Stupeflix--good presentation tool

    I am really happy to share my spring break vacation experience with everyone by the storytelling way. Thus, I can image how happy my students will be if they have chances to show their stories by this clear and cool way. In this way, Stupeflix can be a useful tool for students to show their periods presentations. Traditional presentations are more likely depending on memorize drafts and recite in front of peers. This is way much weaker than presentation of combination of pictures, words and even music. For me, I like this kind of romantic presentation way. And for boys who probably won't give a care about romantic, digital presentation is a nice chance to use their computer skills. Maybe girls will consult male friends.

Voice Thread--a wonderful learning tool

    I enjoyed Miao's and Fred's Voice Thread teaching very much.

    I chose Miao's Voice Thread and Fred's Voice Thread because they all selected the topic about abroad study life that allowed me have a lot to say.

    For teaching, Voice Thread fulfills several assessment requirements I just learned from assessment class. If I were a language teacher, I will use Voice Thread to assess my students. Firstly, I can assign assignment in the Voice Thread according to what I teach. For instance, if I teach words and phrases about directions, I can ask students to describe a picture of street by using words and phrases they just learned. It fulfills the content validity and give students a chance to practice oral expression ability. Secondly, Voice Thread won't take students a large amount of time to finish. It is very practical. Finally, Voice Thread allows students to hear from and comment on each other and allows teacher to comment on every student. It provides students with great washback. Excepts those rules, Voice Thread also offers a stage for students to play like students and teachers and to show themselves. They can learn from each other via the online communication. And the most important thing I want to mention is maybe Voice Thread provide students who live in remote places with opportunities to communicate with fresh teachers and students. As long as students have computers connected with internet, they can learn in digital classes.

Bookr, a nice tool

        My winter vacation

        I used Bookr to display my winter vacation in New York. Even though I met lots of problems when I tries to create the digital brochure, I still find bookr is very useful tool for my future teaching.

        I will let my students to use bookr to create stories. I will group them and assign them different tasks to finish assignments. I prefer to let students tell stories about Greek Methodology. Because tons of English words are originated from Greek Gods' names or Gods' exclusive abilities. During the preparation time, I hope students can learn stories behind words from their materials. I hope a storytelling assignment like this can lead students to learn something new both in online tools and English knowledge. And via the activity, they can learn how work together and present their productions to others.

Digital Storytelling creates creation

Audience at the Los Lupeños de San José exhibit., a photo by San José Library on Flickr.

        According to 7 things you should know about Digital Storytelling, "Digital Storytelling is the practice of combining narrative with digital content, including images, sound, and video, to create a short movie, typically  with a strong emotional component". Digital Storytelling allows various resources as its materials. Thus, storytellers can be as creative as they can to design stories. Some curriculum experts even believe that digital storytelling can be applied to nearly any subjects because of their virtually limitless in resources requirement. And digital storytelling can also be complicated as sophisticated one. As I quoted from 7 things you should know about Digital Storytelling, "sophisticated digital stories can be interactive movies that include highly produced audio and visual effects, but a set of slides with corresponding narration or music constitutes a basic digital story". From this point of view, proficient level of digital storytelling requires high level of students' various abilities.
        Since digital storytelling is not the simple traditional oral story delivering, I can use it to improve several learning abilities of my future students. A well-formed digital storytelling needs a script. Students have to think what methods they will employ to support their stories in digital way. Which music is best? What kind of images to use? Is video better or animation? Students have to go through all trivial elements to design a practical plan. It is very helpful to improve students' organization ability. For the story telling part, students' are forced to choose a topic of their stories. Not like old days that teachers prepare everything, this time, students should choose appropriate stories which can be conveyed to particular audience, with electronic elements, in the time available. Thus, digital storytelling let students to express themselves not only with their own words but also with their own creation.

Let us be virtual farmers

      The game I chose is Farmgame on facebook. It is pretty close to Third World Farmer. But I really do not like the name which includes third world. When I was in China, I have played Happy Farm in RENREN (A Chinese style facebook) for a long time. I cannot count how many times I played the game. I grew flowers in my virtual farm and sent them to my friends.

      The first one it my facebook farm. And the second one is my RENREN farm.

      The language learning objective of the game is still vocabulary learning. I learned a large number of vegetation words through the game. And because pictures designed by facebook and RENREN are pretty close to real vegetation products. So students growing up in cities have a chance to familiar with plants, flowers and vegetables. The game also has a requirement of mathematics. Players have to run their farms well and sell their products in right seasons to earn money to buy expensive products' seeds and cultivate new farmland.

      It is a out-classroom game. So for me to assess students conveniently, and that is another reason I choose farmgame on facebook or RENREN, I will add my students as my facebook or RENREN friends. Then I can visit their farmlands all the time. After playing the game for a while, I can also hold a vegetation words competition in my class to assess students' learning outcome. Of course, I won't tell them when I am going to conduct the competition.

Let us escape from museum

      Gamification, as I quoted from Gamification, is a novice education which typically involves applying game design thinking to non-game applications to make them more fun and engaging. Gamification has been called one of the most important trends in technology by several industry experts. Gamification can potentially be applied to any industry and almost anything to create fun and engaging experiences, converting users into players.
      Teacher could use language games to enhance the interesting of learning. And students usually remember very well the knowledge they have learned via playing games.
      The game I choose today is an escape game---Museum Escape. Firstly, I tried to play the game without walkthrough. Then I found I was too positive about my escaping ability. I just could not get out of the museum. So I opened Museum Escape Walkthrough and read the instruction carefully. Then I played the game twice with a lot of fun.

      Because it is not a very difficult game which we have to admit. If I am an English teacher and try to employ the game to facilitate my students, I think the objective must be vocabulary. Even for me--an advanced L2 learner, I still learned some new words and phrases I am not familiar with. Traditional English words learning, especially in China in which the English education system is test-taking system, is reciting words and remember them. If students cannot remember them, teachers will tell them they should repeat more and more to engrave English words in their brains. I am not going to say it is a bad method. But it is better if students recite words after they understand words and can visualize words. The game provide students with great 3D pictures to visualize words. It also trigger the curiosity and ambition of winning of students, they will try their best to remember these words because they want to win. And there are different kinds of escape games online. Specific to this game, I think it s helpful for students to learn knowledge about museum and history.
      The teacher can play the role as man-made walkthrough. Because the whole walkthrough sheet may be a little bit difficult for low level students to follow. Teachers can give instruction and hints. After all, it is a game. Teachers, in my opinion, are not willing to daunt students and strike their self-confidence. I will definitely give my students walkthrough. I will prompt them with hints consistently. I hope I can use equipment like computer to play the game with students in the classroom. I prefer dynamic pictures than still pictures. For assessment part, I would like to use a competition to see whether my students have learned words. I can group them and organize a competition. At last, I will reward the winning team for their cooperation and endeavor.