mailvu : The connected classroom

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Hello readers!

Connected classroom?

Sounds familiar?

Well, connected classroom is an approach of linking activities in the cl

assroom with outside world where students might be asked to do extended or addition homework for their teachers. For this reason, I am going to tell you about how you can do this by using MailVU. MailVU is a video email that can be viewed by others. Students are able to record themselves speaking about a topic. All they need is a video camera, portable microphone or built in mic in the laptop and internet connection. Using MailVu is easy as A,B,C. Just click,record and send. Video recordings can be up to 10 minutes.

HERE IS THE LINK TO THE WEBSITE: http://mailvu.com/index.htm

How to use it in the language classroom:

Using a 'connected classroom' approach, teachers can encourage speaking outside the classroom by using this activity. For example, students can talk about their favourite football team. They can do it alone, or maybe in groups or pairs where students can make it as an interview or group discussion. Teachers may give introduce the topics in the classroom and students will go home and do it on their own using MailVU. This will directly encourage autonomous learning.

Later, students send their recording via email to teachers where it is now the teachers' responsibilities to listen to the recordings and provide some feedbacks. Another way to do this is, by asking students to do some discussion in groups. Given a topic for example " studying in local universities is better than studying in foreign universities", students can be asked to give their rationale and justification to the topic and send it to other groups. Of course, other groups need to respond to the video

Other interesting ideas that might interest you:

• Students talk about their family members.
• Students do a timeline and talk about each year that they wrote.
• Students may talk about their favourite local food.
• Students may talk about their first memory entering high school.
• Students may talk about the place they would like to visit outside their country.

WHAT I LIKE ABOUT MAILVU:

• It's easy to use. You don't need to sign up. Can use it instantly.
• It has a free version.
• It's good to practise speaking outside classrooms. The principle of connected classroom makes the tool as the perfect tool for classroom lesson.
• The file can be shared via email. You can stay connected with your friends with more interactive way of sending audio mail.

WHAT I DON'T LIKE ABOUT MAILVU:

• Too bad it can't be embedded into blogs.
• Teachers need to consider the external factors in the classrooms such as background noise if they were to do their recordings in the classroom, as it might affect the quality of the sound.

Here is what Russell has to say about connected classroom! enjoy!