Communicate

Professional Learning Communities for world language teachers can play a major role in supporting the teacher in the classroom. Unlike the math, science, social studies or language arts teachers, many world language teachers are the only teacher of their content area in the building. Of course, in larger schools this is not the case, but many American schools are small, so a teacher may find himself or herself as the only teacher of Spanish, French, German, Chinese, etc. in the building.

FLTEACH is probably the oldest online community for world language teachers. It is a listserv based out of SUNY-Cortland. It is still a vibrant, email-based community where teachers can share information, support each other, and discuss their profession.

Web 2.0 communities are now providing new places for teachers to meet, discuss, and share resources. The Michigan World Language Association has started a Ning, called MIWLA Connect, which is open to anyone interested in world languages (no need to be a member of the MIWLA). We hope this Ning provides an online meeting space for world language educators, as well as a place to share resources. Members can add document or media attachments for others to access, post photos and videos, create small groups, etc.

Are you interested in world languages? Then join us on our Ning!

January 16th, 2009 | Tags: MIWLA, miwla connect, ning | Category: Professional Development, Social Network | Leave a comment

Wow! Over 80 people chose to attend the Integrating Technology into Instructional Practice workshop. Thank goodness I had assistance from my University of Michigan Computer Science Engineering Freshmen son Bryan – he was invaluable providing help connecting to our secure network and just-in-time support. It was an exciting, fast-paced workshop exploring multiple authoring environments that could be used in teaching and learning. The participants were a dynamic group, they brainstormed many possible ways to integrate the technologies we explored in their practice. I’ll be updating the wiki page later tonight with their ideas. Thank you participants for sharing your energy, ideas and excitement!

November 22nd, 2008 | Tags: ACTFL, Professional Development | Category: ACTFL, Professional Development | Leave a comment

The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages national conference is at the Swan and Dolphin in Orlando. The program looks interesting and it is always invigorating to meet with fellow educators for discussion and networking.  I’ll be presenting two hands-on technology-focused workshops: Integrating Technology into Instructional Practice (6 hours) and Enter the Conversation: Beginning Blogging for Teachers and Students (3 hours). Working with practicing teachers is always exciting – plant the seeds and watch the ideas generate!  Are you going to ACTFL? In 2009 ACTFL is in San Diego and the call for proposals is already open.

November 18th, 2008 | Tags: ACTFL, Professional Development | Category: ACTFL, Professional Development, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Everyone working in educational technology should read the April 2008 Universal McCann Wave 3 report on global trends in social media. This is not an education-specific report, but rather a global view of the impact of social media – who is using what tool for what purpose. Absolutely worth a read – the content is outstanding and the visual layout beautiful.

November 8th, 2008 | Tags: global, Research, trends, Universal McCann, web2.0 | Category: Research | Leave a comment

The Michigan World Language Association conference is starting tomorrow. The Holiday Inn South in Lansing is the location – it is centrally located, free parking, and easy to reach for many educators from the east and west sides of the state. Hope to see you there!

October 22nd, 2008 | Tags: MIWLA, Professional Development | Category: Professional Development, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Voki allows the user to create an avatar and give it voice. It is easy to customize the voki, record your voice (up to 60 seconds) or upload an audio file. I created a quick voki to welcome workshop participants back from break. Do you recognize the character?

Does Voki have staying power? Well, I don’t know. It’s cute, it’s easy – like many technology authoring platforms, it is up to the user to give it meaning. Rumor has it that there are some high school students I know creating a variety of political vokis and sending them to each other, just for fun.

October 14th, 2008 | Tags: avatar, Voki | Category: Audio, Tools | Leave a comment

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!

August 24th, 2008 | Tags: Professional Development | Category: Professional Development | Leave a comment

I just returned from co-facilitating a 10 day intense professional development institute called Mentoring and Leadership for K-12 Chinese teachers at the National K-12 Foreign Language Resource Center at Iowa State University. Cherice Montgomery, my co-facilitator, did a tremendous job with curriculum development. The participants were phenomonal – what a great group of teachers of Chinese! During the Institute we created a wiki that is serving as a jumping point for new initiatives in connecting Chinese teachers. It was interesting to work with a group of teachers whose language was not my language, Spanish. Many of the participants did not have English as a first language, adding an additional layer of complexity to our interactions. I learned a lot about Chinese, about teaching and learning Chinese, and am grateful for the opportunity to share the past 10 days with this group of gifted educators. Indeed, they have the power to shape the profession, serving as mentors and leaders for their colleagues!

Now that I am a few days post-Institute, here are some random summative thoughts:

• Technology can be a huge motivator – it can be the hook for some educators. They are interested in the technology and how it can be used for teaching, learning, creating, practicing, sharing, supporting.   Voicethread, wikis, blogs – all were motivating creative environments for one reason or another.
• One huge message we tried to get across – it really isn’t about the technology but rather what you can do with it. So many of today’s technologies create opportunities to share, support, create – leveraging them is key.
• Too many teachers are still isolated in their district, building, and classroom.
• Multilingualism is a gift – knowing another language provides insight into the soul of another culture. Language and culture are precious gifts.
• Teaching is not a linear process, nor is planning. Sure, we can start with the end in mind, but during the planning process we move through various layers and ideas regarding formative and summative assessments, creative and interesting ways to practice and create experiences in our classrooms, etc. Teaching and learning are definitely more like an image map than a timeline.
• Topic does not equal theme.  So often our textbooks and activities are topically organized, but that is not the same as theme. Topics=clothing, numbers colors. Theme=poverty, hunger, global citizenship in a 21st century. We are too often stuck at the topic instead of looking beyond to the theme.

I hope the participants have used the experiences to challenge old ideas, to create new ideas, and to explore the possibilities of teaching and learning a world language in the 21st century.

Cindy leading a demo lesson, Juan está triste. This part of the lesson is answering the question, ¿Por qué está triste Juan? Porque un ratoncito come su queso.

July 3rd, 2008 | Category: Uncategorized | Comments (1)

During a campaign stop in Colorado, Obama indicated that in order to compete in our global economy everyone should be bilingual or even trilingual. Read more at Obama Urges Education Reform.

What I find interesting about this comment is here we have a presidential candidate who himself has second language experience (Indonesian) and third language experience (Spanish, which I understand is at a novice level). Here we have a candidate who appreciates and understands diversity and cultural differences. I’m wondering if this is signaling a shift in America politics. For so many decades our county has had the attitude of “if you want to do business with us, learn our language.” Perhaps this call is a recognition that if the United States wants to do business with the rest of the world, and understand the rest of the world, and develop tolerance for the rest of the world, perhaps we can start by speaking the languages of the rest of the world.

We’ve seen a shift in attitude due to national security. After 9/11, when the government discovered a backlog of untranslated documents, a lack of second language speakers in our citizenry, suddenly in the name of national security there is interest again in world languages.

In business, the saying was “speak the language of your customer.” Well here in the US, we have many products we are trying to sell abroad as our dollar weakens – our products are now bargains. Who are our customers? Who is interested in buying our goods? Now, perhaps, we can have a shift in part due to economics and in the name of understanding our fellow human beings.

I’m thinking this election is going to set the stage for many years to come. What kind of world are we going to have for our children and how are we going to prepare them for it?

I know my thinking is richer because I also speak Spanish, and I have had the opportunity to live in Mexico and Peru. I hope we can create a world where other languages and cultures are treasured, honored, and respected – languages and cultures within the United States as well as throughout the world.

Photo credit: Automania

May 30th, 2008 | Tags: Policy, world language | Category: Policy, Uncategorized | Leave a comment