VoiceThread for Teaching Language

      Voice Thread can be widely used in a language class. It can serve as a audible discussion board for students to communicate, and also can be an online classroom where teacher can post their lecture notes on it and teach according to notes.
       I choose Flora and Celia's product of Voice Thread as example, I think they are well made.  They both have clear clues of the content, so students can easily figure out what the points are in the class. Flora's class focuses on student's self-introduction, and Celia's focuses on introduction to the bilingual phenomenon in Quebec. Moreover, they both provide clear introductions to students about how to use Voice Thread. They show it step by step, therefore students can successfully handle it according to their instructions. Another thing is their voices are sweet, students will love to listen to them. That is why I choose them as examples.

Photo stories and L2 teaching

 

    Above is a photo story I made named " Grow up" using Stupeflix. Stupeflix is one of all kinds of online software for making photo stories. They provide the feature of integrating your photos, texts, music and animation together，users can easily create their own stories using them.
     It also can be a good helper in language teaching class. Both teacher and students can learn to use it because of its user-friendliness. For example, students can use it to make their journals more dramatic and easy to share. In china, many teachers ask their students to write a journal every week on exercise book, in my memory, it was really a boring task. However, if we ask our students to write journals using these online tool, I think it will be different. I enjoy the process of making it, so I guess my students to a larger degree will also like it.
     For teacher, these tools to make photo story are  also useful. Although my experience of teaching in class is not rich until now, I know sometimes it is hard and time-consuming to find a video appropriate to use in class for warming up or other purposes. These story making tools provide the feasibility for teaching to make their own videos which fit their teaching plans.
      In sum, online photo story tools can make class more creative, interesting and also bring convenience for teacher. It is worth a try.

Digital Stroytelling in L2 Class

 
     According to the website of Educational Use of Digital Storytelling, "digital storytelling at its most basic core is the practice of using computer-based tools to tell stories." As the development of modern technology, the traditional learning activity --- storytelling can be conduct online, that is what digital storytelling means.
     Digital storytelling is more creative and more vivid than the traditional one, since it integrates music, video, picture together. Moreover, there are a lot of user-friendly software online which we can choose to use in our class, so everyone no matter teacher or student can both learn to use it easily.
     Digital storytelling can be conducted to practice student's L2 speaking skill. For example, teacher or student can prepare a video for this purpose first, then let students  make an oral story according to the video. Students can also write down their stories, then they can develop their writing skill. In the storytelling activity, most stories are narrative，therefore teacher can conduct this activity focusing on the use of tense. So teacher can provide help immediately when students have problems or produce incorrect tense. Therefore, digital storytelling is a method good to use in L2 class.

Bookr---Make your own online book！

         I made a simple story using Bookr above. It is really an interesting and user-friendly online software. Users can make a book by adding pictures and descriptions on Bookr, then it will automatically produce an online book for you.
        This software is very easy to use, therefore we can introduce it to our students for practicing both speaking and writing. For example, they can make their stories on it, so they can learn how to produce an narrative text in writing. It can also be used to produce a descriptive text, such as introducing families. Within pictures, these traditional practices become more vivid and more creative.
        It can also be used in practicing speaking. For example, a student can make a book on Bookr and present it to the whole class. He may not write description for each picture but just show it to class, and let his classmates guess the story，after that he tells the whole story. So both the presenter and the other students have opportunities to practice speaking.
       In sum, Bookr is really an amazing technology tool which can be applied in teaching to make the class and the learning process more interesting and creative.

Cookies are not only cookies.

 
Photo by Klara Kim, from Flickr.

Creative cookies.

Valentina Blinova in L'Oiseau de feu [The Firebird], Ballets Russes, Sydney, 1936-1937 / Max Dupain

Valentina Blinova in L'Oiseau de feu [The Firebird], Ballets Russes, Sydney, 1936-1937 / Max Dupain, a photo by State Library of New South Wales collection on Flickr.

beautiful！

3rd World Farmer and Teaching Numbers & simple future tense

    

     This game named “3rd world farmer” is really engaging, I played it for almost ten times and got my highest score of 1000+.

     To use it in my teaching, I will divide my students into pairs and each group uses one computer to play the game. Since in this game, the amount of money and how to use the money to keep characters alive are the most important things, therefore I plan to use it on teaching students how to say numbers in English and how to use simple future tense by asking them “what to do next” and making them answer me using “I will…”. For example, at the beginning of the game, I ask students how much money they have, they should have 50$ each group, so I teach them 50 is “fifty”, then I will also show them how to say 20, 30, 40, 50 etc. After that, I will ask them what they will use this money for. They may say, “I will buy some wheats” or “I will buy some chickens”, so they can practice simple future tense.

     I can assess whether they acquire the knowledge or not by asking them to share their products after each turn. They need firstly report how much money they left and what they want to do with the money. I can provide instructions immediately if I find them get stuck. So I can assess if my teaching objectives has been met during the process of interaction.

      I think it is not only a good game to use in teaching language, but also a game to make students experience the tough life which somebody in other parts of the world are really experiencing. Since teaching students humanism is also an important part of education, this kind of serious video game is really good material to use in classroom teaching.