Podcasting Possibilities

The podcast can be a powerful tool for the language learner. I listen to Russian and French podcasts in my car, on the way to work. It's a great way to make productive use of your time and with a 30 minute commute, 6 days a week; I get 6 hours of language listening practice a week. The podcasts are constantly updated so I never get bored of a topic, and I practicing speaking by repeating the dialogues. Strangers may think you're crazy for talking to yourself, but its totally worth it.
So it makes sense in a language learning classroom that I would use an English learning podcast. Students can find one to download to their iPod or mp3 player, listen on the bus or commute to school and be asked to write about it in their journal once weekly. This promotes listening, pronunciation and writing skills.
Since podcasts are easily made by anyone, all over the world; there are endless possibilities. I chose to search itunes, because I am most comfortable with itunes and already subscribe to several podcasts. I found this ESL podcast that deals with Describing Distances. This podcast starts with a realistic dialogue read slowly, then explains the expressions, slang and even some historical information on these expressions, then the dialogue is read at a normal pace. There are a wide variety of topics so students can customize their lesson by choosing which to write about. The distance podcast included expressions like "stone's throw", "read my lips" and "out of your mind". As a language learner, I understand how difficult expression and idioms can be in a foreign language, so I find these elements particularly useful.

The Global Learner

Global connectivity has become an essential component of a modern teacher's curriculum. As teachers, it is imperative that we expose our students to many cultures and ways of life, so that we can move away from the notion of  American exceptionalism.  When students are taught compassion and understanding, they are more likely to become life long learners who will find value in cultural diversity.
It is becoming clear that the future of education must embrace technology and join the global community. There are many resources online designed for teachers to incorporate a global component to their curriculum. Some of these are  Taking it Global, iEARN, NEA, Global Education, and of course,POV on  PBS  for wonderful documentaries.
The site I focused on was epals. They feature a "Global Community Project", which encourages students to upload a video showing what it means to them to be a global citizen. This type of project can be integrated into any classroom, quite easily.
These websites can also be used in a diverse classroom, to teach understanding and acceptance. It can also help a student feel more comfortable and instill pride in their own culture when they have a chance to share it in school. In an ESL classroom, I could see using the feature on epals called 'country investigation'. This could be used as an interactive classroom project to explore the students' home countries while practicing writing facts on a map. The site also had world language activities and information on bilingual blogs. An interesting idea for a project outside the classroom is called 'my community" where students are asked to look around their world and find influence from other cultures, examples being food or architecture.
With so many resources available it is easier than ever to educate and instill passion in our students for the world around us.

Comics in the Classroom

Everybody loves comic strips. And as teachers we want out students to enjoy learning. So another tool that can be used in the classroom to make learning fun; is the comic strip. There are many ways to use this. A simple idea would be to bring the comics section of the newspaper into class,students have fun and practice reading. To practice writing, you could have your students create their own dialogues and paste them over the text boxes. If you have some tech savvy students or you want to create your own custom lesson, there are several free options for making a comic strip online. Goanimate is the site I tried. It took a bit of time and a lot of patience, but totally worth it if you have a particular message or lesson you want to show.
I attempted to illustrate how an outsider might feel when attempting a seemingly simple task of ordering at a  Donut Shop .  The language is only the first hurtle you must jump when coming to America. Many foreigners are overwhelmed at the choices offered, the stream of questions,the special offers and even mundane small talk. These can all lead to a person feeling confused and leaving without buying anything in an attempt to save face. These feelings can be addressed or even avoided with the right tools and explanations. In my classroom, I would use these comic scenarios to prepare students for situations they are likely to encounter, while exposing them to typical conversational phrases.

Digital Storytelling in the Classroom

How I would use digital storytelling in the classroom:

The assignment: Pick two different countries and show me a connection between them. It can be a similarity, a common food or cultural practice, two places you have been or read about or two places you would like to visit. Use Animoto to create a free 30 second video illustrating the connection. Feel free to use your own videos, photos, and songs or use the ones available on the site. Get creative and share with the class!

I started with my favorite recording artist Regina Spektor, she sings in both Russian and French; two countries and languages that I love to study. I shared my personal travel photos and uploaded the Russian/French version of the song "Don't Leave Me".

