Stormy Brain: Technology Teach-In

What to do for the technology teach-in assignment...there are so many options!  Luckily, we have a Promethean Board (Who knew not every interactive board was called a SMARTboard?)  we utilize every day, as do all teachers in my placement, making this task perhaps a bit easier than it otherwise would have been.  However, the task remains: how on earth do I make the pen that comes with the screen work?  My MT and I have been struggling with this, and have yet to find someone who can figure this little pen guy out...but, I am tenacious and armed with the Internet.  One morning, before the technology teach-in, I will make it work (meaning in the next week).  It would be so handy to be able to annotate documents/homework corrections, for example, with the pen, rather than remaining chained to the old wooden podium.  Furthermore, I have mindmap/brain storming ideas for which I need the use not only of the whiteboard, but also the space the Promethean Board occupies, hence the need for a functioning pen.

As my students do not have many in-class Hörverstehen activities, and I have just been researching how key listening skills are acquiring a second language, I would love to include a listening activity for this day.  One website I have found with slowly, yet understandably/not mind-numbingly boring, spoken German with the text as well (major pro): Slowgerman.com.  Deutsche Welle also has slowly spoken news with text, which, although also awesome, is often beyond the level of even most of my Honors students...Anyone have any other ideas/ways to listen to language they may have encountered in their own studies?  I love Skype, but the computer lab and that sort of access in Northville is difficult to come by.   Die Sendung mit der Maus is a fun YouTube resource as well, but the topics are not always applicable to what we are studying...

Anyhow, my plan thus far is to incorporate the Promethean Board for the Daily Notes, examples to be done as a whole class/going over the homework, a brainstorm as to what the Hörverstehen will be about based on the title and the current unit (maybe utilizing Padlet here?  I don't want to overload the students with too much tech...), followed by several listens to the text with different focuses.  Included also in the lesson will be the students' Tagebuch (journal) entry, which they write daily and then finish at home/type into GoogleDocs for fast and easy feedback, as well as the ability to reflect upon how they are growing as writers of German.  We have 90-minute blocks...lots of time for activities!

If anyone has any other ideas for the listening activity/useful links were Podcasts, Radio, or short clips can be found (in German, with German subtitles if it is a video), please share!  We are currently wading through home/household vocabulary, as well as the dative in some classes and the Preterite/Simple Past in others.   Hope everyone enjoyed the recent snow days!  Crazy Michigan weather.