Learning Activity 3-D-2 Social Bookmarking Plan

I plan to use Diigo as my social bookmarking platform for the World Language Department teachers at my school.  All too often, our department meetings are filled with required discussions about school events, surveys that need to be completed or topics relating to school policies.  We rarely get a chance to collaborate about things pertaining to what we teach.  By creating a place where resources can be shared among our department members, we will be able to more efficiently access new ideas and technology that will not only enrich our teaching by also prove to be beneficial to our students.

3-C-1 Pageflake

Here is my  Pagecast resource page.

RSS Feeds

As a novice to RSS feeds, I can see how it helps to have the information and posts delivered right to one place.  However, I feel as though I just created another email account that has more information than I can handle.

I think the most important and useful part of RSS will be for me to monitor my student blogs and for the class to keep up with posts made by their peers.  This will save quite a bit of time.  This activity will replace the journals my students previously wrote in composition books.  Instead of adding more to a packed curriculum, this will change the activity to make it more pertinent to my students' lives by incorporating 21st century skills.  

Comment on Blog- Learning Activity 2-D-1

Here is the link to my comment if it is accepted.

La perspectiva de una americana en Sevilla

As I was searching for a blog that would interest me, I stumbled upon this blog, Una tennesseeana en Sevilla, by a college student studying in Sevilla.  I was looking for something I could share with my students at school.  My first thoughts were to find something in Spanish.  However, what will motivate my students to learn more and continue their studies is to get them excited about the language.  I can sing and teach my students to dance Sevillanas (which happens on our Flamenco Fridays)  but reading the adventures of a young girl helps them to "see" Spain through eyes closer to their age.  I hope, by sharing her story, I will inspire some of my students to embark on a similar adventure and sign up to study abroad some day.

First Step

My goal is to improve my teaching to better serve the 21st century learner. As a language teacher, I know that best way to learn a language is to immerse yourself completely in the language. So what do you do when moving to another country is not an option?

Technology!

Technology provides students with the next best thing: a way to interact with native speakers, the ability to read authentic materials, the option to listen to the radio thousands of miles away, the opportunity to watch videos. All these things were not at my fingertips when I began teaching 19 years ago.