Appropriate Application of Available Technology

Just a quick note.

Today helping one of the ESL students in my room I hit upon the idea of using Google Translate, we use it all the time to translate journal prompts. The computers were all occupied with people on Accelerated Reader. So I did it on my cell phone.

Using my phone at the table and calling up Google Translate in the phone's web browser engaged the student so that he actually has a good deal of Weekend News written.

If I had a probing question, I would type it in to the text field and hit translate. Then I would show it to the student, repeat the question in English and wait for the answer. I did not have to wait very long. With a smile on his face, I would ask if the transaltion made sense, he would give me a bit of information about his weekend that we could then expand into a sentence.

All in all a good day.

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