Heard around the world

Recently, I was featured in Episode 2 of the MFLTwitterati podcast, hosted by Joe Dale (@joedale on Twitter) and Noah Geisel (@SenorG on Twitter). It was an honor to be included as one of many voices in this hour-long episode that includes many other contributions and reflections. My contribution was short (by request) and talked briefly about …

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“What are some good tech tools?” someone asked. Well…

Someone asked me today about tools I like for language learning/producing/using. There are TONS! But here is a start...of course, you probably know many/all of these and we could go on for days! And...these are great tools for teachers of other subjects--there are content connections everywhere, so feel free to share. I highly recommend FlipGrid …

Updated: An Open Letter to the Google Classroom Team

Since I published the open letter below, Google Classroom has changed, and the new interface that went live on August 7, 2018 brings a lot that teachers have been asking for. So, just for comparison's, sake, my original open letter is a bit further down. Today's Google Classroom provides teachers with more flexibility to organize …

Another cross post?

Well, it's been a quiet year on my personal blog (I do hope to change that in 2018), but that's partially because I have been guest blogging, both with Alice Keeler for whom I did one post, and also for KQED "In the Classroom." So, here is my latest post on "In the Classroom," all about …

Seen elsewhere

Just a quick update to let my readers know that I have been busy writing...just not here. Here are some bits and pieces that appeared elsewhere on the web and that I thought some of you may find interesting. NEW! Flipgrid: The Global Classroom Connections Maker, a guest post for KQED Education. Kleenex is not …

Cultivating Learners

Is your class roster full of students or learners? Is there a difference? Yes, and a critical one. For me, “student” is mostly a title, often associated with a young person, most frequently in a classroom setting. It designates the individual as an attendee of a school rather than an employee. One doesn’t have to do anything …

Impacted: What I learned at ACTFL 2016…and what I am questioning.

I spent the last four days with 8,500 of my closest friends: language educators attending the annual convention of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. With so many sessions to choose from, I found myself having to choose between several promising descriptions that were scheduled in the same time slot. It turned …

Putting the world in world-class education

Connecting our content to meaningful experiences outside of the classroom seems hard. Connecting our students to peers and content experts around the world seems even harder. But if we are serious about providing every student with a "world-class education," then we will have to come to terms with the fact that one of the critical …

Kleenex© is not proficiency (AKA: It is time to burst the grading bubble)

At the most recent ACTFL convention in San Diego, I had the opportunity to give a small talk. Actually six of us each gave a talk in the style of a TED Talk. They were called "TOY Talks," with TOY standing for Teacher of the Year. I was joined by five other former ACTFL National …

Why I’m not preparing my students for the “real world”

We often hear education experts tell us how important it is to design learning experiences for our students that will prepare them for the "real world." And teacher blogs, conference presentations and tweets are also full of strategies they have developed and implemented to prepare their students for the "real world." By and large, they are good strategies worth exploring …