Here it is!
Russia and France

The Digital Story

I love documentaries. I would watch them all the time, if I had the time. I think I enjoy them so much because they can bring you anywhere you want to go, make you feel like an expert on any topic, and can be made by anyone.
Digital Storytelling is a sort of extension on this idea of a documentary, but shorter and even more accessible. As explained on 7 things to know:Digital Storytelling; start with a script or story you want to share, add music, pictures and/or animation, piece together, edit and share. Typically short in length, but its up to you how long your story takes to tell.
Digital Storytelling is a great way for students and teachers alike to share their human experience, promote cultural awareness, and introduce a new topic in a fun way that caters to your visual learners. The possibilities are
endless because anyone can create one.
I watched several on this website that focuses on Digital Storytelling and the educational uses. The topics ranged from a Japanese student adjusting to American life, decision making, and the Holocaust. I was able to watch several because they ranged from four minutes to nine minutes in length.
This could be a wonderful tool in an ELL or any multicultural classroom. The act of sharing your history and background with classmates would help create a sense of community while getting students to think critically about what they are publishing online.

Serious Play

Want to teach your students real life lessons and expand their awareness of global struggles? Try introducing them to  a serious game. This task can be assigned as homework or simply suggested to sprout a classroom dialogue. These games typically follow a story line and involve strategy and critical thinking, so they are best for students to do outside of the classroom. So many games are available online for free. Students can learn about refugees,environmental issues, budgets, etc... if you want to expose them to a serious concept in an engaging way; there is a game for it.
I played 3rd World Farmer six times and managed to starve my family each time. It reminded me of playing Oregon Trail; which i loved as a kid, but never was very good at. This game is not hard to play though, each time I got a little better and learned from my mistakes. However, theft,wars and general unexpected events are thrown in often and I'm never prepared. This game utilizes the same repetition and vocabulary expansion that you would find in a casual game, but with a deeper message. After a couple of plays, students would have solidified their farm animal, tools, and food vocabulary. Also encountered were some scenarios that involved tourists coming and weather events. I would ask students to write down unfamiliar concepts for a classroom discussion. This could also be a good way to assess the individual understanding of each student. The objective is frequent exposure to vocabulary with a conceptual framework for global issues, a pretty meaningful homework assignment that students will enjoy.

Playing is Learning

As teachers, we need to always be thinking up ways to make learning more fun. Especially with ELL teachers, who have the enormous task of teaching something that most people haven't had to (consciously) learn. Some students may also oppose learning a language forced upon them or find the task too overwhelming. One tool that will help is Gamification; simply put, using games to teach. the wonderful thing about games is that people want to play them. Imagine a classroom of self-motivated,eager learners. An easy to use computer game can solidify and teach vocabulary while giving individual encouragement and assessment. This video explains all the wonderful ways games can reward your brain.
I played Griswold the Goblin 2 three times and once I understood the role of the walkthrough, I began to get the hang of it, and started to make some progress. The images were really cool and the walkthrough and playing the game; with the teacher available to translate unfamiliar terms and help give walkthrough instruction. The game was fun and had simple point and click motions with an interesting plot and images to keep me engaged. I knew I was getting better by how far I had gotten by my third try. Language students would be focusing on a set of 10-15 frequent vocabulary words and by one turn on the game and one as walkthrough coach, they would have seen the words dozens of times and have a visual attached. 
use of repetitive vocabulary would be very useful in a language classroom. I could see two students working in a group together, taking turns reading the

Be excited, not afraid

Communal learning,staying connected, being in the know, keeping up with technology...etc., sounds exhausting. Here is another way to make it easier; Google + communities. I like how I don't have to set up yet another account that I have to manage and delete a daily barrage of email notifications.  (I know, change the settings...I'll get around to it.)  Some groups I found useful were Teachers for Interactive Language Learning and English Language Teaching. There are plenty more for every interest or field.

Chaos and Order; Connectivism

So now that the debate about technology in the modern classroom is obsolete, due to inevitability; the task now becomes instilling a system in the learner so they can make meaning from it all. Teachers are now preparing future generations with the skill set to learn continually. This idea is called Connectivism: teaching how to  recognize, organize and externalize information, explained in depth in this video lecture: What is connectivism?
A learner is like a song-writer. To effectively communicate they must have a foundation of knowledge, recognize symbols, organize and piece them together and finally externalize them to convey meaning.  "Chaos states that the meaning exists-the learners challenge is to recognize the patterns which appear to be hidden" connectivism; a learning theory for the digital age. At the forefront of this theory is George Siemens; and he believes that "the ability to learn what we need for tomorrow is more important than what we know today". I agree with him, in the communal learning environment; forming networks, processing and externalizing information have become more important than the actual information itself. 

The Socially Bookmarked Teacher

There is so much information on the internet. Too much information. We are conditioned to believe that more is better and I suppose it is nice to have options. But how do we sort it all so it becomes less overwhelming and intimidating? How do we stay focused on a topic we want to bring into our lesson plan? And more importantly, how do we ever find it again?

And so we look to the source of the problem for the solution to the problem. And its the internet, so it has an answer for everything. And here we find social bookmarking. But I have a bookmarking feature on my computer, why do I need to sign up for another account?? Well social bookmarking is different...because it is social. That means you can access your colleagues' bookmarks too (this could mean less work for you).

