ComunicaX4C

GridPals and FlipGrid For years I have wanted to have "pen pals" or something similar. I can remember how exciting it was just to have one native speaker of Spanish at school, apart from my friend's family. And they were from another country: Chile. My friend's (Artie, Arturo) family is from Ciudad de México. It was exciting to hear from this native speaker Ramón, particularly, perhaps, because our program was a lot of direct translation. My Spanish teacher's best approaches, though, were geared toward opening up the world to us... so I am very thankful for that. My Spanish teacher's heart was very into igniting our love for the Spanish-speaking world. What was it about having an exchange student? Just knowing there was another world was enough for me to want to know more. And I desperately wanted to be able to know more, and try to communicate in Spanish.  Yesterday I watched Florencia Henshaw's   Webinar:  "Video chatting with Native Speakers: Why, ...

At the end of the 2019-2020 school year, our School Board set aside several days for our teachers and administrators to complete grades while spending the daytime doing professional development, processing the year, and preparing for 2020-2021. We have two high schools in our district, each with a Director of Instructional Technology. Lisa Berhoff and Dan Kim put together a program named "S.O.S.": Schoology on Schoology. Their work is thorough and for me enlightening, instructive. Although during the months of the beginning of the pandemic I learned much more than I knew before about Schoology, and I used it constantly, there were, and still are, features about which I continue to learn. Those few days were like trying to complete my CARLA institute "Using the Web for Communicative Language Learning" within 9 days, while finishing grading, developing plans for the first several weeks of classes, and starting our development of approaches to remote learning in genera...

This week I turned to EdPuzzle. My colleague Florencia Henshaw had suggested to another colleague Christa Gould to review what Common Sense had to say about her research topic FlipGrid. Common Sense is an organization that evaluates privacy as related to technology platforms. After I read the evaluation regarding FlipGrid, I checked Common Sense’s evaluation of EdPuzzle. Common Sense offers evaluations that include pros and cons, and a “bottom line”. The organization also demonstrates “How can I use it (technology/tool)?”,  describes “What is it?”and evaluates “Is it good for learning?” There are Overall Ratings that include Engagement, Pedagogy, and Support. There are also Community Ratings with user reviews which may include students, educators, and families. Common Sense Evaluation of EdPuzzle I struggled to find anything about the efficacy of EdPuzzle. I read from the Argentinean Journal of Applied Linguistics “Mobile apps for ELLs: Supporting language learning with engaging di...

Welcome to my blog! ¡Bienvenidos! The only blog that I have ever spent time exploring has been that of a friend of mine, a former ESL teacher. It was amazing how much I learned about my friend, whom I didn't meet until about 23 years ago. I loved to read her uninterrupted thoughts, memories, ideas.  I have started this blog for a class I am taking this summer 2020 through CARLA, the University of Minnesota. I chose this class, because since the birth of my son already 9 years ago, I only took summer classes the first 3 or 4 years of his life because he slept a lot and I could get away with it. Timing of this is a bit more difficult. When I chose this class, it was based on some classes I had taken probably 15 years ago already. A French teacher colleague and I traveled to Minnesota and stayed a week at UMN. I loved it because it was challenging and fun.  My first question is about Blogger. Will this be something that is useful for communication for my high school students? It ...