Podcasting for the classroom

tortilla española de patatas, a photo by joannova, a/k/a foodalogue on Flickr.

Podcasts can be a great way to introduce authentic accents, pronunciation, and content in the Spanish classroom. Español Podcast is one of a great resource for this very practice. This website has fabulous podcasts, pictures, vocabulary explanations, and a blog. I found this particular podcast, Platos españoles, very interesting. I could use clips of this in the classroom when teaching food vocabulary or when doing a unit on traditional dishes from various Spanish speaking countries. The women are both Spanish and are talking about the gastronomy of the different regions of Spain. This podcast could be used as a listening activity, students could hear a Barcelona Spanish accent, a reading activity, students could focus on the different types of food by region, or to learn and practice food vocabulary. This is a great resource!

Stupeflix and Digital Storytelling in the Classroom

This show is a compilation of my own pictures from my study abroad experience in Spain. I would definitely use this in my classes to show my students architecture, historic places, and culture of Spain. I love that I can include images of maps to also distinguish the particular cities in which the pictures were taken. Although Stupeflix only offers one free video and the rest are created through a paid subscription, I think I would pay to use this particular program because of its ease and simplicity. It's only $5 a month. However, if I had my students create presentations, I could use a free program like Flixtime. It was a little more tedious uploading pictures using this program, but overall would be great for students. I could use this digital storytelling for country or culture projects. It would also be interesting to have students create an advertisement using one of these programs. With other programs text can probably be added, and that would enable the use of such a program for stories, movies with subtitles, etc.