I stumbled across ning. Is anyone using it right now? How is that going? I am debating the use of it next year with a Spanish AP class. I right now require my students to participate in weekly blogs and to also use Voicethread. Is Ning a way that brings all of these types of tools together? Just curious.

On a different note I think I have checked email a thousand times hoping to see about the Discovery Student adventures trip. =)

What an absolutely amazing opportunity for teachers and students! I am excited to even have been able to speak with someone about it.

In past years I have been able to travel to Spain and Italy with students. It has always been fun to bring back pictures and share them with the students. This year I tried something different and I placed all of our pictures online so that students and I could comment on them/about them. It helped to carry our conversations on well past our return date. I also had the chance to create digital movies out of the still images and put them to music. Of course I selected music from the region. The students did the same! It was a fun and great way to answer the age old question what did you do this past summer.

I have had so much fun exploring all of DEN and the DEN blogs. As I explore I have stumbled across several really cool ideas and links. I am looking forward to trying these since as a teacher in Arizona I am being asked to become more and more creative with less and less. My school district has frozen all spending and so little things like paper are hot commodities. My theory is adapt and overcome! Discovery Streaming and all of the “Builders” have helped me to make a transition to more eco friendly assignments not to mention I am helping to conserve and make use of resources better.

 The most interesting link I came across was that of VoiceThread. I can use this immediately in a Spanish classroom. I can post videos, images, etc and have my students comment in written or spoken form in the target language. The students will love the use of this 2.o medium and I love the fact that everyone becomes more engaged!

Thanks DEN for the great tips.

Today’s staff development on campus included a session which I led with 20 teachers in attendance. We had the opportunity to establish IDEAL accounts and then explore the Discovery Education website. Our main focus was the shown them ways to save time, money and make use of resources that are already out there for us to use.

The feedback was positive (yeah!) and hopefully the teachers will make use of these items in the near future. A few of the resources handed out where from the DEN and others are items I have either created or compiled.

http://sites.google.com/site/ridgetechieteachers/

In all we are spreading the world one small group at a time! Do you have any ideas for great training sessions or activities? Please share them!

I am so excited to join this amazing network of educators. I currently teach high school Spanish and am always looking for ways to integrate technology into my classroom. I find it is one of the easiest ways to bring the world to my students since I am not always able to take my students to the world.

I love blogging in general and do so for my classes as an online bulletin board for my third year and second year classes. This year I began an online journaling project with my third year students. They maintain their own blogs where they post their ideas to writing prompts/questions that go along with our unit. I have found that they are much more willing and eager to write and utilize their language skills this year than in year’s past. I have also used blogging as a student in my Master’s program with Northern Arizona University’s EdTech program.

I hope to share specifically items for other world language teachers out there!