 Not surprisingly, there are many options for social bookmarking sites. But I'm going to compare two, Diigo and scoop it. Both sites took just a few minutes to create an account, confirm the email and walk you through getting started. With Diigo, I just continued onto my usual google search methods and clicked on the digolet bookmark when I found an interesting site. I then added  tags to organize the information (the whole point is organizing!), and when I went back to the site there was everything nice and neat and searchable, like my own little relevant search engine. Diigo also allows you to highlight within an article, making what you want to find even easier.

Scoop It was more like a search engine in itself. As soon as I typed in keywords on the start up page I had related videos on my side bar. This was fairly convenient and I found myself using this feature to sift through information. Scoop It is also more geared towards specific topics to follow, as opposed to Diigo, where you would follow people. You have the option of liking a post on Scoop It, but you can only comment on Diigo.

So, I like both. I feel like Diigo would be good for following colleagues and Scoop It might be better for following topics from people around the world. I want a combination of the two, on one account.   It is the internet, so I'm sure that will become available in a week or so.

Beware! The future is here.

The introduction of technology to the traditional classroom is inevitable. We have all seen that our world is changing faster than ever before. It happens so quickly now that schools have barely been able to keep up. They simply introduce a new device to an existing,outdated curriculum. It is evident that something needs to change, but to what degree? How far should we take it and are teachers ready to learn and implement these new ideas?

 I recently watched the video  Future Learning and it definitely made me think about how I see technology in the modern classroom. This video convinced me that used correctly, technology could make learning much more efficient and fun. I think its a great idea to use video games as a way to reinforce concepts and apply knowledge in a relevant way. Some traditional methods have become outdated and time consuming, when you can access the answer to your question in seconds,you can learn so much more. Children in today's classroom are most comfortable in this medium, it is the administration that is resistant to embrace the change.

On the other hand, I then watched a video that made me feel like technology could take over the classroom and eliminate interpersonal aspect of school. Classroom of Tomorrow showed a lot of the possibilities of technology but I feel like a balance is needed. I think it is important for hands on, tangible learning as well as on the screen. It is important for writing to still be practiced, books to still be touched, and posters made without the use of a printer. There is an element of perfection associated with things produced and edited with computers, sometimes lacking creativity.  I think its important to also incorporate the hand made aspect into children's education.

Like all things in life, balance is necessary and change will happen. The students already know how to use it,the technology is already created, all that is left is to decide how much in the classroom and where to begin.

Outside the classroom

 According to Standards for Foreign Language Learning, there are several necessary components of language learning. These standards are called the five C's: communication,culture,connections,comparisons and communities. These are used as guides for educators to give students the best possible chance of acquiring a second language. For now, I will focus on culture and community.

 Section 2.1 refers to the practice of a culture, a sort of recognition of an accepted norm, referred to as "what to do when and where". 2.2 goes on to discuss the products of a culture. This is the aspect I find the most useful. A product or creation of a culture can be so telling. With this you gain so much insight into the belief system. In my classroom, I would encourage everyone to share a product of their own culture and I will share one of mine.  School house rocks,way better than any textbook grammar lesson.

Onto community, Section 5.2 deals with students becoming life-long language learners. I think of this part of the language acquisition process as the time when you get to sit back and reap the benefits of years of hard work. By this point there are probably several TV shows, songs, websites that have become part of your daily ritual. Second thing to share with students: proof that we will always need languages other than English, untranslatable words.

Get Excited!

Teaching and studying language is all about cultural immersion. This immersion doesn't have to be in the traditional sense...as in you don't have to fly to to Paris to be completely surrounded by French culture, you could just as easily have a French film marathon in your living room; complete with a wide variety of traditional cuisine, easily purchased at Wegmans.  To truly learn or teach a language, there needs to be a passion for the culture. I think a blog can be a tool used to do just that.

We all know that it is much easier to teach people that really want to learn. There are always a few students who just sit and soak up your every word. The challenge, of course is that learning a second language is tough,like really tough. Even for those few overachievers, knowing how to learn language is a new experience. Our native language was always just there, we knew it before we knew we knew it. So how do we keep our overwhelmed majority interested? I think the answer is: incite passion for the culture.

Adding an online component to the classroom is way to connect with students in a way they are generally more accustomed to. There is so much information swirling around that we need to tap into that stream and teach while they don't know they're being taught. Adding pop culture videos, interesting articles customized to a particular student's interest, or just getting them to check by posting a funny picture. A blog can be like a teacher-student networking site. 
And who knows...maybe they will really get into a song posted and will be studying language without even knowing it.