Podcasting

I found a podcast for learners of Spanish on StudySpanish.com. This podcast in particular is geared toward intermediate learners: http://www.notesinspanish.com/category/intermediate-spanish-podcast/. The dialogue was between a male student and a female teacher, which would make it easier for students to follow. It also continued at an appropriate pace for high school students and contained common vocabulary and expressions that they would be familiar with. The topic is very interesting and current as well. It dealt with the issue of immigration, specifically immigration in Spain and England. Immigration is a great topic to discuss, especially since it is a current issue. Also, many students automatically think about immigration and the United States, and they may not realize that other countries have issues concerning immigration as well. My only concern for this podcast is its length. Most high school students cannot pay attention to a dialogue in another language for over ten minutes; Usually two to four minutes is ideal, especially since they listen to each dialogue twice.

Using Gabcast for a Global Cooperation Project

Gabcast is one of the tools from Mod 7 that could easily be used for global cooperation. As a class, we could establish pen pals from another accredited class in a Spanish speaking country. In addition to the traditional writing/typing to each other, the students could take it a step further and leave messages on their websites or blogs for their pen pals. Between writing and creating audio, students will be practicing the skills of listening, reading, writing, and speaking. In addition to practicing these skills, students will have the opportunity to hear and converse with a native speaker of the same age. This would be a great opportunity for students to learn more about other cultures as well as demonstrate the importance of being a global citizen.

Global Cooperation

The Global Schoolhouse is a tool that helps teachers find collaborative learning partners and appropriate projects. There are learning projects for every age and discipline. The site offers a project registry, videos, news and discussion lists, and online expeditions. The project registry contains more than 3,000 annotated listings – and is searchable by date, age level, geographic location, collaboration type, technology tools or keyword. I found several neat projects that I could easily implement in my classroom. One of them was called "Chatting in Spanish," where students could talk to other students around the world using tappedin.org. Another neat project was "Extra! Extra! Dare to enter the world of Dali," which had students interview famous Hispanic artists and create a newsletter with these interviews. While many of the Spanish-related projects were archived and already completed, they still can help me generate ideas for new projects, so that students can communicate with others on a global basis. After all, it would be wonderful for students to see their Spanish skills in action when being able to communicate with native speakers around the globe.
iEARN works similiarly to The Global Schoolhouse. All projects involve a final "product" or exhibition of the learning that has taken place as part of the collaboration. These have included magazines, creative writing anthologies, websites, reports to government officials, arts exhibits, performances, and many more examples of youth taking action as part of what they are learning in the classroom. Another neat feature is that you can choose any area of the world and find out how iEARN has been utilized in different countries. For example, I clicked on Latin America, and it appears that iEARN has been used in Mexico, Peru, Argentina, and Chile.

Comparison of Twitter & Pownce

Twitter & Pownce seem to be comparable microblogging tools, in regards to their setup and main functions. It seems as though Twitter is best for short, text-type messages (since there is a character limit) between friends and family. There is also the option to send those messages to a cell phone, which could be convenient for those who really want to stay in touch with everyone. Personally, I would not be interested in the messages to the cell phone idea, because I think receiving all those messages would make me nuts, and I do not need to know everyone's business every second of the day.
I did enjoy Pownce more due to the fact that you can attach files and photos, in addition to the text and links. I also found Pownce to be more asthetically pleasing to the eye. From a teacher standpoint, Pownce would be great for teachers from specific disciplines to share ideas and files with eachother. Then, one could acquire ideas from those outside of their schools and districts. All in all, if I was to continue the use of one of the microblogging tools, I would continue using Pownce.

Microblogging

After becoming familiar with the function and purpose of microblogging, I was curious as to how this could be utilized in the classroom. I came across a microblogging site called Edmodo, which is a program (similar to Twitter, Plunk, etc.) designed for teachers and students. One of the pros of Edmodo is that you can send a message to an entire group at the same time. This would be very convenient for reminding students of deadlines, upcoming tests, projects, etc. On the other hand, I can predict some possible cons. It would be difficult to change the due date of a project or such (as this article states), and then assume that every student would check their accounts. Also, while many students do have computer and internet access, it is not a guarantee. So, in order to come to a happy medium, I would certainly be interested in reminding students of important information and dates, but I would never present new information, hoping/assuming that they will see it.

Cyberbullying

I read an article from the PBS Teachers, learning.now blog called "CA Legislation Criminalizes Campus Cyberbullying."

The article talked about legislation in California that would give school principals the ability to suspend students or recommend them for explusion if they determinded that online bullying took place. This legislation would cover computers, videos, text messages, etc. In addition to class time, it applies to lunch time, time going to and from school, and off-campus school-sponsored events. It cannot cover time at home.
I found this article very interesting and encouraging. Text messaging and online websites such as facebook and MySpace are a large percentage of how students spend their time. Since both are forms of non face-to-face communication, I feel like students are more daring to be nasty and harassing to others (compared to face to face). Giving the power to principals to punish those who bully others in this way is definitely a move into the right direction. Students need to know that this behavior is bullying and will not be tolerated.

Social Networking

I was really surprised by this concept of social networking. Even through the various technology staff development seminars at my work, I have never heard of this concept. I have heard of facebook and my space, but I was not aware that they could be considered "social networks," although it makes sense now. ning. com was a very interesting website that hosted countless numbers of social networks ranging from ninjas to education. I decided to search for networks dealing with foreign language teachers, and at first I was surprised to find that many are by invitation only. However, I did find one called "technoLanguages" and the group I visited is called "Collaborate language learning." This group is dedicated to sharing various projects and ideas across the different foreign languages. This is a great ambition because even though there are many different languages, we still learn them in similar ways.

Here is the link! http://technolanguages.ning.com/group/collaborativelanguagelearning