Personalized Learning is not quite what I thought it was. I mean, I get the meaning of the word “personalize,” and I’d heard about playlists and pathways at EdcampQC when Jill Thompson first mentioned the program they’re piloting in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools–not to mention their inaugural school tour (less than an Read more…
They used their key words to pin and google around. They have Pinterest boards with 20 pins and at least 5 sources saved to Diigo embedded and tagged in the class blog. Now what? Those lucky teachers who get to set kids loose in their native language to follow their Read more…
In case you haven’t seen it, my guide to becoming a 21st Century world language teacher is THE SINGLE MOST POPULAR THING I HAVE EVER POSTED. I collected resources from a lot of the big brains around our little Twitter PLN for this page. It’s not a “post” per se, but Read more…
The best reason to present at conferences is that people with great ideas come to you. I mean, sure, you get to gather your thoughts on your own work, maybe show off a little, but if you are presenting something, people who are interested in what you’re interested have a Read more…
December’s here, and we’re about done with 2014. Me, I’ve come to look forward to retrospectives like Lee Sensei’s and Musicuentos‘. I even did my own Top 13 of 2013 last year: See last year’s top 13 posts Now I’m working on a top 14 of 2014, but a few Read more…
ACTFL 2014 was full of powerful learning and powerful connections. It’s not so much that I learned anything new as I felt previous learning reinforced and my resolve to move forward strengthened. Just being around people doing such progressive and pro-active things with their students and their practice overall has Read more…
@SraWillis came to visit and check out my class…and decide if I’m human? Kelly Willis is a Spanish teacher at Charlotte Latin School who shares my passion for technology, authentic learning, and for novice learners–only her novices at the lower school are a lot smaller than mine. The cool part Read more…
After students have collected a certain amount of information and begun to absorb relevant vocabulary through repeated authentic exposure, they need to start thinking “So what?” I don’t mean we should turn our precious angels into little nihilists, of course. I mean that input is well and good, but it Read more…
Can you tell what this student is interested based on her word cloud? Word clouds are a great way for students to analyze authentic texts and determine the vocabulary they need to talk about something that interests them. They can also help reinforce basic vocabulary like articles and prepositions, but Read more…
Absolutely everything students do for Genius Hour, beginning to end, goes on our class passion blog. Now they’re not writing blog posts from the start, unless of course you count making a list of words related to their topic. At the beginning, we are in research mode–or the “collect” phase of the Genius Hour Read more…