Submitted by: Val Bryant
School: Short Pump Middle School
Summary
Text to Speech! Transforming written words into spoken ones is a great way to capture the student’s voice, literally. Through the use of text-to-speech software, students can see their very words come to life from the mouths of avatars they create and design. The once perfunctory task of reviewing students’ writing errors suddenly becomes an exercise in problem-solving. With the Xtranormal essay model, students don’t have to give mechanical, cursory nods to their writing that’s been returned to them with red comments and marks. Today’s 21st century students can work together to create a final product that has been compiled from the good exemplars they’ve been shown.
TIPC Ratings
Research and Information Fluency: Teacher evaluated electronic resources for appropriateness and effectiveness. The teacher also utilized School Space databases for enhanced research and information acquisition. The students researched for accurace and appropriate information and resources to accomplish the real-world task of making a video featuring new material.
Communication and Collaboration: Teacher modeled effective communication by showing the students an Xtranormal video that was created to give them instructions for their project. Teacher also established group norms to facilitate effective collaboration. My students communicated with audiences within and beyond the classroom. They collaborate while creating their products, and their videos were shared on our Wikispace.
Teacher utilized open-ended questioning and emphasized higher order thinking skills by giving students the freedom to critique peers’ essays by guiding students to and encouraging the use of the appropriate resources used to solve the authentic problem of proofreading for written errors. The students used technology to work both independently and collaboratively to solve the problem of correcting common errors and working to rework the phrases correctly in the target language into videos they created.
Teahcer create a student-centered environment and provide opportunities for students to demonstrate collaborating, communication, and critical thinking skills. The students had an opportunity to work together to pull out the best parts of the essays they reviewed collectively and communicated ways to improve the essays in a product that they created to show to the class to prove their collaboration worked. The students applied their existing knowledge to create ideas and incorporate them into original videos they created collaboratively.
