I just returned from New Jersey where I worked with 36 world language teachers for 4 days. We focused on enhancing world language teaching and learning with web-based technologies. We had a wiki that served as our starting point (see the Explore page), and then each participant had a workspace (see Participants page), and many went on to develop their own wikis for the upcoming school year (listed beside their workspace on the Participant page).

While we primarily focused on the tools, there was some discussion on the pedagogy – however it was more implicit than explicit – the trouble with such as short time together and the way the 4 days were structured. It was interesting to work with such a large group, as there are teachers all along the technology adoption-integration spectrum.  Some are simply recreating existing practice via technology and are still rather teacher-centered, while others are innovating and thinking very creatively and having the students be the creators of personalized, media-rich content.

They are an energetic group with great ideas – many have set up their own wikis, others are working on projects in VoiceThread, and some have even set up collaborative projects with each other’s classrooms via Skype. The New Jersey Department of Education will be holding follow-up events throughout the year, and hopefully there will be some exemplary lessons emerge from this group.

During our 4 days, excitement was generated by…

• How easy it is to create a wiki and embed media to it so it can serve as a space for the teacher as professional as well as a creative space for students, and how flexible it is with the discussion option.
• The potential for VoiceThread in the world language classroom as both a teacher tool and a student tool. Some enjoyed the web-based authoring environments in tools such as Comiqs.
• How easy it is to use Skype and the possibilities for collaboration via webcam.
• The ease of creating a Google Docs Form and embedding it on a page to quickly collect data such as student information and then use the widgets to help visualize that data.

I look forward to hearing how the 2008-09 year goes as these teachers experiment with new technologies in their personal and professional practice!