Using Software tools to enhance language learning

I have been doing some research and have found some fun tools that students could use to enhance their language learning:

• Word of the day This could be a fun little thing that students could look up and learn on top of what they do in class
• Babbel the vocabulary trainer here is especially fun to use, best of all the entire package is free. While this is a great tool I don't know how great it would be in a classroom, I think I would just use things like the vocab trainer etc... since I think that real conversation is extremely important in order to learn a language
  
• games are a fun way to get students to have fun in the class room
• This game would be a great vocab review, I think I would use it and try to see who can get the best score!
• this site is fun but I would use it for younger students it's nice because you can click on things and they are said a loud and so the student can hear what it should sound like.
  

These tools are great and I would want to use them, but we would have to make sure that students can be in a lab to use all these tools. We would also have to make sure that students don't just go looking for tools on their own, I found somethings that I wouldn't want students to use like a German "Russian roulette" chat etc...

Using a Website for my Classroom

I have created a test website for a future classroom.

http:/mrsbryansclassroom/home

I think it would be a great tool to have a class website, so that you can post all assignments, you can have a class calendar with all the due dates that your students need to be aware of, you could post study guides. I think it's important to have many different options for your students. While some people from an older generation might prefer to have a calendar on paper, someone from the new generation might rather have an online calendar since he is online all the time and that way he can't lose it, and most importantly his dog can't eat your online calendar ;)

Using A Blog in a Classroom

Blogs can be used for many different reasons. Using a blog in your classroom can be very useful. Here are some ideas:

• You can create polls and have students anonymously respond
• Have easy homework assignments such as a one sentence answer to a question
• You can share useful websites with your students
• Explain homework assignments in details
• Have a calendar of when assignments are done
• Post "how to videos"