Week 3 Reflection

Experimenting with Vuvox for Digital Storytelling
This past week Haley Winters and I worked together creating a collage using the program Vuvox. The program allows for you to create a media file box, which you can then upload into what Vuvox calls a collage. This collage allows for you to upload text bubbles on images, upload videos and embed background music. For my digital story I used the background sound to upload a sound file that gives an overview of the use of the get passive I prerecorded using audacity.

With the limited amount of time I experimented with Vuvox, I found it to be rather cumbersome to upload videos. It also seemed like a complex task at times to upload them onto the collage. However, the other features seemed to work more efficiently. I think a strong point of the Vuvox is that the drag and drop function in editing mode allows for pictures and media to be added to a collage with ease. I did feel that there were times when the program was unresponsive and slow.

The use of websites in CALL
During the past week we looked at a number of web resources and discussed their potential for language teaching. While we had some difficulties using Hot Potatoes in class, I do see how it could be useful for creating activities for grammar and vocabulary practice. Creating gap-fill activities appears to be one of the most common uses of the site. Although I'm sure there is much more potential for this program than just gap-fill exercises. We also touched on the use of wikis such as google sites.

I feel that it is good to get familiar with these resources and then slowly test them out and assess their potential for use in your own classroom. So I'm looking forward to seeing what other uses there are for the sites we discussed in class.