Who I am and why I enrolled in LTMOOC

As I mentioned in my first post, I have started this new blog to have a cleaner work space for my first MOOC experience. Since the blog is new I am slowly adding more information (blogs I read, etc.)--including class assignments. This is our first.

A little about my background:
I have lived in Wisconsin, Virginia, and Illinois (though not for very long). Most of my growing years were in Virginia, and most of my adult years have been in Wisconsin. I graduated from the University of Richmond (Richmond, Virginia) and then moved to Wisconsin as a newlywed to attend grad school in Madison. Eventually my husband and two children and I ended up back in Richmond for four years. During those years I taught Beginning Spanish, Intermediate Spanish, Conversation, and Spanish for Business at the University of Richmond. When I was hired by Concordia University Wisconsin--and for a number of years after I started--I was the only person teaching Spanish, so I suddenly found myself with multiple preps, often of courses I had never taught before. I loved the challenge, and the program grew. We now have two full-time people teaching Spanish and two adjuncts with fairly full loads. We are blessed to have two adjuncts with years of experience and a lot of enthusiasm and talent.

As far as languages, I obviously speak English (native language) and Spanish. I have taken a semester of French, a semester of Italian, and a semester of classical Greek. One half of my family of origin is Flemish, and I wish I could speak with them more easily. I would also love to learn Arabic because of its connection to the history and culture of Spain.

Life circumstances haven't allowed me to travel internationally in the past few years, but I have in the past spent at least some time in England, France, Belgium, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Nicaragua, and Spain. Our youngest child is starting college this fall, so we may have more opportunity to travel. But we will also undoubtedly have less money with two children in college.

I have been interested in technology in teaching and learning for a number of years. Concordia has been using course management systems (most recently, Angel), so that got me going with some of the possibilities offered by technology. I have also explored and learned other tools and have used them to one degree or another in my classes. These include: wikis, podcasts, blogs, Twitter, applications available through CLEAR, Lenguajero, Live Mocha, Posterous, Jing, Panopto, Audacity, and Piazza. I've probably forgotten to mention many.

In signing up for LTMOOC, I hope to explore new possibilities for using technology in courses and to learn about, reflect on and practice ways of flipping and blending aspects of both lower-level and upper-level courses. I am very excited that two of my CUW colleagues, one teaching German and one teaching Spanish, have also decided to join LTMOOC.