Toontastic
Herbert Spencer said that “The great aim of education is not knowledge but action.” And I think that the action of sharing knowledge is the first and foremost action among educators and researchers. Today, my colleagues have shared some of their technology-related knowledge that are applicable in the English language classroom. One group focused on the concept of critical thinking, logical thinking and speaking skills. That was all illustrated in the use of an application called Toontastic. It provides a 3D form of scenes and characters that language learning students can record their own voices to make up a story, for example.
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This application has triggered my thinking of its implications in the English language classroom beyond the visible uses. When it comes to my area of interest, corrective feedback, the teacher may assign the students certain task to record and use these video clips to help the learners to correct their own linguistic errors in accuracy-based tasks or assessments, for example. The students may also be asked to record their diaries orally to help them in fluency-based assessments. As per their psychology, the corrective feedback is not threatening as nor has it based on hypothetical errors or undocumented comments. I mean that it helps the learners to chew it as it is not spotting on them rather it is an opportunity to learn. In this way, teachers help their learner developing self-correction skills like planning, proof reading, editing. More importantly, it helps reducing the size of fossilized errors that language learners often suffer from, that is due to the fact that the students are assessing themselves authentically which is a growing and important aspect of learning.
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In fact, the groups’ presentations were really inspiring I am serious about brining technology in my speaking classroom. I have attempted to use a different common application with my students, but I do believe that this application may help better attain the desired outcomes as milder and more children-friendly formatted.
