Describe an activity that you could do using technology to support the familiar “Getting to Know You” tasks at the beginning of term. Identify the technology tool(s), how you would introduce the activity and the guidelines you would give to the students for completing the task. Also, describe how you would then follow-up on the activity to reinforce the opportunity for the students to learn about each other.
Padlet would be the technology tool I would use to have the students introduced themselves to the class. Here’s a sample. (Feel free to contribute.)
http://padlet.com/azmirta/ckfe6e7balu6
[padlet key=’ckfe6e7balu6′ width=’100%’ height=’480′]
Padlet seems to be very easy to use; but just to be as clear as possible, I would add a screencast of how to use it to this guide post. This is my preferred tool because the wall would be an interesting thing to look at, and students do not need to sign up for an account in order to write on the wall, so that would reduce the anxiety of those students who are afraid of technology.
The link for this activity would be available in the course site, probably a wiki. As a follow-up activity, a page in the site can be devoted to comments on the sentences the students posted on the Padlet wall. Students can discuss their impressions on the statements of their classmates. The objective of this activity is double; on one side students become aware of their motivations. On the other side, they can develop their own ideas about language learning from the comments of their classmates.
