Technology in the classroom can reflect the students
Millennials are online...all of the time. Recently, I asked students how many hours they spend online and they said it would be easier to say how many hours they are not online. Educators are doing all they can to engage their students in the material they are learning. By navigating to where the students already are, I have found students engage in an entirely new way. Here are some examples of how to use these platforms in the most real-life ways for students.
Interpersonal Writing:
Spontaneous written communication that is synchronous (unrehearsed) and incorporporates some sort of negotiation of meaning. That is hard to do! Twitter is a platform that uses short "tweets" to communicate. Live Tweeting Use the actual twitter platform, or a common shared Google Doc to have students "tweet live" about skits, discussions or other activities happening in class. As things are happening in class, the audience (students), participates in the live tweet event with a shared hashtag. |
Communities Standard
Participate in Multilingual Communities at Home and Around the World 5.1: Students use the language both within and beyond the school setting. 5.2: Students show evidence of becoming life-long learners by using the language for personal enjoyment and enrichment. Students are often looking to be engaged with the vocabulary in more ways. That should be easy, since the words they are learning are real and are needed to negotiate everyday situations. Combine that fact with the students' love of taking selfies, and there a great opportunity presents itself. Instagram picture dictionaries This gives students the opportunity to use their creativity to represent new words/phrases through pictures. It also gets them to engage with the material outside of class. |
Blogger - Passport stampsLearning about culture - actually learning about it - is a reflective process. Students are motivated by culture and naturally start to make comparisons in order to understand. Don't forget to remind them that comparisons do not have to lead to rankings. Blogs/Vlogs are a way to individualize the process of cultural exploration.
Blogging on culture Students start their own blogs to document and reflect upon their cultural explorations. I frame it in the context of collecting passport stamps. Students have a passport for my class. Each time they post a new reflection on a cultural exploration/experience, they receive a stamp on their passport. |
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Live Technologies by Lauren Fraser is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.