Strange goodbyes this week, with students coming to the end of their projects. We held a Digital Festival to celebrate our student work, you're welcome to take a look, just click the picture below. Thank you too for helping to promote our micro-commissions scheme, we have selected ten artists and you will be able to see their work on the Global Languages & Cultures Room website in the next few months.
After marking, thoughts will turn to papers, articles, summer courses, conferences (all online), and all the other jobs that are way overdue. I hope we'll all manage to take a moment to return to our families and friends, sometimes we've been working in other rooms or tucked away with headphones blocking the outside world, with other people keeping things ticking over, or perhaps you've been the person juggling and managing somehow. So I hope you'll step back, if even for a moment to catch a breath and rejoin our households, reach out to friends and loved ones.
Thank you for the kind messages of support we received last week, and for pointing us towards a few more items for the newsletter, it really means a great deal. I might take my own advice and ease off the newsletter in the summer, perhaps just once a month or every two weeks. Let us know what you think would work. Please take care of yourselves, look after each other and stay safe.
People, Places, and Things
This good news map might just be what we've been waiting for, it's been created to recognize the huge efforts that have been made to strop the crisis.
A poem made up from the first few lines of emails received during the pandemic. "We share your concerns..."
There's an opportunity to visit the Nationality Rooms at the University of Pittsburgh's Cathedral of Learning with videos created for each space.
Thoroughly enjoyed this episode of the Short Cuts Podcast and you might too.
The Guardian has an incredible series of photos this week, there are some great talking points here and starters for your lessons.
On remote learning and working.
Great rundown of education apps, including plickers, padlet, neapod, among some more established ones. Great to get an idea of what's out there.
I absolutely love this free online bingo generator, it is so simple and can be used in almost limitless ways. Perfect for your end-of-semester quiz or setting up games with friends and colleagues.
I don't remember if I talked about Twitter lists - these are brilliant and have returned the site to a state where I can actually use it. Follow these instructions to create a list, the best part is that you can pin it to your feed so that it appears as a tab. I've put all the local news on a list, so I can filter out the noise and get to the important stuff.
The FLTMag talks about coffee breaks in the times of Covid-19, it looks like they were well-received by language students. "We engage each other. I meet their pets and sometimes their siblings or parents. All of our sharing happens in the target language."
Another reminder of what we're actually doing with remote learning. I know that there are a plethora of articles like this one but we mustn’t lose our way.
The ALT Annual Survey is out, with findings from a truly international population of Learning Technologists. I was a bit disappointed to see how important pieces like OER, AR & VR, and even game-based or playful learning slid down the rankings as we made the move to remote learning and perhaps signals the way more traditional methods of delivery (talking at students) crept back online. People, we can do better...
On Screen
Ways to drink tea around the world
Only Antonia Carlucci can show you how to really make Spaghetti Carbonara.
This week I'm linking to Save Small Business - you'll notice that this is something that I try and promote as much as possible throughout the newsletter, it's a terrible time for staff in often family-owned or self-started companies and they need us to help, buy gift cards and use their online services.
...and we're done.
Thank you for reading, we really appreciate your support and would love to hear more about what you like and what you've seen that might be useful to share. If you have anything you'd like to include in future issues, let us know.