D, day 4 of the #AtoZChallenge

D is for DUOLINGO!

Have you met Duo? He is the  owl mascot of the Duolingo language learning platform. I think he's pretty cool, but sometimes his encouragement is misinterpreted....but I digress.

I must admit, I was an early adopter of Duolingo in my classroom when it debuted...In the old days, I would have to physically check each student's progress by looking at the app on their phone! Now with Duolingo Classroom, Duo and his friends keep track for you, and will even send you a weekly update of the work done by your students.

Wait, you've never heard of Duolingo?

Duolingo is the world's larges online language learning app. When using Duolingo for 34 hours, students learng the equivalent of one university semester of language instruction! The app uses science and adaptive techniques to make language learning fun and effective. Students earn points for correct answers, for racing against the clock, and leveling up.

Every language has a skill tree that maps the language course. As you progress, the skills build upon one another. 

You can test out of a lesson or a section if you feel strong in that[those] topic[s].

Actvities include translation,word rearrangement, speaking the words, and multiple choice.

Here are what some activities look like on a mobile device

How do I use it with my students?

I assign a set number of Duolingo points for students to complete per week. I used to assign multiples of 10 in relation to the course level.This year I've upped it to 40 for everyone now that I don't assign paper homework assignments. Next year, I think I'm going to increase it to 50.

Are you ready to check it out?

Go to schools.duolingo.com and click Get Started. You will then be prompted to Create a clasroom. You will give it a name and choose the language you teach. You can then Invite Students which will create a link to your classroom. As they accept it, they will appear in  your class. Once you have several classes, your dashboard will look like this.

From the dashboard you can view their progress individually or as a a class. You can see how many assignments your students completed on time, how many they submitted late, and how many they missed.

 You can assign certain skill sets to the class with a set due date. 

Once you do all this, you will be well on your way to becoming a Duolingo Ambassador. We have a great community where we collaborate and share ideas. You'll  get a nifty certificate too! You might even get some cool swag like I did this year. 

My 🦉 #duolingoswag arrived today! Grazie mille @duolingo. My students will 💚💚💚💚 those pencils and stickers! #duolingoambassador #cherryhillwl pic.twitter.com/vy168F6JEh

— ░▒▓█►─𝒫𝓇𝑜𝒻. 𝒟'𝒜𝓁𝑒𝓈𝓈𝒶𝓃𝒹𝓇𝑜 👩🏻‍🏫 (@DAlessandroCH) December 21, 2018

What are you waiting for?

This masterpiece is by my students J Debrowski and C Workman.

Head over to Duolingo now!

 A presto,

p.s. Join my our #virtualPLN on Facebook! #AtoZchallenge