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U-2 Spy Plane in Google Earth
Nothing says Cold War quite like the U-2 spy plane incident. Free Technology for Teachers provides a link to a Google Earth file in which your students can find out fascinating facts about this seminal event in American history.

How To Learn Photoshop In 24 Hrs
As long as you’ve ponied up a few hundred bucks for Photoshop, you may as well learn how to use it. DesignReviver has a series of tutorials on how to use this venerable graphics program.

18 Most Scenic Places For Teaching English Overseas
Who among us hasn’t pondered teaching English abroad? See exotic places, learn a new language, and see how people live in another part of the world. MatadorAbroad sweetens the deal by listing 18 of the most beautiful places you could go for your overseas teaching experience. Locales like Rio, Prague and Zanzibar look awfully tempting, especially when winter rolls around again.

Nine Reasons to Twitter in Schools
Get the most out of 140 characters. Tech & Learning has 9 reasons Twitter is a powerful educational tool. FYI, this entry: 138 characters. -BILL FERRIS

Photo credit: (nz)dave on Flickr.

I had some really old school instructors when I was studying Korean. Not only was it great to have instructors with a lot of life experience, but given that they were native Koreans it was even more enriching. In addition to unique teaching styles, they had story after story about what school was like in their home country. How else would I have found out about weird schoolyard games, like the Chicken Fight? (That was the best video I could find.)

That little reflection of mine might be submission-worthy over at CulturallyTeaching. I’d probably have to up the word count, and I’d also need to find out how much they’d plan on paying me. I’d then need to instantly demand they DOUBLE IT. But enough about my negotiation skills.

Have you studied and/or taught while abroad? Do you have a new ESL student? Maybe you’re curious about how you can add some culture to your foreign language lesson. If any of those scenarios struck a chord with you, check out CulturallyTeaching.

Although their blog only recently started up in November of 2008, they have been steadily ramping things up. Its always good when you see a new, useful blog find it’s footing and start posting more and more. Postings at CulturallyTeaching generally fall into a few different categories, with a great deal of images, videos, culture lessons, resources and activities. If you’re interested in how culture affects people both in and out of the classroom — not only in America but also abroad — their blog is definitely worth reading. -NICK YINGLING

CulturallyTeaching

Related stuff:

Field trip to Jordan: No tickets required with Project Explorer

Travel the world with Project Explorer

See the world, learn a language: Scholarships for students to study abroad

Photo credit: alessandro pucci on Flickr.

When I was not sure which path my career would go, I very seriously considered teaching English in Japan. The salary seemed fine, but I was more interested in getting some exposure to a completely new world. Because of extenuating circumstances that aren’t worth getting into here, I opted to remain a patriot for the time being. Nonetheless, I scoured the Web and found plenty of resources available to answer my questions about where to begin planning my travels abroad to share my English skills.

First, here is a great series of posts by blogger NomadicMatt. He’s broken his knowledge and expertise of teaching abroad into five parts, which covers everything from job types to specific places to teach and what to expect in various countries. There is also plenty of information on what is required of teachers planning to go overseas to teach:

All countries require that you be a native speaker. This means from the UK, US, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand. While some countries will hire Filipinos, they typically prefer Western employees.You will also need a bachelor’s degree from a 4 year accredited university. It doesn’t matter what your degree is in. Whether you have a degree in biochemistry to English to yoga doesn’t matter so long as you have a university degree. A four year degree is a MUST in the higher end countries like Korea and Japan.

These posts have lots of great information if you’ve already talked yourself into going, but it might be helpful to hear another side of the story, too. Read this post, about “The Ugly” side of teaching in Japan. It sheds a little bit of light on some of the aspects of over-the-pond tutelage that they won’t tell you about in the brochure. Also, Mottekaero jDonuts begs the question Is English Teaching Worth It? – JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

Teaching English Abroad pt 1
Teaching English Abroad pt 2
Teaching English Abroad pt 3
Teaching English Abroad pt 4
Teaching English Abroad pt 5
Teaching English in Japan: The Ugly
Is English Teaching Worth It?

Photo credit: jmurawski on Flickr)