Actualidades: Blogueando para aprender (review)

Actualidades: Blogueando para aprender is a blog for Spanish students, authored by a high school Spanish teacher. Throughout a month of reviewing the site, the reviewer found the contents of this Web site to be of high quality and updated regularly. Although the author of the blogs is not a native speaker, his Spanish is excellent. Many of the links are to authentic sources such as texts, songs, and videos. All of the multimedia is embedded within the pages of this Web site for ease of use.

There are ten main sections on this Web site. The El Autor section has three welcome videos: one in English for beginning students, one in Spanish for advanced students, and one in Spanish for teachers and native-speaking visitors. Teachers will find here a link to a scholarly article on the uses of blogs in the classroom.

The sections with the most content are Escuchar Música, Actualidades TV, and Unidades Didácticas. The music section has a built-in audio player with the current Top 40 pop/rock songs in Spanish, as well as archives to previous Top 40 lists. Any teacher who uses songs in the classroom will find this an extremely useful resource, especially when used with the Clozeline activities for song lyrics. These activities are printable, and so users will not have automatic feedback. However, students can self-correct as they listen to the songs. Users will find links to some music videos, as well. Actualidades TV has links to videos related to current events, from music to politics. One example is from November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, which is a date designated after three sisters were killed in the Dominican Republic because of their political activism. On this link, the author has posted a public service announcement video on the need to speak up against violence. He then blogs about the issue and has linked songs and activities on the topic of violence against women and human rights. The Unidades Didácticas section brings many of the Web site's resources together. The units are organized by themes (Cuba, food, etc.) and also by level (Spanish I through AP). One example is a link to a unit on Juanes, which includes a list of reading activities, often with accompanying videos, along with a question to get students blogging. There are links to other sites in Spanish relevant to the post. A helpful tool for teachers is that the blog author has already created a vocabulary list of key words needed to understand the text or comment on the text, with links to their translation in Word Reference and an audio recording of the word.

Other learning resources on this site include Galerías de arte, with links to many pieces of art accompanied by blog discussions of varying length and participation for each piece. Carteles de cine is another section of visual images, with movie posters in Spanish for current movies. There are discussion questions, vocabulary lists, and comprehension and research questions in the accompanying blogs. Students can respond to directly to the blog author, or perhaps more appropriately respond in the classroom. In addition, teachers can use these authentic visual resources as the basis for reading comprehension or discussion activities. There is a long list of links to crossword puzzles in the Crucigramas section that are to be completed on the computer, with instant automatic feedback. Users click on a blank in the puzzle and get a clue. For some, the clues are the English translation (such as pink), while for others the clue is in Spanish (i.e., Don Quixote: "el amor de Quixote"). Teachers may find this useful if the vocabulary lists match those of their own textbooks and assignments, and most of the vocabulary corresponds to the textbook Realidades. The vocabulary exercises in the Vocabulario section are links to Quia vocabulary activities, such as Matching, Flashcards, Concentration, and Word Search. All users have access to the activities, but only the author's students can log...