Der Bundestag in Berlin!

Technology in the Classroom

In this day and age, I personally believe that technology has an important role in the foreign language classroom. With technology, as teachers, we have so many more possibilities of ways to teach material in the classroom than without it. With that said, it should be noted that technology shouldn’t take over the classroom, but rather should be used as a tool to enhance the student’s learning experience. Determining when and where to use technology can be a difficult decision for some, but I think if one asks themselves the right questions, they can determine for themselves whether the tech should be used for a lesson or not. One example of a question would be is the tech too distracting for the kids? And if so, what would be some ways to minimize that?

         
In determining the value of a tool, I believe it personally depends on what the end goal would be. For example in my current placement, in order to work on the listening comprehension with the students, we watched the news from a German website 3-4 times, and discussed as a group what was said and reported. I found this also really useful because it incorporated culture into the activity, and students were able to hear a little bit about current events in Germany.

In my own future classroom, provided I have the right resources, I will try and incorporate technology as much as I can. Thinking back on the reading about Facebook, rather than ignore what the students use everyday, I think it would be useful to incorporate it, since they are already often on the Internet. Furthermore, I am lucky enough to have my own iPad, which since I began TAing, has been a extremely useful learning tool. Before the tech panel however, I was only familiar with a few education apps, one of them being Educreations, which is very useful. It allows the instructor to give record virtual lessons using the iPad as a white board. Luckily there was an iPad expert in the panel, and after the presentation, I now have a lot more ideas of how I can use mine in the classroom. My personal favorite of all the apps was Sock Puppets. Using this app, I think I could challenge my students to be very creative with their language, and at the same time, this would be a good project for them to self-assess their own progress, which personally I find a better way rather than just having the students record their voices using a voice memo app. It’s a chance to use meaningful language, and have fun!  

FLTeach Listserv

I recently have signed up for the FLTeach listserv. Since I signed up about a week ago, I have been receiving daily emails from a variety of foreign language teachers across the country, with information regarding foreign language, questions about lesson planning, on to incorporate specific cultural aspects of a country into the lesson, and more. Most of the emails I have been reading have been quite interesting and informational. Over the weekend, I posed my first question to the listserv, which was directed at those who like to use technology in the classroom, and how they use it (I’m still highly interested in this topic, and wanted to get more opinions from other teachers about how it could be used). While there was not as much discussion as with some of the other threads, I did get quite a few personal emails back from other teachers, who recommended several different resources.

The first was from a Spanish/Computer/Technology instructor from Minnesota. She responded to the thread with a link to her own personal blog (link below), which includes her thoughts and several resources for technology use in the classroom, plus how-to steps for beginners. What I found personally useful is she lists a ton of iPad apps she finds useful in the classroom (Yay!). For any iPad users out there, some other cool apps to check out would be Storyrobe, Video Star, iMovie, and Picturebook. On her website, she has tons of other posts with about tech in the classroom, which are worth taking a look at.

Another cool experience was after introducing myself as a student teacher (to save having to explain exactly what a TA was), who teaches German, I received a personally email from another German teacher, recommended me to join another listserv group exclusively for German teachers run by AATG (American Association of Teachers of German). This has also been an enriching experience, as I can now read discussions between other German teachers! I only just joined today, so there hasn’t been much activity, but I did get to read an interesting conversation between AP German IV teachers about how they try incorporate as much culture as possible into the lesson plans. Overall, this professional development activity was more enriching than I first thought it would be, and I plan to continue on being a member of both groups!

Link to blog: geekieteacher.blogspot.com