Integrating Culture into the Foreign Language Classroom Through Technology

I recently did a presentation in which I showed three ways to integrate culture into the Foreign Language/Modern Language classroom. Each way presents current daily culture.

The first  presentation focused on using Flickr photos to show the culture in a country. It demonstrates how to find images and how to create a cultural topic photo list.

Another presentation showed how to create an iGoogle foreign language website that will display much current culture (photos, weather, TV stations, news reports, etc.). The  information changes each day.

A third showed a process to allow students to do mini-cultural presentations on topics of interest to them.

My new book,  Successful Student Writing Through Formative Assessment, is available through Eye on Education.

My book, Formative Assessment: Responding to Your Students, is available through Eye on Education.

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Kiva – A Great Classroom Web 2.0 Tool and a Great Holiday Gift

Kiva is a micro-lending site ($25 and up) that loans money to low income entrepreneur.  The loans general last 6-12 months so that a class can make a loan and then trace its history of repayment.

The site has a 96% repayment. The lender can select the gender, the  continent and the area of the loan (agricultural, business, etc).   Each requester has information about what he/she/they  want the money for.  As people lend a portion of the money, a scale shows how close the requester is  to reaching the  goal.

Math students can  do a multitude of math such as figuring out how many more $25 donations are needed for the person to get the loan. Social Studies students  learn about daily economy from what the requester wants the money; they can see the average annual income such as $2,817 for  Bolivia.  They also can identify all the countries from which loans have been given to a person.  Foreign language students can read the requests in the target language. Art  students can draw posters as a promotion for the requester.

In all classes, students can debate which person/group should get a loan from the class.  The students  can read to compare how many people from the same country are requesting money for the same thing (farming) and from which regions of the country the requesters are.  Have your students learn  more about the area from which the person is like and compare that area to their area.

More importantly, they can lend knowing that these loans change lives.

Give to Kiva as a class and as an individual.

Digitizing part of book For Interactivity-Camera

I have been taking some pictures of the class textbook so that I can project the image and then mark it up. I copy a speech and then we go through and identify how the speaker has introduced, given evidence, and concluded. Yesterday we went through an information speech and the students focused on every mention of an expert (person, book, or professional organization) to show that the speech has been built on facts. It took me about three minutes to take the pictures, move them over to my computer, do a simply crop, and save as a .gif file to put into the PowerPoint. It is a simple technique if you do not have a document camera, if you do not have a scanner, and if you are too lazy to retype the whole three page entry.

Technology Rich Schools – Dream or Reality

I was talking with someone who is aware of the technologies in many schools in the area.  When I mentioned a technology, he usually would say “Well, a few districts have it.”  After we went through numerous technologies that I thought were common place, I came to realization that only a few schools are technology rich in having a variety of technology. Yet our educational technology gurus are talking about Web 2.0 (or is it Web 3.0 by now?) technologies. They are promoting  all manner of futuristic technology,when most schools do not even have Web 1.0 technologies.  I love to dream but I also have to deal with reality.  Let’s help schools use what technology they have to improve student learning. It is not what schools have but how they use it.  A word process is still a powerful learning tool!

The Role of Technology in Your Class: Purposeful or Wasteful?

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eli_Whitney

I recently had a discussion with a Social Studies teacher who was telling me about the great project her students were doing.

She told that the students researched their famous person, spent several days to put it in PowerPoint and a day to present it. I asked her what a project contained. She said it had the person, his/her birthday and place, what his/her accomplishment was, and the impact of the accomplishment. I really liked the accomplishment and impact aspect of the project. However, when she told me that this project took “only” a week to do (one day to get the information, three days to do the PowerPoint, and one day to present); I realized that it was a technology project and not an academic learning project. The students spent one out of five days or 20% in learning the academic information. This information is readily available in most encyclopedias or websites such as Wikipedia so student could find it in little time. They spent most of their time in decorating their PowerPoint statements about the person such as finding a map of the state he or she was born. They could have found the information, found a critical picture that illustrates the accomplishment or impact, and presented in one period. When students have a clear learning purpose (the accomplishments of people), they can thoroughly accomplish the task through meaningful and effective uses of technology. I wonder why the teacher allowed her students to waste four valuable learning days.

Do you focus on student learning or technology in your students’ technology-infused learning?

Assessing How School’s Academic Priorities are Achieved Through Technology Use

By Harry Grover Tuttle, Ed. D.
Consultant
harry.g.tuttle at gmail.com
Blog: https://eduwithtechn.wordpress.com

NYSCATE Conference

Purpose: To improve students’ achievement of the school’s academic priorities through technology use by carefully analyzing how teachers and students use technology and improving those conditions to promote greater student learning.

School Technology and Learning Profile -Analysis:
Meta-Impressions from many schools visits based on collecting factual information, not stories.

Questions:
How does your local school support its academic priorities through technology use?

How do state assessment and state standards become translated into classroom technology-infused activities? How do you know?

What are some learning and technology issues that may not contribute to the school’s academic priorities?

How can you do make-overs to dramatically improve student standards-based technology-infused learning?

How can you support alternative standards (i.e. Visual literacy) through technology? How can you assess their success?

Sources:
Tuttle, H. G. (2007). Standards-Based Learning: Helping Students Achieve. Classroom Connect Connected Newsletter 14(4), 4-6.
Tuttle, H. G. (2007). Digital-Age Assessment. TechLearning. 27 (7), 22-24.
Tuttle, H. G. (2006). Creating a Tech-Infused Culture. TechLearning. 26 (11), 12-16.
Tuttle, H. G. (2005). Assessing How Schools’ Academic Priorities Are Achieved through Technology Use. Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education Proceedings, 5, 2860-2864.
Tuttle, H. G. (2004). Learning and Technology Assessments for Administrators. Ithaca, NY: Epilog Visions. (book of 54 ways of assessing learning and technology in school)

How do you support your school’s academic priorities through technology?