Duolingo

I have been trying to implement my Chromebook cart as often as possible in all content areas. I decided to do some team teaching with Hornung's Spanish teacher to incorporate some E'spanol with technology. I quickly found a cute looking app called "Duolingo" and spent about 30 minutes downloading it onto each students' Chromebook. I ran out of time and did not look at this application as thoroughly as I should. Before class, I did try about two performance tasks the app provided me and decided it was acceptable. As the students logged on they seemed excited about learning some spanish with our new devices and thought the Duolingo Mascot (an owl named Duo) looked entertaining. The program works like a video game and the student keeps on progressing to the next level as the spanish concepts become increasingly difficult. Well, the kids did great on the first few tasks, but then it asked them to type the spanish word. This is way to complex for an elementary student to accomplish and we immediately discovered that the usage of this app may cause more stress than learning in our room. So, we abandoned the lesson. I'm glad we tried, though. This app is awesome and I suggest it for middle school and high school levels. It costs nothing and I think I may end up using it for myself. This is how technology is, sometimes you just have to jump in and try it. You have to take the risk to figure out what will and will not work in your educational setting. I feel blessed and lucky that I have had the opportunity to try out the Chromebooks!