Blog Assignment #4

Langwitches

The Langwitches podcasts were amazing. How motivating to kids to create their own. They learned some great skills along the way and enjoyed doing it. The kids were so involved and excited. You could hear it in their voices. Why couldn't they have this when I was in school. Kids these days...spoiled rotten by technology. This was a very creative way to involve the kids and help them develop skills such as writing a script, listening, comprehension, collaboration, speaking skills, and fluency. Technology has allowed students to re-listen, think critically and logically about the best way to present the story. The podcast were so fun to listen to. My brain started clicking, thinking of all the amazing ways an educator could use this in the classroom. 

Flat-Stanley project by a first grade class.

Flat-Stanley was another great podcast. It talks about places around the world. The kids were required to find a place of interest and learn about it with the inte intentions of recording their findings. This was a home work assignment and together with their parents they had to read a book and write about it. They had to tell the location, transportation, What they could do there, and how they would get back home. This was teaching so many skills. Wow, an awesome way to inspire kids to want to read and learn. 

Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano currently lives in the United States, but was born in Germany and raised in Argentina. That is really cool. I would love to just visit those countries. I can't imagine being able to live in so many places. I would say she is an awesome world language teacher. She didn't learn her skills from a book or classroom, but she has first hand experience. 

I enjoyed her blog and twitter. Tolisano is the author of the book “Digital Storytelling Tools for Educators” and founder of the Around the World with 80 Schools project.