I'm feeling antisocial.

From what I've seen so far of citeulike and del.icio.us, I am not a fan of these sites! I'm having a really hard time figuring out exactly how they work, and exactly what their benefit is!

I know, from the readings we did last week, that they are supposed to make it easier to have access to what other people have found relevant in relation to specific topics. To do this, people with like interests join a group where they can easily see articles or sites that other people have tagged.

I'm a little confused about how to do all of this tagging, and how to find other people's tags, and I'm sure that the system works for plenty of people....
But right now, I'm too busy to look for things that other people are interested in, and too busy to try to figure out how to tag things, and just because it is supposed to be a time-saving system that I can't figure out, it's making me cranky.

I did sign up for citeulike and found an article to start my library with. I tried to figure out how del.icio.us works, but had no luck there.

This looks like one technological tool that I'm not ready to use at all, let alone in a classroom!

One resource that I do enjoy, although it is not at all predictable, just for fun, is stumbleupon. I find that it is highly entertaining, although, again, I'm not sure that this would be a good tool for the classroom, unless there is a way to set it to only go to webpages in a certain language.

Mini-Project 1

I've been working on a thematic unit about poetry for a level one Spanish class, and integrating a SCMC activity seemed like a great way to help students prepare for an oral presentation about a poet they have been researching. You can see a copy of the activity I designed by following this link. The rubrics that the document refers to as attachments are included in at the end of the document.

CMC tools in the classroom

As we've been seeing for the past few weeks, CMC can be a very valuable tool in the classroom. There are several aspects of CMC that still need to be researched, and these uses of technology in the classroom are most useful when investigated with an eye towards SLA research, as well.

My favorite application, from what we've seen so far of CMC in the classroom, is the use of synchronous chats in the classroom to give students more time to experience interpersonal communication. I like the idea that online chats can be saved and used for future activities, as well, so that the original purpose of the chat ends up doing double duty -- first as language practice, second as something else -- cultural reflection, grammatical reflection, the springboard for a follow-up activity.

A close second place would be either blogging or e-mail. Both blogging and email provide students with a forum to practice more formal writing skills than chatting (by nature, faster, more conversational than the writing found in blogs and emails). Blogs are more public than email, which can be both a benefit and a drawback, depending on point of view. For some students, knowing that any person can access the blog might be a drawback, while for others, that very same reason would be a benefit. Email communication can be more personal in nature than blog posts because it does tend to be less public than a blog. Both of these tools can also be used as the springboard for follow-up activities similar to those mentioned above.

So far, it seems that most research about these tools concludes that their usefulness is all in the way that they are put to use....So it's really still about good teaching, good context, putting things into a logical sequence....

research questions

We're thinking about our upcoming research projects, and thinking about how to write a good research question this week.

This feels like a really big challenge for me, because with my limited knowledge of the technologies available for classroom use I feel like I'm up against all of the smart people who figured out that technology could be used in a classroom a long time ago, and that they've already asked all the good questions!

I started brainstorming in class about webquests, and how to use them in the classroom. It seems too broad to ask a question like, "are webquests effective tools for teaching foreign languages?", but at the same time, I feel like my knowledge of webquests is so limited that I don't know what kind of questions have already been asked, what information has already been found about them, and what kind of questions would actually add something to the realm of SLA theory in relation to webquests.

So for now, the questions that stick out as possibly interesting topics for my research project this semester are:
1. How do webquests promote the inclusion of the standards for foreign language learning in the secondary classroom?
2. To what extent do webquests promote language proficiency in foreign language classrooms?

I think that both of these questions have potential, and both are related to a subject I'm interested in knowing more about. What I'm hoping to discover through studying this topic is more information about webquests, how they are useful, when they are useful, and what they are useful for, especially as related to the foreign language classroom.

I think knowing more about what aspects of webquests are truly conducive to learning would be very helpful for language teachers. Also, knowing the most appropriate strategies for using webquests in the classroom and having guidelines for what works well and what tends not to be a productive use of class time would be helpful for many teachers, including myself!

one of my favorite lunches

One of my favorite lunches is beet soup.
I found the recipe on the great big veggie challenge

And the recipe shows that I can upload a document -- woohoo!

Using widgets/polls/links in blogs

The theme for this week is the use of "add-ons" in the blog, and whether these can be useful in the classroom. And whether the blog, in and of itself, can be useful in the classroom.

I think, from what we've read and discussed so far, that incorporating not only use of computers but also use of the internet and internet based communication activities can be very helpful for foreign language students. Although limited by problems of access, incorporating technology into the classroom, in a hands-on, project based manner can give students the autonomy and motivation necessary to actively practice their new language skills and can provide a comfortable environment for this practice to take place.

I specifically think that blogs could be incorporated into the classroom in two ways. The first would be for the teacher to create a blog, which the students would be required to access for the instructions for specific activities, the links to specific activities, or the links to certain articles, readings, websites of interest. A "class blog" could centralize all of this information, making it easily accessible to all students who have web access. Of course, the issue of security comes into play, and as discussed in the Lafford and Lafford article, maintaining a secure environment is much easier when using programs like Blackboard, which restrict access to students. A second use for blogs in the classroom would be for the students to create and maintain their own blogs. I think this would be more useful at an intermediate level class, once the students already have a solid foundation in the target language and are able to write posts on various (perhaps assigned) topics, creating links to websites of interest in their target language and the like. Again, security issues and access issues might impede this type of technology use in the classroom, but if well incorporated into the teachers lesson plans and long-range goal oriented planning, it could be very interesting to see how it works.

Blog "add-ons", like videos and pictures, make the blog more interesting. When videos and pictures are well chosen, they can make the blog not only more interesting, but also more informative and easier to understand. Writing assignments, or oral communication assignments, could be given based on students' reactions to the videos or images posted on the blog. Other add-ons, like polls or surveys, could help determine students' interest level in certain topics or their reactions to other information posted on the blog. And link lists, of course, can provide students with many resources for the edification of their use of the target language.

This is to show that I know how to publish a document to my blog.