DomoNation.com: Modals with Domo! by Eismannschaft


I used Domo animation from Go Animate to make a comic slide show to help kids see the differences between the English modal verbs.  By using a comic of a well known character, the younger learners will be more likely to pay attention to the lesson, and thus can get more out of it.  Salience is always an important thing to consider in a lesson or task, and in this Web 2.0 age, salience in online lessons and tasks will keep kids from getting side-tracked and going on Facebook every chance they get.

I would use a comic like this to make a task that involves watching the animation and responding via classblog, microblog, or even a written journal to a few questions about the use of modals by the characters.  This will teach the students how modals can and cannot be used in English. This, being a Japanese animated character, would be particularly salient to Japanese and Korean learners of English, who struggle to grasp the intricacies of the English modal verbs.

Voice Thread as Digital Storytelling in L2 Learning

I think that Voice Thread is a great tool for providing a space for collaborative input and interaction in a digital storytelling task.  It involves all of the forms of communication, (reading, writing, listening, and speaking), and allows full collaboration in the class.  Being online, it can be used in, or outside of class time and the classroom setting, thus extending the time and contexts in which students can learn!

I commented on two of my classmates' Voice Threads. the first one was about learning French culture as a means to help improve communication in French.  Learning L2 Culture by Nick.  The second Voice Thread I commented on was about the uses of music in teaching L2. I found through my own experiences that music can help L2 cultural understanding more than it can aid grammatical and lexical development.

Bookr

Bookr is a fascinating internet tool that can be used in so many different ways to facilitate digital storytelling! It can be used to give a proper slideshow, online, and it's shareable with others! I made a Bookr about my family vacation back in 2007. My Family Vacation Bookr

I think that there are many applications for teaching that Bookr can allow.  First, I can see it being used as a format for second language learners to share their cultural experiences and learn from one another. Secondly, and through the same example, the L2 students are practicing self-expression in their L2, which is more important practice than simple memorization of grammar and vocabulary, because the students are creating original language through the exercise. Third, students can use this tool to learn how to use digital media in the Web 2.0 world we live in now.

All About Digital Storytelling

Digital storytelling is the next logical step in literature. First, there was the oral traditions of Viking sagas and Greek epics, sung by bards who were society's storytellers in those days.  Few texts remain from these sources; examples being Beowulf and Homer's The Iliad and The Odyssey.  Fast forward to the introduction of the printing press in Germany, and written literature has become the easiest way to tell stories and transfer information.  Since the 1980's and 1990's, the internet has grown into the best information and technology development ever.  Now, almost every person can use the internet to find information and publish their own findings regarding any topic they choose.  And thanks to this progression of events, stories can be told using any or all of the tools available through the use of computers, voice, text, image, and music can all be combined to tell stories like Homer could have never dreamt.  With the rise of digital storytelling, we can all share our take on momentous occasions to the world. Now everyone has a voice!  "What's your story?"  -The Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling

"Digital stories can be instructional, persuasive, historical, or reflective." -7 Things You Should Know About Digital Storytelling  From this article, I have learned that digital storytelling can embody any style of traditional storytelling.  Also, the article says that anyone can do it because these tools are available to any computer and internet user.  Another point the article makes is that digital storytelling makes the internet a viable pedagogical tool for non-technical fields of study. 

The whole idea behind digital storytelling is that computers allow for a vast number of innovations to be incorporated into whatever project on which a person may be working.  Due to this freedom, the combinations for artistic invention are nearly endless.  A story can be told as a collage of images, a recorded video or an animated one, with voice, music, and sound effects, in any combination!  Rather than just text and (maybe) pictures, the story can be told just like on a TV show.  Using these computer tools to express ideas is only the leading step to the next plateau of how stories will be told by humans.

To keep people on the cutting edge, and to bring others up to speed with digital storytelling, The Center for Digital Storytelling helps by providing workshops to promote people telling their versions of things, and opening others up to worlds of which they have never even heard.


Photo by: Digistorytellin

TED Branches out into TED Ed!

I found blog post from one of the Edublogs to which I subscribe that announces the development of TED Ed. This development shows that TED, in an effort to expand its mantra into the world of education, has begun to apply the ideas that it embodies. I really feel that TED Ed is the way of the future, as far as education goes. Teachers can use any video, including their own, to create an original lesson, and track the progress of their students. This tool has already revolutionized teaching, and I believe that with the backing of TED, it will lead the way for online education for long to come.

Free Tech 4 Teachers: TED Ed

Podcasting Made Easy

In the modern world, full of mp3 players and smartphones, time doesn't have to be lost during travel to and from school or work.  Now, anyone with internet access and an mp3 player can fill that lost time on the bus or train with news or other shows that interest them.  All you have to do is subscribe to a podcast you like, and new episodes will add themselves when you dock your mp3 player.  So essentially, you could be watching a new episode every morning!

I found a great ESL Podcasting site, called ESL Pod.  I have attached a link to a specific podcast about political ideologies from their site.  I found it very interesting.

http://www.eslpod.com/website/show_podcast.php?issue_id=11812486

Podcasts can come from other places too, like the iTunes Store in Apple iTunes.  Apple makes it exceedingly easy to find podcasts you find interesting, and subscribe to them.  It will even queue new episodes for you and upload them to your iPod when you sync it. 

Podcasting is a great way to find new shows that fit into your busy daily life, and stay connected with people and ideas from around the world!

ePals and Global Collaboration

ePals is a web community that focuses on projects that are open for collaboration and have far-reaching implications. They use a common forum format to allow multiple threads within the project topics. There are resources for teachers and students alike, which help with the collaborative process, and provide a jumping-off point for research on the project topics. When someone starts a thread within a project, they can connect with other classrooms elsewhere in the world, and students can connect with other students to share ideas, develop concepts, solve problems, and collaborate on projects.

Some of the projects focus on sharing culture, thus promoting tolerance and understanding in an ever-shrinking world. These projects include focuses on holidays and festivals throughout the world, storytelling in different cultures, and why we are who we are. Other projects include maps, weather, global warming, and natural disasters, which are all topics that affect everyone around the world in different ways.

I would surely be able to use this site to help connect my future EFL classes with kids back here in America. I would pick a project that pertains to the vocabulary or theme of the current chapter, and have the two classes provide their own culture's input into the problem solving portion of the project. The project would culminate in each class presenting a powerpoint or video recoding to the other class and showing what they learned and how they learned from each other.