Podcasting in the Spanish classroom

While searching for a good podcast to use in my classroom, I was amazed about the number of podcasting that are on the wide web. I found a podcast that I can use in my classroom toward the end of the year to prepare my students with the listening comprehension part of the proficiency exam.
News in Slow Spanish is a podcast with very basic vocabulary word and Spanish grammar. The hosts of this podcast are a native speaker from Spain and a native speaker from Latin America. They discuss the weekly news, grammar, and expressions, and much more in simplified Spanish at a slow pace so that when students are listening they can understand the words and sentences better.
I could use their podcasts as a listening practice for my students, to increase their comprehension abilities and teach culture connections at the same time. Listening to the podcast will allow my students to hear a different Spanish accent besides my own. I believe that this podcast could have great potential in my Spanish classroom.

ePals with Tokbox

There are many tools we learned in mod 8 that can be useful with the ePals program. However, I am going to talk about how I can use an application like Tokbox with the ePals program.


First I would connect my students with a classroom or another student from a Spanish speaking country through the ePals program. It is important that the students familiarize each other through writing (e-mail) so that they can be comfortable with each other. After they have met each other by e-mail they can then create a video where they can speak to each other in the target language. I think the students would love to speak and at the same time see one another on a live video. Tokbox can provide both live video and communication device. Students can share and compare their fashion or culture with each other and talk about what's in and what's out with the fashion in their country. This is a good way to practice listening and speaking in the target language. I think that if this feature is available for students it will be a great way to communicate in Spanish with other students around the Spanish speaking world.

ePals

I need a lot of time to be able to explore the ePals program. I can not believe all the helpful information and potential this website has to help us teachers to connect our students with other students around the world. One thing I like the most about ePals is that teachers can monitor students e-mail and blogs from both ends. It is important that we teachers create a safe and positive learning environment for all our students.

ePals is a website geared a lot for language learning programs. This website allows teacher to collaborate with other classrooms around the globe, to share projects, to connect with one another and to work toward a common goal. For example, I would use ePals to have my students partner up with another student in Mexico or any other Spanish speaking country, so that they can help each other with their second language. My students will help them with their English and they will help my students with the Spanish language. This infact is a good way to keep my students practicing Spanish outside of the classroom.

ePals is a great program that have a lot of potential in helping teachers to connect their students with other students from around the world. I would like to take more time exploring ePals so that I get more familiarized with all the collabaration they offer.

Video on Spanish vegetable vocabulary words

While searching the web for a good video to use in my Spanish classroom, I came across Spanish vegetable vocabulary. Since my next unit is on food and the market, I can use this video at the end of my unit. I would like to use it to review the vocabulary words and give the students an assessment after they have watched the video. I feel that this video will be useful to reinforce pronunciation and spelling of the vocabulary words as well. Because there is a test at the end of this video, the students will be focused and engaged throughout the video. I really like the concepts and format that the video presents.

Using Flickr in the Foreign Language classroom

Using flickr in my Spanish classroom is going to be fun and exciting for the students. The students can create projects of their favorite pet or animal and share it with the class. Students can also create a poster in which they would have to talk about their favorite animal and present it infront of the class. I could also use pictures as examples of significant cultural customs.

A Motivator by Big Huge Labs

Here is my motivator poster from Big Huge Labs (My Motivational Poster). I love the idea of personalizing my own posters. I like to post a lot of motivational vocabulary all around my classroom. I feel this submersion in the language engages my students on a daily basis without them even realizing it. I like to post posters in Spanish so that my students have a wider understanding of vocabulary words and can see them being used properly. Using Big Huge Labs can help me create these personalized motivational posters; they may even up lift my students’ spirits. Also, having posters in the target language can motivate them to wanting to know what each poster really means in English. I especially like that this will save me money, now I will not need to buy expensive posters.

The use of microblogs for my own professional development

Microblogging in Education

Nik’s Learning Technology Blog

Tips, resources and teaching materials to help EFL and ESL teachers use ICT and new technology.

I like the idea of using the 12 seconds TV, The new website for microbloggers. I can use this site in my classroom to review or teach new vocabulary words in Spanish. I could use it myself or have my students create video vocabulary records using the 12 second clip. Students will work on the pronunciation of the words on flashcards or saying the words in a complete Spanish sentence, recording it for self or classroom evaluation. This is a great tool for the Spanish classroom because this can prepare my students for the listening comprehension and the speaking part of the proficiency exam. The 12 seconds TV website for microblogger can also be helpful for substitute teachers. When I am absent I can create the lesson via the 12 seconds video and explain to the students what I expect them to do on that particular lesson. The foreign language classroom can benefit from this wonderful tool.

