Thing 17

• What was your first impression of Classroom 2.0?

I liked how the site seemed very active. I looked at a post by a Foreign Language teacher who asked about doing more vocabulary activities. I was a bit disappointed that the people who responded linked websites. My school doesn't have a lot of labs available, so I would rather have things to do in class. I saw some of the responses offered games they created through PowerPoint, so I'll have to check those out. I did like one of the sites that showed a LOT of short videos in different languages.

• Was it what you expected? How did it differ from your expectations?

I've been to other pages before where people would actually share lesson plans or activities by writing them out. This wasn't really answering the question about vocabulary activities. Some of the links were useful and others weren't. I was hoping to actually see people posting about favorite games, etc.

• Did you find any discussions or resources of value?

I bookmarked some of the suggested links and maybe can use them. That depends on how often I can reserve the computer lab.

• Would you benefit from participating in a Ning related to your professional practices?

I would go there if I wanted to find links to resources on the web. If I'm looking for different games in class, I might have to talk to teachers or buy books about games. The people posting were just linking sites and I didn't find that useful to answer the question about new activities to do with vocabulary.

• How could participating in a social network such as a Ning improve your instructional practices?

If I needed to find expert advice in the form of links, this was useful. As far as people posting and actually giving information, I think they weren't doing that enough. It seemed "lazy" and I've seen better sites.

• For those of you who teach older students (middle school and above), would you consider creating a Ning for your classroom? Do you have any ideas for how you could use it?

Think I liked wikis better. I didn't see how this was an advantage.

Microblogging

• What is your past experience with microblogging and sites like Twitter and Plurk?

Never used them before.

• Given the testimonials above from others who use microblogs as a part of their PLN, could you identify with any of their reasons?

Not really in a foreign language class. My emphasis is on getting kids to produce spoken language. You're not going to another country and writing to people. You're asking for directions, how much things cost, etc. orally. I didn't really see a use for Plurk.

• For those of you who teach older students (middle school and above), would you consider using a private microblog community such as Shout'emor Edmodo in your classroom? How could you use it?

Not really. There's better options out there, imo.