Reading assessment using Timetoast
To carry
out this activity, I decided to focus the use of Timetoast on the assessment of
a reading book. “Land of my childhood”, the book chosen, is a compilation of
short stories from South Asia. Students (B1 level) had to choose their
favourite short story and create a timeline including the main events taking
place, a short summary and one or two alternative endings. I created the first
timeline as an example and I showed it in class. After discussing some
technical aspects, they were ready to create their own timelines:
Example:
Students’
timelines:
Learning
objectives:
Summarising,
rephrasing, distinguishing between the chronological order of the events in a
story and the order of the story-telling, speculating and predicting.
Advantages
of using Timetoast for this activity:
Timetoast gave my students the possibility of making a
traditional activity (writing a summary of a text) more interesting and
entertaining. They also have the opportunity of sharing their timelines on our Edmodo group and comment on their
partners’ timelines.
Steps I
followed and problems:
I created a
sample timeline to show students how Timetoast
works. Students had to make their own timelines at home and share their links
on our Edmodo group. The specific
features of a group composed of adult learners together with the impossibility
of developing the activity in class because of the lack of resources made it impossible
to do the activity in groups.
The student’s
reactions:
Although
students complained when I suggested the activity (they always complain when it
comes to doing some homework) I managed to motivate them and most of them have
already done the task. The feedback the activity is receiving via Edmodo is very positive and my students
can see the purpose of the task.
Some things
That I would change or improve:
I will
definitely use Timetoast in the
future to assess other reading books since I think is a different and
motivating way of developing a very common and traditional activity. However, I
will ask my students to write a first draft so that I can correct their grammar
and vocabulary mistakes before they create their timelines.
Hi again, Rocío.
ResponderEliminarWhat an interesting way of using timetoast! I find very convenient the use of this tool with the goal you designed. Developing reading habits seems to be quite a hard task but thanks to ICT tools like this it becomes much funnier and motivating. As you, I also faced some problems, mainly regarding the copy and paste of information from websites (that was not the goal!!).
You blog seems very nice but I'm sure you are pretty busy right now to find time enought to share new projects. Don't give up! You'll manage to do it in time and the reward will be very possitive!
Hello Rocío!
ResponderEliminarI really like the design of your blog. You had a great idea using TimeToast to assess reading. It has been really easy for me to find the content by using the tool "look for" congrats! Next time you could add videos instead of the links. Anyway, good job and keep working on it!