Feed Reading and Ideas Generated by this Practice

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Feed Reading and Ideas Generated

by this Practice

What one can gain from this simple professional practice

By Prof. Jonathan Acuña-Solano, M. Ed.

School of English

Faculty of Social Sciences

Universidad Latina de Costa Rica

Sunday, April 3, 2016

Post 246

          After being introduced to Feedly.Com by Prof. Michael Krauss in his course Exploring Web 2.0: Tools for Classroom Teaching and Professional Development, we participants were asked to go to Prof. Peachey’s blog Nik’s QuickShout to add it to our Feedly.Com account for in-depth exploration later on. Formerly I had visited Nik Peachey’s blogs, especially after meeting him at Homerton College, University of Cambridge, GB. Though I was not his student in his Web 2.0 training, partners at Homerton taking his class got very enthusiastic at the ideas that Prof. Peachey spread across his students. Now it is my turn to see how his Nik’s QuickShout blog has evolved.

          Scrolling down his many ideas, I got caught by one of his entries entitled Video Creation Activities (Peachey, 2015). What was so eye-catching in this blog entry? Since I work on video production with my university students, I wanted to see what other learning tasks I could devise for my learners in literature courses. And this is what I found:

a)	Blog post title	Video Creation Activities
	Date of publication	Tuesday, September 8, 2015
	URL to access	http://quickshout.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2015-11-05T06:08:00Z&max-results=1&start=2&by-date=false
b)	Suggested tool	None provided by Nik Peachey
		My suggestion is https://www.youtube.com/capture, which allows the user to create movies on the go for iPhones or iPads. For Android phones, it is suggested the following: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.youtube.creator&hl=en, YouTube Creator Studio.
	Tool description	Any of the two tools suggested above allows the user (student) to record videos and upload them to his/her YouTube channel, and then they can be shared or posted in the course’s webpage, Moodle classroom, Edmodo, etc.
c)	Target Students	Idea 1	Literature students who can create a Vodcast (a podcast combined with video) in which they can discuss their personal analysis of a literary piece, such as poetry, short story, or novella.
		Idea 2	Pronunciation students who must work on intonation patterns, and by means of reading poesies, selected sections from prose writing (stories or even essays) they can read it aloud.
d)	Why this activity & Why these tools	1)   For digital natives, this can be a catchy way to have them work on areas that need improvement if applied to pronunciation. 2)   If applied to literature students, who usually have to write their analyses, what about having them react to literary pieces in video format? It is a different way to present ideas and to check pronunciation and understanding. 3)   Though these are just examples of possible tools that can be downloaded from the Apple Store or from Google Play, probably there are more to explore. However, no matter which one your students get to use, it is important to become familiarized with it to avoid problems.
e)	How to use this technique in literature	A)   After demonstrating how the tool can be used to learners, select a piece of literature for analysis. B)   Instructionally design your learning task to make sure students are guided from beginning to the end. C)   Create a rubric for summative assessment and to provide pupils with formative assessment, too. D)   Ask them to rehearse before the actual recording of task.
	How to use this technique in pronunciation	A)   After demonstrating how the tool can be used to learners, select the area of pronunciation you want learners to practice. B)   Instructionally design your learning task to make sure students are guided from beginning to the end and that the chosen pronunciation issue is addressed. C)   Create a rubric for summative assessment and to provide pupils with formative assessment, too. D)   Ask them to rehearse before the actual recording of task.

          No doubt that Feedly.Com is a great tool for academic and professional development. There are many things I am interested in, and those articles posted in education blogs are things that help me generate more ideas to continue innovating in my teaching practices. For sure, my higher education learners will benefit from my on-going training in Web 2.0 tools.

Reference

Peachey, N. (2015, September 8). Video creation activities. Retrieved from Nik's QuickShout: http://quickshout.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2015-11-05T06:08:00Z&max-results=1&start=2&by-date=false