Incorporating Technology into my L2 Classroom

Salvete omnes, has anyone ever asked you whether you are an digital native or a digital immigrant? Are you sitting there rereading that question and scratching your head? Well fear not, dear reader, because you are not alone. Earlier this week, I read a few articles by Marc Prensky that introduce this concept of digital natives versus digital immigrants. So who are digital natives and who are digital immigrants? In his 2001 article , Prensky refers to digital natives as the generation of kids who grew up alongside technology and because of that are fluent in its language and applications. Whereas digital immigrants are the generation of adults who adopted technology and its employment later in their lives.  According to this follow-up video , the cutoff to determine which category an individual might fall under was draw at the year 1980. Based on this criteria, I would have to label myself as a digital native. Although I don’t feel as if I think any differently than my paren...

Salvete omnes, today I want to talk about you about introducing podcasts into your classroom. Now I know what you are thinking. “But Brittany, why should I give podcasting the time of day when I can look up videos on a variety topics on YouTube? What’s the difference between the two?” Ah, my dear reader, as always you bring up an excellent point. Why don’t we take a look at these two applications and decide for ourselves which we would implement in the classroom. The first and possibly biggest point of each one is that anyone can view and create either a YouTube video or podcast. This means that there is a wide variety of videos and podcasts available for users to explore. The second similarity between the two is the ability to subscribe. So if you find a YouTube channel or a podcast that consistently puts out content you enjoy, then you can subscribe to that channel or site and receive notifications about when new content becomes available. The only difference between the two i...

The first rule of fight club is to…. Oh wait! Wrong club... Beware the Ides of March Salvete omnes! I was visiting YouTube the other day, my home away from home if you will, and in between my usual viewings of cat videos I was able to watch a video titled, New Media Consortium . In the video the presenter, Adam Levine, discusses the importance of establishing a network of colleagues, both in and outside of your discipline, to experiment and explore new techniques of integrating technology in the classroom. The most important thing, I think, Adam says in the video is, “ it is really important for us to stay connected to people who are smarter than because we can’t know everything ”. I think it was important for me, and for other people who may be like me, to hear that it is okay to reach out for help. Being someone who wants to be able to do and know it all, this is not something that comes to mind easily. Adam’s whole video really emphasized the necessity of having a Perso...

Salvete omnes and welcome back! Did you know that the earliest stone tools date back to 3.3 million years ago. Since that time the tools we have designed, created, and used have evolved into the advance technology we see today. While we are still (hopefully) a far ways off from a Terminator- level takeover, no one can deny the enormous influence that technology has on our lives. A video posted to YouTube titled, Social Media Revolution 2011 , presents the social media statistics for 2011. The video quotes several examples of how social media is used. Such as how 93% of marketers use social media to promote their business and how YouTube is actually the second largest search engine in the world. After watching this video it's crazy to think how quickly modern technology and the Internet has evolved in such a short amount of time. I recently watched another video because I have been watching a lot of videos in the past week, titled Future Learning . This video is part of a mini d...