Blogging for your class

As I see it, there are at least two ways to use a blog for your class. One is that you as a teacher write a blog using the target language to do so. The students read it, and since it is a class, you could tell them that they must comment on it. You could then grade the comments. The second way to use a blog is to set it up as a multi-administrator blog, giving your students the rights to "publish" on the class blog. Here is an example from a non-language class. This way the students can each be posting an "article" each week as a blog post that collectively shows an area of expertise to the outside world. This would work very well in a literature class that is covering one author/literary movement/country or in a Civilization and Culture class. As the students post and then critique each other, they will all learn corporately rather than just handing in a paper for you to grade while no one else gets the benefit of their research. Simply the fact that it is a blog rather than a research paper will add to the enjoyment factor on the part of the students as well as lower the effective filter. It also helps prepare those who are not using the blogworld to enter into the new era's flow of information.

You Tube Lessons...

Here is an assignment that my kids had a lot of fun with. The assignment was to find a video of something that showed culture in a specific region of Spain. The class was on Civilization and Culture of Spain, and each student was put in a group and assigned one of the regions of Spain. When they came to class, I had a laptop with a projector set up in the class. Each student then put in their video link and then after showing the video, explained how it related to the region they had been assigned. This of course was all done in the target language. Just an example from the group that had Catalonia as their region. I will say that having open ended assignments like this, though scary from the teacher's point of view have been incredibly rewarding! I often feel like I learn more from my students on these days than I ever teach them!

Technology ideas for your Foreign language classroom

Today's link is: Medinalia.com. This site has television and radio from around the world and is sortable by language or country. So how do you use something like this as a classroom assignment? Here is one I have done with great success.
1. Students watch 1/2 hour news loop from news station in target language. (Check out Medinalia or other online TV providers for news stations in your target language.)
2. Students choose something from the broadcast that interested them.
3. Students look up article on that subject in target language newspapers.
4. Students come to class and give 1-2 minute presentation on what they saw, what the news article said, and if the two sources of information varied in content or bias.

Assignment can be adjusted for multiple levels of students.