Implications for Web 2.0 Tools, Part 2

Here are some fun and educational activities that you can do with your students, whether you are a student with a language major, a tutor or a teacher. If you see something that is useful, feel free to use it and make it your own.

Radio play: This concept is definitely not new. Before there was television, there was radio. Soap operas like Guiding Light and As the World Turns became popular on radio before its transport to television. Also, American storyteller, Garrison Keillor has a popular variety radio series A Prairie Home Companion that includes musical performances, comedy skits, and other forms of spoken word acts. A wonderful project may include developing and recording a radio program in a particular language. The actually developing part of the creation of the program may be broken down for the purpose of formative performance assessments. This project works best as a group project but if students want to create their own programs individually, then just make sure you prepare individual monitoring meetings during class time or after school. Students can be graded on scriptwriting. This is to ensure that their content is manageable and that it flows well with the chosen theme. Also, this will help whoever is assessing the student see how the student is progressing in their writing abilities. Another activity involved in the process is the presentation. The presentation will measure students’ ability to speak the language. Some students may choose to sing or write and recite a poem. That is fine too as long as they are using the oral form of the language. As students record their projects, it is safe to assume that some students may need coaching in using Web 2.0 Tools. Therefore you may want to create a rubric or a step by step instructional sheet for the students. This will also test their reading comprehension. Have the students turn in finished work and listen to their performances as part of the summative assessment.

Online Journals: Using a blog site, have students create an online journal in which they reflect on what they are learning or not learning, the usefulness or uselessness of the language, or any other topic. If you choose this project for your compulsory K-12 students, then remember to let your students know that if they put content that reveals dangerous situations at home, then the instructor has to report the situation.

Virtual Tour: Students and / or Teachers can expound on their creativity by choosing a place or event. This can be something as simple as a grocery store, library, museum, or a neighborhood. Choose a particular theme such as operations, history, customs, or what you see relevant to student learning. If you are technologically endowed, then use a video camera to create video snippets. Then you can post to Weebly or the website hosting service of your choice. For those of you who choose to take pictures and create a tour from those photos, then you may want to become familiar with VoiceThread. You will be able to draw on the photos in order to create special commentary about a particular item in a picture. If students are to create a virtual tour, then this is also a project that will require a step by step rubric.

Music Video: Incorporating art to create a music video for YouTube can be used to see how students comprehend language not form just a textual perspective but also from a visual non textual perspective. Students and teachers can take a song of their liking and based on their comprehension of the lyrics, create a music video. Students may create an actual video recorded on a digital video camera or they create a mash-up (a collection of images) video that corresponds to music. There maybe students that are tech savvy with programs like Flash, Java, Photoshop, etc. who are able to make animated music videos. Remember the key is to make sure that they are able to illustrate the message conveyed in the song that they choose to present.

This should jump start your creative juices in developing other projects for your portfolio. Try them out and most importantly, have FUN!!

~ by animeheather on 29/11/2010.