Activity #1 Blog Bling

This technology stuff is not always intuitive to me so I am glad that I signed up for this class. It is forcing me to look at different ways to incorporate technology in to my daily classroom. I like looking at the amazing websites that teachers have created. It gives me inspiration to use some of these in my classroom. It took me a while to figure out the gadgets. It wan't hard - I just did not know where to look. I think that I yearn for a written explanation for everything - it is probably better that I have to figure it out myself.

Blogs:
I liked all of them and there are tons of activities that could be useful like having students do short reflections on a topic, watching a short video and commenting on it, or simply asking and answering questions. Since we are using google I would think that blogger is going to interface with everything else that we do. I really liked how easy they all seemed. I am a person that likes to dive in a learn as I go. All of these seemed pretty easy to manage.

It almost seems that blogger would be easier to use than moodle - which is what I currently use for journal entries. I's love some comments from others on how they have students due journal entries and writings that they want their students to be able to share with their classmates.

I use many music videos in class, but I decided to look for one that could be funny, interesting, and could help start a conversation about language barriers. There are so many videos that show, in a humorous way, how important language can be. I Love Lucy has so many fun examples of this. This clip is shows Ricky translating Spanish for Lucy. Lucy does not understand the language, but does end up understanding quite a bit based on body language and gestures.

I would use this video as an introduction to a cultural lesson - or even a general lesson on communication. This could also introduce stereo-types and general language acquisition.