Using the directory link: http://edutecher.com/, I explored numerous sites that I can easily see complimenting my course. After registering either through facebook, twitter, or by creating an account, edutecher recommends a variety of sites to you. On the sidebar, though, you can also select specific criteria to narrow your search such as subject and grade level:
1.) After selecting World Language and High School, I instantly noticed the site; UClass (United Classrooms) The icon grabbed my attention right away. When I first began teaching, I had my students write to penpals in other countries. It was always a favorite activity of ours, but the time between receiving the letters, sending them, and then receiving another was too long. It ended with students only receiving 2 or 3 letters a year. I had hoped that eventually I would find a site that would do this all electronically. Over the years I had tried a few, but they all seemed to cost money or overtime had more advertisements than members.
UClass allows me to pick the countries with whom we would
like to exchange letters as well as find other teachers from all over the world
with whom I can connect and collaborate.
Each week there is a different topic for discussion and some contests
that students can enter on a particular theme.
In evaluating the site, the overall appearance was clean and
easy to follow. The directions to
register and enter information were also very user friendly. There are no annoying and/or inappropriate ads.
that pop up or line the side margins. It
is free!! You can also share this site
with parents for them to join in.
Anything that includes parents into my curriculum and my classroom is an
A+ for me!
The only real difficulty I had is that I had to sign up an
actual classroom to begin posting in the forum.
For the time being I have signed up my children to see what kind of
response I get to the question I posted:
Profe Wert11:43 a.m., Feb. 8, 2013
I will update my blog as to any responses I receive. If this site really does connect me with
another class in a Spanish speaking country, this will be an extremely valuable
site for me.
Of the next two sites I previewed, I was really disappointed
with the actual sites. The first, dot SUB was an online video
translating program. The concept is that
it will take any video and translate both verbally and with subtitles in to any
one of 35 languages. As a Spanish
teacher, this would be an incredible site for me. There are so many times I download videos
online from Spain to show to my classroom and it would be really helpful to at
least have the English subtitles.
Unfortunately, it had a free 30 day trial but never listed the actual
costs. You had to instantly upload a
video that you had created for translation.
The directions were very difficult to follow. At that moment I chose not to continue.
The next site I tried was elovivo. The concept
behind this site was a word to word translator.
Again, it was not what I had hoped it would be. I typed it my first phrase to translate and
nothing happened. I logged out, logged
back in, and then tried again. Again
nothing happened. It also had a language
exchange section in which it would match me with someone else who spoke Spanish
that wanted to learn English. Again I
tried that link and nothing happened.
After spending so much time on these two sites, I was reminded of why
technology can really frustrate me, too!!!
Subjects
As students answer questions correctly, the words get
harder. 10 grains of rice are donated
for each answer. I made it all the way
to 950 grains of rice before the Spanish / English exercise stumped me! The words do recycle themselves and over
those 95 questions about ¼ of them repeated, but the words really do get harder
quickly.
I can see my more advanced students doing this as a
supplementary activity. The words are
very random; everything from days of the week, to verbs, to weather, to body
parts, to conjunctions, etc. As most
language lessons are thematic, students would need to have some background in
the language.
I went on to visit some other sites that I will explore more
in depth later. The nice thing about edutecher is that you can create
your own backpack. I was able to click
on backpack on the sites that looked interesting to me so that I could easily
find them later.
3. ) The final site I joined was Babbel This was by far the most impressive site I
found. This is a site dedicated to
teaching foreign languages. Again, I
chose to explore the Spanish lessons. I
first did the trial and was so impressed I went on to join the site. At this point it is all free. I do have a feeling as I go on it may
eventually charge me some sort of membership fee.
The site is based on thematic units. The first unit I did was greetings. What I loved most is that it hits all the
learning styles in the way it presents the information. First you see three terms. As you click on them it shows you a picture
representing the word and then pronounces the term(s) for you. On the next screen it has you match the
Spanish term with the corresponding picture and English translation. The next screen has you spell the word. It gives you the letters to help you. If you spell something wrong, it highlights
the error in red until you choose the correct letter. Next it puts those three
words/terms into an actual conversation. I loved this!!!! It instantly allowed students to apply what
they had just learned. While in the
conversation, little explanations will pop up to help clarify something or make
you pay attention to a specific detail.
The entire time you still hear the correct pronunciations.
babbel example
(I went on and completed the first two units and then it did
end up charging me a fee to unlock the entire program. Unfortunately, I don’t see the district
paying for this site, but I may share it with my students and they could do it
on their own. It is really worth it! I will contact the developers to see if they
would offer a site license for a school district or maybe even run a pilot
program with me to see how an entire class could use this.)
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