Learn Tech with Ruth

Now that we've been out of school for a week and I have had a chance to get some mental rest I am considering what exactly I am excited about. I had told my school friend Sabine who is still living in Germany where we grew up that in retirement, which is in three years, I want to move to Spain. She was surprised but then confessed she wants to open a bed and breakfast in Sweden where people can still visit with her even though she has a severely disabled husband. It's not really one of those fight or flight situations. I do want to move to Spain and open some kind of rest stop on the Camino de Santiago route. It sounds crazy, I know, but that's a long term plan. Now as far as immediate things I am excited about, there are a few things. We have puppies. They are one week old, too adorable. And there is hiking; we've explored a few new ones lately in the area. I had wanted to do a cross country road trip this summer. It's too bad I am not really that excited about spe...

The 2018/2019 school year has finally arrived. For the first time in many years I actually had not one school nightmare before the first day back. I am thinking this means that my mind is at ease about it. I usually dream I can't find my classroom in a maze of a school I do not recognize, I'm being observed and it all goes wrong, or I do not even know the students in my classes. It was pretty hard for me to re-do my classroom to French and German from Spanish. I ended up with very large classes and all are very nice for now and super excited to be learning French or German. I was amazed to get questions over the weekend from students about their Duolingo and Classcraft quests. What a difference when I do not have to answer to questions from Spanish students who want to know why they have to learn Spanish, believing everyone ought to just speak English. I saw this morning on CBS that 78% of Americans speak only one language. Wow, that's sad. They really do not know what the...

Yesterday I discovered Book Creator and actually wrote a book for my new students in my French and German classes. It's full of advice for them on how to repond when people question their choice of language. I looked at Jennfer Gonzalez' article of 6 tools to try next school year and I am very happy I figured out how to do that. I created an account and now my students will be able to write French and German books that are then placed in our personal library. This is really cool. She also talked about the Chrome extension IL, Insert Learning. With this extension you can insert questions, sticky notes and discussion question anywhere inside of an internet article. It is so easy and just wonderful. I created a lesson using an article about a French program that invited impoverished children to spend an action filled summer vacation in Paris. I also used an article from a German newspaper about reducing the use of plastics or get fined. The IL extension works beautifully with Goog...