Wednesday, June 5, 2013

It's summer! Sure, but keep on learning.

Dear World Language Colleagues,

As teachers we all love summer.  Many of us have at least some time to relax and rejuvenate.  But we all know that this break gives us some time to learn new things, get caught up on reading and create new lessons, units, activities or strategies for next year.  So I decided to write this blog to share things I am learning, exploring or creating.

First of all, we know that advocacy is an essential part of our job as a world language teachers.  There is hardly a day goes by that we are not explaining to others that the ability to be both linguistically and culturally competent are essential 21st century skills.  We know many of our students in the near future will have opportunities to work and collaborate in international teams and they need to be ready to meet those challenges.

So one of my goals this summer is to collect articles, videos, images and other artifacts that address the need for language learning in a more 21st century focus.  So far here are two of my articles.  I am going to collect them using an online tool called MentorMob.  This tool allows teachers and students to create learner playlists of relevant content such as articles, videos, images and podcasts which can be enhanced by quizzes and comprehension questions. These MentorMob playlists be shared on blogs, wikis, etc.   See a review of this tool in order to use it in your classroom.

Now in order to make this endeavor and goal of mine a resource also for you, I have made this MentorMob learner playlist public. That means when you find an article, video, podcast, image, etc. that would help us all better advocate for language learning in the 21st century, click on the link and add your artifact.  This way you will also learn how to use this tool and we will all have great advocacy resources.



So for now do take some time to relax and reflect.  Stay tuned for more sharing.

Best to all,

Toni Theisen
ACTFL President 2013




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