I'm sure most of us have heard of YouTube, the online collection of videos. How many of us have heard of TeacherTube, the online collection of educational and instructional videos for the classroom? While browsing this site, I found a cooperative learning strategy for the language classroom called Inside and Outside Circles. "In this video, the teacher uses this learning strategy to review vocabulary. He gives index cards with a vocabulary word related to the metric systrem on it to the students in the inside circle, and the students on the outside have to figure out it's corresponding vocabulary word in the American measurement system. The students on the outside rotate around the inside circle and then they switch circles so that all students can equally participate in the activity.
This activity promotes interaction and communicaion in the target language. This activity could not only be used for vocabulary development, but also for key figures or concepts in a thematic unit. For example, a unit on the Civil War could contain the important battles, people, and concepts. Not only does this review the content material, but it also build communicative competence. Students have to use the language in order to be successful.
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Lindsay,
ReplyDeleteYou have chosen some very practical videos. However, I'm not sure if the "How to Video Blog" went far enough. While the video did show how to create a video with a Flip camcorder (great little tools, edit with Movie Maker and upload to YouTube, it didn't show how to embed the video in a blog. I may be mistaken, but I think that YouTube videos can be considered video clips, but not vidblogs. However, I may not be right since the videos in YouTube do allow commenting.
Dr. Burgos