Here’s what the website has to say about the potential uses of Lingt Language:

Create online assignments that make engaging and assessing student spoken performance as natural as giving out a worksheet.

Make oral exams that take a fraction of the time to administer and assess. Perfect for IB and AP preparation.

Offer targeted feedback to individual responses to maximize student improvement.

Incorporate video and images to create media and culture-rich exercises.

Archive all your assignments and student responses to reuse next time and track individual improvement.

In our elementary school context, Wendy has come up with a unique way of marrying Lingt Language with Voicethread to create a multimedia reflection and learning experience.

Wendy wanted the students to learn and remember the Chinese Characters for various countries, and do this in a way that helps to contribute to the learning of others.

The students selected a country, then tried to come up with a story to create a mental picture, or visual association, that will help others remember the Characters in that country name. They recorded their explanation on a Voicethread, which included all the countries they were studying.

[As an aside, Kim Cofino has a great blog post explaining how making connections to visual cues helped her when she was learning Japanese, which is worth checking out]

See example below:

Following that, students were then directed Lingt Language to answer some comprehension-style questions. A specific link is created for each class page, so you can link directly to the task. In order to answer the questions, students needed to view  the Voicethread as a whole, and learn the country names that their classmates had investigated.

Students could either type or record their answers in the Lingt Language site. The other great thing was that Wendy could either type or record her feedback to the students – isn’t that fabulous?

Here is a copy of the  Lingt Classroom page that Wendy created for the Grade 4’s:

Highlights

1. It is a user-friendly interface which is easy for the students to understand
2. No log-in is necessary for students to enter responses
3. The ability to record voice or type – this is fantastic for students and teachers alike.
4. Teachers can mark and give feedback online, in both oral or written form.
5. Responses can be organised either by student, or by question, meaning teachers can analyse results and check for group understanding.
6. The potential for learning becomes 24/7, not just limited to the hours you are in a classroom.
7. Great way to assess and support children according to their individual needs.
8. It is an excellent way of collecting evidence of student-learning, particularly for student-led conferences.

Things to think about

1. It requires the latest version of flash, so school/home computers may need updating
2. Feedback is emailed to students, so students will require their own email address, or an address of a parent to receive feedback from Lingt Language.

Online I’m a blogger. I have several blogs, documenting my work with students and my learning in technology education. I read other people’s blogs, comment on them and learn from them on a daily basis.

Online I’m a tweeter. Through Twitter, I have met a huge number of creative, talented, intelligent and inspiring people. I enjoy sharing information, ideas and random thoughts with many of them. I have certainly made new friends through Twitter.

Online I have followers. Although this fact never ceases to amaze me, there are people out there who read my blog and have me in their Google Reader! I can’t imagine a greater compliment than that!

Online people know me for my work. They know what I’m doing in my classroom, which tools I think are great, the highlights and challenges of teaching IT.

Online I help people find answers. I like being able to support newcomers to the online world I live in. I like being able to make a difference to people and help find solutions to their problems.

I have a very supportive group of family and friends, yet they seldom (if ever) read my blog posts. It appears am not alone in this: I put out the following tweet: Do your friends/family read your blog? Here are some responses:

That said, it’s important to get a balanced perspective on the issue. @nadinedickinson pointed out that her blog isn’t relevant to her friends/family, but it is for her coworkers.

If I take my particular situation, I am living overseas, and the vast majority of my friends are also teachers. Both of my parents are teachers. My sister is married to a teacher. I’m surrounded! My blog is particularly relevant to them as a group.

The intention of this post was not to moan about the number of friends/family members reading my blog, but rather highlight the fact that my friends/family have little idea about the extent of my online existence.

It makes me wonder what I don’t know about their lives.