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The purpose of this site is to share information about free resources that teachers can use in their classrooms. In 2008 Free Technology for Teachers was awarded the Edublogs Award for "Best Resource Sharing Blog." In 2009 Free Technology for Teachers was again awarded the Edublogs Award for "Best Resource Sharing Blog" and was awarded the Edublogs Award for "Best Individual Blog." In 2010 Free Technology for Teachers was awarded the Edublogs Awards for "Best Resource Sharing Blog," "Best Ed Tech Support," and "Best Individual Blog." In 2011 Free Technology for Teachers received the Edublogs Award for Best Ed Tech Blog. Free Technology for Teachers is read by an audience of more than 45,000 daily subscribers (current as of April 1, 2012).

This is one of my favorite sites to find out what's new in tech for our use.  The April 11th blog post discusses typing accents in other languages.  It also presents 2 virtual keyboards for WL students. Also presented are links to learning languages, activities, and image-based language lessons.  

Storybird is a visual storytelling community. A global hub of readers, writers, and artists of all ages. Students and teachers can make, read, and share short, visual stories with an easy-to-use tool. Teachers and students can select artwork, drag and organize photos, and add your own text to create beautiful digital stories. These creations can then be published on the web with adjustable privacy settings and with the option to allow comments, which is perfect for teachers to encourage student collaboration. In addition, there is the option to create a classroom account. You can sign up for free or consider an upgrade to a paid account. World Language teachers can create stories for their students to read and share online. Students can also read or create short visual stories to share with their teacher and their peers.

Uclass is an online portal for classroom connections around the globe. Similar to ePals, this site allows teachers to create a virtual classroom and then request to connect with other classrooms for pen-pal exchanges or project collaboration. This site promotes cultural awareness and opportunities to easily connect with other classes around the world to arrange projects and virtual exchanges. Once teachers create a site (register) they can add students to the class to create student accounts. From there, one can search for other classes seeking pen-pals. Teachers can post messages for all users to view, suggesting topics of interest to language study or project proposals. Students can send direct messages to other students in other classes and within their own class, provided that the teacher has permitted this function within the class. Easy tool for getting started with global project collaboration and communication exchanges in the target language.

Comprehensible Input Classroom - blog with links, ideas, activities, curriculum plans, etc. for teacher ideas. Can be used by teacher to add depth and interest to curriculum planning and lesson steps.

Teacher and author Larry Ferlazzo shares some great resources for creating visuals to accompany short texts.  This could be used by both teachers and students at all levels of instruction to address differentiated learning and to offer students options for demonstrating their learning.

Barbara - Thanks for sharing this blog article and the teaching tip. What a great idea for differentiation and integration of digital literacy. This provides students with the opportunity to demonstrate their digital literacy skills with respect to appropriate use of images, citation, etc.

This chart shows how different iPad apps can satisfy different areas of Blooms taxonomy.  The chart shows the action words, adjectives, and applications for each area.   This chart offers ideas for technology for classroom teachers as well as the wording to use along with it.  I especially like the different apps for Analyse, many are new and useful for teachers.

FL Teachers' blog - ideas for teachers to implement in classroom about a variety of topics.

Interesting thoughts about the benefits of blogging (for teachers!)

Lingro is an online dictionary tool that allows users to link any URL address or uploaded document and have all words be linked to the available dictionaries in 11 languages. Once the URL address or document is linked to the Lingro dictionaries every word becomes "clickable" and linked to the program's dictionary to view either a definition in English or a translation in the other languages. This site can be used by World Language teachers and students in a variety of ways to encourage reading comprehension in L2. For teachers use, Lingro can be used for created guided practice activities with L2 readings, such as in an online newspaper or uploaded document. The teacher guides students through the target vocabulary to be learned and promote the discussion of its context use and correct translation. For student use, vocabulary lists can be created with the click of a button which can later be reviewed as flashcards or word lists with examples of use in contextual sentences. This tool aids learners with a quick reference for the meaning of words without having to interrupt a lesson or reading exercise for lengthy amounts of time.

This is an awesome resource that puts many of the technology pieces we are learning about in these courses all in one place. There are some other pieces that I have heard about and completely forgotten. These can be used in the classroom to aide tecahers and incorporate new technology in the lessons.

This site is an excellent resource for lesson plans, PowerPoint presentations, class activities for communication in the target language. Teachers share several artifacts which can be used in the classroom to enhance student engagement both inside and outside the classroom. There is also a Forum where world language teachers blog about useful tips and issues in the world language classroom. Lots of current topics discussed such as using technology in the classroom.

Interesting 2008 article about teacher perception and usage with regards to technology integration. This is something that many of us probably see throughout our schools with the integration of more web 2.0 technologies in the classroom.

This is a platform that will help students to make connections to native speakers around the world. It has a lot of resources for teachers as well. You are able to control who is in your class.

There is no denying the fact that the type of students we teach today are completely different from last century. Today, we need to look at some of the skills we, as teachers, need to equip ourselves with to better live up to the challenge. Among all the challenges we have in education, we need to catch students' focus and get them engaged in the learning process. Here is a list of some important digital skills that you, as a teacher, need to seriously consider if you want to pave the way for the 21st century teaching.

My favorite one is the use of infographics to visually stimulate students! I am aware of the importance of such a skill and it is the only skill that I haven't tried to acquire yet! I hope that those abe will get me there. Thanks for sharing.

The Defense Language Institute has many language learning products available for world language teachers to use.

teachers can load materials into iTunesU with simply an Apple ID. This blog post is a guide on how to do that. iTunesU could work as a content repository.

Resources for teachers, can-do statements chart, info for students

Links to places on the Web that allow students to practice digital media literacy

An online Web 2.0 tool for creating and sharing student and teacher created books. Great for the world languages classroom.

Ursula - I had Storybird as one of the choices my students could use for creating a children's story. They loved it.