PiratePad
What?
Pirate Pad is basically an “open” Word document which can be accessed and filled in by the students simultaneously. That means that students work with one document at the same time and they can see what their classmates have written.
How?
You access the page www.piratepad.net and open a “word” document. Students can register with their names and they will choose a color with which they write their text so that the other students know who has written which parts. The teacher can always understand who has made which entry but he can also clear the authorship colors. The teacher can save the document and students can create lists and type their texts in italics, underlined or bold. As you see, the tool functions like a word-document, providing more possibilities for school as it can be shared by the whole class.
Personal Experience: Positive/Negative ?
I just used that tool in class, but I really liked it. It was fun to see what others had written and that they could change or comment on what I had written. The experience was rather positive, but there are a couple of things which should be considered before using it (see below).
PiratePad at School?
There are a couple of useful ideas and positive aspects regarding the use in school. First of all, you can ,for example, use the tool in order to check whether the students have done their homework (read a text, prepared a new grammatical issue…). If you give different questions to the students they cannot copy what other students have written and you can easily understand who has done it or not. You can also use it while listening to a song or watching a movie, students can write down what they think or what you have asked them to think about. There are many possibilities.
Another good aspect is that students can comment on what others have written. They can communicate (“chat”) with each other and change their entries if they think it is necessary. As they don’t speak face to face, students who are rather shy or don’t like giving feedback or getting feedback directly, this can be a good alternative.
As you can use the authorship colors, you can easily see who has contributed what.
All in all, these are the two basic aspects which make the use of PiratePad a good idea.
Aspects which are rather negative or which you have to think about beforehand are:
PiratePad can be used by only 16 students (computers) at the same time. That means that either you can just work with 16 students or that two students have to use one PiratePad together. It is not a big deal but you have to think about it before depending on what task you want the students to work on. Can students work together or not?
Another aspect is cyber-bullying which can easily be done with this tool. Students can manipulate other students’ results. Teachers have to be very careful and that is why they should definitely include the authorship colors. Students in lower classes may misuse the tool in that way and in other ways, for example, by writing things which are just rubbish.
We said that PiratePad contributes to what we understand by the interactionist model, combining comprehensible input (appropriate material), interaction and comprehensible output. The latter goes along with or rather includes the noticing-, hypothesis-testing-, and metalinguistic function. Especially the fact that the teacher and the classmates can comment on what has been written (be it on grammar or on content) makes this tool interesting and useful.
On the bottom you can see how a PiratePad document could look like after it has been used. There are different topics which had to be filled with content. The different colors show who has done what. You can also see that the layout of PiratePad is rather easy to understand and to navigate.
added: November 26, 2010
Pirate Pad is basically an “open” Word document which can be accessed and filled in by the students simultaneously. That means that students work with one document at the same time and they can see what their classmates have written.
How?
You access the page www.piratepad.net and open a “word” document. Students can register with their names and they will choose a color with which they write their text so that the other students know who has written which parts. The teacher can always understand who has made which entry but he can also clear the authorship colors. The teacher can save the document and students can create lists and type their texts in italics, underlined or bold. As you see, the tool functions like a word-document, providing more possibilities for school as it can be shared by the whole class.
Personal Experience: Positive/Negative ?
I just used that tool in class, but I really liked it. It was fun to see what others had written and that they could change or comment on what I had written. The experience was rather positive, but there are a couple of things which should be considered before using it (see below).
PiratePad at School?
There are a couple of useful ideas and positive aspects regarding the use in school. First of all, you can ,for example, use the tool in order to check whether the students have done their homework (read a text, prepared a new grammatical issue…). If you give different questions to the students they cannot copy what other students have written and you can easily understand who has done it or not. You can also use it while listening to a song or watching a movie, students can write down what they think or what you have asked them to think about. There are many possibilities.
Another good aspect is that students can comment on what others have written. They can communicate (“chat”) with each other and change their entries if they think it is necessary. As they don’t speak face to face, students who are rather shy or don’t like giving feedback or getting feedback directly, this can be a good alternative.
As you can use the authorship colors, you can easily see who has contributed what.
All in all, these are the two basic aspects which make the use of PiratePad a good idea.
Aspects which are rather negative or which you have to think about beforehand are:
PiratePad can be used by only 16 students (computers) at the same time. That means that either you can just work with 16 students or that two students have to use one PiratePad together. It is not a big deal but you have to think about it before depending on what task you want the students to work on. Can students work together or not?
Another aspect is cyber-bullying which can easily be done with this tool. Students can manipulate other students’ results. Teachers have to be very careful and that is why they should definitely include the authorship colors. Students in lower classes may misuse the tool in that way and in other ways, for example, by writing things which are just rubbish.
We said that PiratePad contributes to what we understand by the interactionist model, combining comprehensible input (appropriate material), interaction and comprehensible output. The latter goes along with or rather includes the noticing-, hypothesis-testing-, and metalinguistic function. Especially the fact that the teacher and the classmates can comment on what has been written (be it on grammar or on content) makes this tool interesting and useful.
On the bottom you can see how a PiratePad document could look like after it has been used. There are different topics which had to be filled with content. The different colors show who has done what. You can also see that the layout of PiratePad is rather easy to understand and to navigate.
added: November 26, 2010
This is how it could look like...PiratePad in our seminar
