When you’re looking for ways to foster student engagement in the classroom, open-ended tools offer authentic approach for teachers. Students’ knowledge can be demonstrated through a range of open-ended assessment strategies that can be implemented in the classroom. Teachers and students alike benefit from the increased flexibility and efficiency afforded by these tools. An open-ended tool is a great method to push both students and teachers to adapt their communication strategies to meet the needs of the class.
Additionally, teachers can help students become more efficient with digital writing by taking use of the digital technologies that facilitate collaboration and communication. By means of this, there are a variety of open-ended tools that students as digital authors can use in publishing or sharing their own creative works. In fact, open-ended tools have beneficial purposes for digital authors, such as Language Learning By Web Publishing, Enhancing Language Skills via Digital Storytelling, and Enhancing Language Skills via E-mail Activities.
In this lesson’s activity, we reviewed websites that teachers may utilize to facilitate language learning, and I’d want to share it with you since I think it could be useful.
I. Language Learning Via Web Publishing
a. Diary Project – this digital authoring website is really simple and easy to access, and I think any year level can understand how to use it and also its purpose. Also, there is no need to sign up in order to use it. The students can use this as their online diary and read some diary entries with different categories. However, no matter how convenient to use it, I won’t recommend this to language teachers; for some reason that it would be hard for a teacher to identify who are the students who really submitted their entries. Honestly, I don’t think it’s worth of time to use for language learning as a digital diary. I think it would be better if there were other websites for students’ diaries that can foster their creativity in making their diaries.
b. Cyberkids – the design of this website is really for kids ages 7-12; however, they just don’t maximize the size of the whole site; the background is too large, and it almost occupied more than half of the website and also there’s a lot of ads around. I see that this website encourages the kids to share their creative works by submitting their original art, multimedia, music, stories, and articles. They can also visit this in reading works and playing online like brain teasers. However, I wouldn’t recommend this for teachers to use in their language teaching because of the fact that the site loads slowly, maybe because of the large graphics, and some games don’t even work.
c. Global Show-N-Te11 - unfortunately, I can’t open this site. I mean, once I open the given link, the unrelated site is the one that appears. Even the name of the site, I can’t search it.
d. Atavist – I really love the simplicity of the site, including its design, layout, and fonts.
II. Enhancing Language Skills through Digital Storytelling
a. Steller – When I first checked out this digital storytelling platform, I was reminded of services like Instagram and Tiktok, where users can upload and share highlight reels of their travels. I think this app would be better used in classes where students would be asked to use their creativity in writing about their exciting travels. The fact that it cost us nothing amount is obviously a plus. However, when I had a problem with uploading, I don’t know why I got an error code.
b. Adobe Spark Page – it was a great online resource for enhancing any type of presentation, poster, flyer, social post, or social ad. If earlier I said FlipSnack reminds me of Canva, but I now think Adobe Spark Page is more like it. It wasn’t too complicated to use, though Canva users might be a little lost at first. Additionally, you can enjoy a 14-day free trial.
c. WeVideo – this application or website worked well for students to edit their video presentations. It’s up to you if you want to use it on a computer or a mobile phone. This makes it a practical choice for people who need to publish content on the fly but would prefer to edit videos conveniently from their homes, offices, or classrooms. Like any video editing software, WeVideo has a ton of options for paid users, but their free plan is very limited. Your projects will also be saved with the highest possible pixel count, but it depends on your subscription plan. Thus, the size of your exports will be determined by the type of export payment plan you select.
Note: This review consists solely of subjective opinions. Therefore, all of my comments are based only on my experiences with websites.
TE(A)CH BLOG 