find Skype as an evaluating tool! How could Skype be used for evaluating!?

This is an online learning environment dedicated for educators and students to learn how to effectively use Google Apps in an educational context.

Van Nood explains that after spending years with paper portfolios, he transitioned this concept into digital form, and have started to implement Evernote as the primarily system for creating portfolios in his classroom. He was using portfolios with limited success and spending a lot of time on them, until Evernote came into the picture. When he first started researching options, he was coming across a lot of companies that were really expensive, charging a lot for each student's use. He also knew that he needed an app for mobile devices that would make it easy to capture and document paperwork and he wasn't finding that in most of the tools I was evaluating. Evernote was free, had an app for virtually every device, and he could get started right away.

A language teacher's example of how she uses a proficiency rubric to assess students' performance-based activities.

This helpful summary of a recent #langchat Twitter discussion resonates with me personally, since I have taught primarily according to textbooks in the past. The concerns and responses described in the blog are very helpful for me, in changing up the paradigm I've grown used to.

A good article that tells about how schools are using social networking

I like this article's ideas for how to use certain social media tools in the classroom, such as gaggle.net for safe social networking, Twitter for end-of-unit review, etc.