Can we use twitter for educational activities?

By Gabriela Grosseck and Carmen Holotescu

Definitively, twittering in the classroom and outside of the classroom is part of learning. As long as the students are aware of the danger of other twitters who are trying to be their age but are not. Students need to know from their teachers and their parents that they can’t be twittering with people who are using inappropriate photographs and foul language. Never then less, there are many benefits about twittering. Students can twitter in my classroom to be able to communicate in Spanish with a pen-pal or with someone in the community who speaks Spanish. Twittering in my classroom can change the classroom dynamics. Instead of the teacher centered, students will have the opportunity to be the one to show the teacher what they are capable of doing. Through twittering I can keep track of the progress my students make on the conversation they carry in the target language with their pen-pal, on a particular topic. I think my students and I are going to enjoy all the good points about twittering.

Interesting post from educational blog

The name of the blog that I Commented on; will help my students learn spanish. The post was a recommendation from experts in the field for some good educational links to sites. I found the following link to be very useful; it contains some Games, activities, and lesson plans applications that are fun and engaging for students. It teaches students the Spanish language that requires them to read from context and outside ques as well as navigate the website and play the games. This website will be a great tool and extremely safe for internet navigation.

Social Networking

EFL Classroom 2.0 is a social networking group that I thought could be very useful to me because many teachers share their thoughts and concerns about their own teaching experiences. This connection to other teachers could motivate me to continue working toward becoming a better teacher myself. This social networking group can also be helpful with getting new ideas on how to incorporate new strategies in my classroom. I think this networking group is going to be a great help and a great way to motivate myself when I feel that I am running out of ideas or techniques.

Analogy to illustrate the learner of today.

A learner is like a sponge that absorbs knowledge when it is exposed to it. A sponge will absorb water as long as the water keeps dripping on it and when there is no water dripping on the sponge; it cannot absorb any of it. The learner’s brain works the same way as long as new knowledge is introduced; the brain will absorb it but only at a slow rate. However, once the learning stops, the brain will stop absorbing new knowledge. George Siemen explains that “all of these learning theories hold the notion that knowledge is an objective (or a state) that is attainable (if already innate) through either reasoning or experiences” (pg. 2). A learner learns more when he/she is connected to the world around them and when there is more skills introduced and processed. As educators we need to think about all the possible theories and strategies that we can introduce to our students so that they have a wider connection with the world around them. In the video Conflict of Learning Theories with Human Nature, Siemen explains that “we have to be expressed about our ideas and to focus less into bringing knowledge into the mind of a person and more in developing skills for our learners so that they are able to go out in fairly complex knowledge environment today and function in a distributive manner.” Moreover, learning usually comes from what is outside of us, what we experience out in our own environment.

My reaction to the video "A Vision of (college) Students Today"

This video made me realize that we do waste so much time in a boring lecture room, listening to someone going on and on about things we can probably learn easier and faster on the internet. We don't have to sit in a lecture room for hours to learn something we would probably forget as soon as we leave the classroom. This video shows us that we can do things faster using the internet than sitting in a classroom for hours and still not get much out of the course at all. College students should be using technology for all their courses and even lecture classes so that they no longer fall to sleep and keep them engaged in the course. College students need to learn with more effective tools and technology.

Safe blogging for our students

Ways to have safe blogging by Yo.
1. Don't aloud students to use full name.
2. Make sure that students, parents and principal of your school know very well the expectations and the reasoning behind blogging.
3. Every student should have the proper permission from parents and administrators.
4. For security purposes have parents sign a blogger use policy.
5. Best to use nick names.
6. Students should know not to publish personal identifiers about themselves.

3 ways to use blog in a foreign language classroom

The following are three ways I can use blog in my classroom:


There are so many different ways that blog can be used. I will share 3 ways that can be used more often in class.  First, I will post assighnments and activities (like vocabulary word search, cross word puzzle, vocabulary games etc.) for students and parents to check and due at home. This way, there is no excuses "my dog ate my homework". Students will be able to work at home even if they were absent the day of the assignment. Students will have the responsibility and are expected to get their work done with very little excuses.
Secondly, I could use blog to show students other cultural customs through music, movies, and celebrations that are very different from their own. Students will be able to experience the culture of other countries without going there. This will emerse students in the language and they will become more excited about learning. 
And third, blog can be use in my class by doing group work, students will  have to search for recipes. Put up pictures of their favorite foods and create a recipe book in blog. Students will use blog to create activities for projects and other purposes. draft 12:08:00 PM by Yomaira Prusak Delete



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