The task for this week has been to think about our own dream project concerning New Media in English classes.
When I started to make up my mind about it, I realized quite soon that it is really difficult to find something which is creative, new and interesting.
But after a while, an idea of a project flashed into my mind and became my dream project. In the following, I want to present it briefly:
Firstly, I would like to describe some general guidelines about my dream project.
In general, German schools offer exchanges between German classes and foreign classes (schools) at the time of 9th grade, for example exchanges between France and Germany or Great Britain and Germany etc. I would like to put my dream project into practice with 9th graders, because my dream project will mainly be based on an exchange between a German class and an English (British) class.
I would like to create a virtual newspaper with my students.
In order to do that, my class will have to use a blog, such as wordpress, which we got to know in our New Media course. Additionally, our British exchange class will also make up a virtual newspaper by making use of a blog. Every student, regardless if German or British should write one short article every week. They might also include images or short videos. The German students ought to write their articles in English, whereas the British students pen it in German. Consequently, one “newspaper” will be published per week. The topics of these articles may be the following:
What have I learnt throughout the week? What has been most striking to me?
Presentation of research project, which the student had to do in class.
Apart from that, students can also include “usual” newspaper characteristics, such as a weather chart, cartoons, a horoscope or the stock exchange. As homework during the weekend, students will have to comment on two articles of their class mates. The following week they will also write articles, but this time they will assess critically two articles from the exchange class. (more…)
