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.

Below is a Voicethread we started to help us look at practical ways we can reinforce the PYP Attitudes in the classroom. Some of our teachers have already added information about how they use the attitudes in their classrooms.

We need your help to make this as useful as possible. Please listen to & read this Voicethread, then add your own comments about what you would do in your classroom to highlight and promote the PYP Attitudes.

You can comment via audio (pop the headphones on), text (type your ideas) or webcam (click ‘allow’ to access your webcam). Detailed instructions for commenting can be found below.

Instructions for commenting

Click on Comment. The following screen will come up. If you have an account already, sign in with your username and password. If you don’t have an account, click on register.

To register, fill in your name, email address & password.

You will now receive an option to upload a photo. Select I’ll do it later.

To make an audio comment, click on record. You will then be prompted to let Voicethread access the camera & microphone. Click on allow.

You should be able to click on start talking now to record your comment.

For more information on using Voicethreads for education, click on this link.