Sagrada Familia

La Sagrada Familia

60 minutes recently did a segment on the Sagrada Familia, a famous church, in Barcelona, Spain.  It's one of the most incredible structures on earth.  If you ever go to Spain, make the trip to La Sagrada Familia.  It's a once in a lifetime opportunity and no matter what your religious beliefs, your breath will be taken away.

House of Lords Debates the Importance of World Languages

On October 28, 2010, the House of Lords spent an hour and 20 minutes discussing the importance of speaking languages other than English. Baroness Coussins, chair of the all parliamentary group on modern languages, discussed the need for England to invest in foreign language learning.  As a LOTE teacher, how cool is it to see the government spend almost an hour and a half discussing the importance of learning a second language.

Talk Radio in England (You and Yours) discusses Language Learning 08/31/2010

You and Yours is a BBC radio show that discussed the issue of learning languages a couple of months before the October 28, 2010 debate in the House of Lords.  It was a fascinating discussion and is worth a listen.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00thxg0#p009r16y

Using Fakebook Profiles in the Classroom (Not Facebook)

Create a Fakebook profile that you can use in your classroom.  After you create your profile, create friends and start posting to the wall.  It's that easy.  What a great way to bring characters, books and subjects to life.  Fakebook is not affiliated with Facebook, so let's hope that Facebook lawyers don't shut it down.

The Fakebook Gallery is the best place to start.  Get ideas for your classroom or use some of the profiles already in the gallery.  Your students are going to love it!

Web 2.0 Tools For Teachers

Here is a great slide show from Rafael Scapin that lists some Web 2.0 tools that you should definitely check out.  My favorite Web 2.0 tool from the list is probably Goanimate for Schools.  Students can take any writing and turn it into an animated video in no time.  I also love Evernote and use it on a daily basis. Evernote is my online closet for anything and everything.  Down below I've added a few more Web 2.0 tools that I would recommend.

The Best Web 2.0 Tools for Teachers - 2012 Edition from Rafael Scapin

Web 2.0 Tools that I would add to the list:

Quizlet:  Quizlet is by far my favorite tool for students to create and study their notes.

Pearltrees:  It's a fun way to organize your bookmarks and see what everyone else is bookmarking.

Wikispaces:  This can be an awesome tool for students and teachers.  Here is the greatest link for examples of educational wikis. Educationalwikis.

Twitter:  Twitter is by far the best Professional Learning Network tool ever.  This is the place to find the Web 2.0 tools you need in your classroom.  You can also incorporate hastags into your lessons, so students can discuss topics and share resources.

Edmodo:  I know edmodo is a learning mangagement system, but I had to put it on the list because it's awesome.  I predict that edmodo will become the standard for LMS.  It is also an amazing place to network with other educators and share ideas.

Interactive Books for the 21st Century Learner

The way we read and learn will never be the same.  I discovered my first interactive book when I was looking through different apps for my 2 year old son.  I found Disneydigitalbooks.com and knew that my son's education would be different.  The first book I downloaded was Toy Story and it opened my eyes to a new world.  Here is a demo that shows off all of it's features:



These books are not just limited to Disney or story books.  Soon all the books we read will be interactive and completely change the way we receive and process information.  Mike Matas gave a short TED presentation about his team's software that is creating software for 21st century books. This type of software will give publishers the needed tools to reinvent all books.  These new interactive books will forever change the way we read and learn.

Practice Spanish Outside of the Classroom

SpanishPractice Hangouts

Paulino Brener has created a Google hangout that gives language learners from all over the world a place to practice.  The hangout allows students a safe place to meet and practice online.  The hangout is divided into Novice, Intermediate, Advanced, and Spanish Teachers, so you will feel more comfortable learning and practicing with someone on your level.  The hangouts are not limited to Spanish.  You can also checkout the other languages available at Language Practice Page.

Spanish Practice Hangouts

21st Century Skills (for jobs that don't yet exist)

First of all, don't judge me.  I was looking for the NCAA basketball regional tournament on CBS when I came across this video.  No, I'm not a big fan of omg! from yahoo, but I will say that this video opened my eyes to an ever changing world.  First of all, what is a Social Media Response Lab?  If you can't answer that question, you have to watch this video.  Once there was only a technology gap between generations, but now we should call it a social media gap.  Parents are using the internet and social media, but are they using it the same way that their kids do?

This Social Media Response Lab opened my eyes and gave me a glimpse of what's to come.  It also made me think about jobs that haven't even been invented yet?  Our students will be Community Managers or part of a Visual team that creates Memes for a living.  (What a cool job!)  If these are new jobs that will be growing in the years to come, shouldn't we incorporate some of these skills into our classrooms?  How can we gameify our classroom to mimic the real world that these students are living in?  How do we shrink the social media gap from within the classroom?  Should we start to incorporate hashtags into our lessons, so parents can see what's trending? Maybe students can create memes as part of a lesson.  Whatever your beliefs about the future and education, I hope that this video opens your eyes to a world that is changing whether we want it to or not.