Digital Story Telling

Digital story telling can be a beneficiary assignment for high intermediate, students aged 15 and above, as it will help develop literacies like persuasive writing, storytelling, developing voice, becoming more confident. Even though in digital story telling the emphasis is more on visuals, learners must also work on providing precise information in the short text, they must also have media and digital literacy. An example of story telling can be providing any information about a particular topic. To be able to present it in an appropriate way, students must be able to decide on the reliability of the source they took the information from. The process also requires planning, drafting and revising.
Digital story telling is a helpful tool to develop multiple literacies like media, critical, computer, digital, etc. As presented by Hughes & L/Robertson in this rapidly changing world of new technologies "the definition of text must expand to include multiple forms of teachers, communication and its social contexts and add empowerment as an additional gain for preservice teachers". 

Collaborative Wiki Project

Collaborative writing project seems to be the easiest project as you can allocate some part of the task among peers and work together to foster the assignment. But to start, first you need someone in the group who will take the lead of the whole process: a pushy person who will lead the group till the completion of the project. As I go back to my studies at the University where new technologies where not part of the learning process this would be a very time-consuming project, as we had to find some time to get together with the group, to decide on the task allocation. Nowadays students are really granted with great technology solutions to make the process more successful and enjoyable. The teacher just assigns a writing task students create a shared doc, and each of them starts working on their part of the task. No need to get together to discuss things, this can be done on distance, through the commenting function of the shared doc. Moreover, students can access, comment, edit through their smartphones, even no need to carry laptops. I, have personally experienced the joyful moment of using a shared doc during my first-year studies at MA TEFL. On Saturdays I would take my sons to the children' cafe, they would play, I would do my assignments. What could be better? In case of a working mother student, shared docs are the best solutions, you do not need to be physically with the group to discuss, finalize and release the task.

Podcast, Specific Considerations

According to O'Bryan & Hegelheimer (2007) "Podcasts can be powerful tools for learning to listen, as evidenced in a recent study on the integration of podcasts into an ESL listening course, where they were viewed very positively by the students".

To prepare the students to get acquainted with the new format named podcast I, as a teacher would start with no limitation on particular podcast selection. First, they would be given enough time to try and find what they really liked and what didn't. I wish my teacher used this technique during a regular classroom setting, as, it would be of great help while I was taking my TOEFL exam many years later. Being an old SLA learner (I started learning English when I was 15) I remember one of the biggest challenges for me was listening part. Even years later when I entered Linguistic University if podcast was used I would not struggle with listening part of TOEFL exam.
As a teacher I would recommend the students to start with the podcast of their interest, not to limit them to particular podcasts Besides, the broader choice a student is given the better selection a student does.
The main purpose of podcasts will be developing note-taking strategies and developing listening skills. To make the podcasts enjoyable I would recommend my students to start with short ones. It can be very helpful as the learner can listen again and again to the podcast be he/ she at home, in a bus or elsewhere. Instead of reading, the learner is listening.
Depending on the level of proficiency of the learners little by little I would guide them to the topics of their level. At the end of every lesson, I would allocate couple of minutes to discuss the podcast they listened to; thus, developing speaking as well. At first, this would not be a graded task to let the learners feel more comfortable with podcast itself and only later would integrate podcast and discussion into grading. 

Podcast

Depending on the LOs (Learning Objectives) of a particular class (in a usual classroom setting)  podcast can be a useful, supplemental source for learning L2. To expand on this, I would like to mention the following important points from my point of view. If the learning objective of a class is to develop note-taking strategies, short dialogues as podcast can be a nice authentic material. The same would apply for teaching vocabulary: students need to listen to the podcast and write down unfamiliar words, then based on the podcast they need to guess the meaning. This can be done in small groups of 2-3.
In case of grammar teaching podcast could be a supplementary material
 Students may be assigned to listen to a particular podcast to fully understand the grammatical part. This can be a helpful tool especially for Armenians who are learning English, since we are used to explicit instruction. We need the rule first.

Podcasts, Why or Why not a teacher would assign a podcasting assignment

During my years at school the only "podcast" Chanel was the TV and we were to fight in the family to have the chance to turn the channel to the English. Elders would argue they would not understand anything, but they wanted to learn the latest local news. Nowadays we all have been granted with new technologies which we can use in our everyday routine: smartphones, MacBooks. Why not integrating podcasts as a part of the learning process? We can start with a very short audio, to let students get used to the new format and by the time make it a part of the learning. Podcasts can be a bit challenging for students with low level of listening skills, but by the time it is integrated into the learning materials, students will enjoy it. 

Short Writing Assignments

The best way to make a student read each chapter and find the key parts can be easily done through short writing assignments. To make students' life more complicated, the teacher can assign each student to add in the comments other key points, peers may have missed.

A good and bad example of Blogging task

If a rural student is in a group of University students from the urban part, due to the lack of computer skills; because of no usage of the computer at all, may experience a hard time and feel frustrated using blogger as a platform for free writing.

Blogging can bring lots of fun and engagement to urban language center adults in expressing their viewpoints, commenting on an article posted. This will enhance their reading skills as well as will improve written production.