TodaysMeet- An Interactive Space

http://todaysmeet.com/

What is it about?                                                                    

• TodaysMeet is a virtual room for people to share their opinions, discuss, ask questions and give feedbacks. The host/ presenter/ teacher can create a room and all the participants can spontaneously post their ideas in the room. It creates an interactive community.

Why is it good to language learning?                                     

1. It provides an interactive and cooperative space for language learners to use the target language to communicate. When brainstorming, students can discuss and build up the ideas together through TodaysMeet. There is interaction between students and the teacher, and also among students.
2. It creates a friendly learning environment. By using this space, teachers can show their willingness to hear opinions or feedback from students. The students who are too shy to speak up in font of the whole class can express their thoughts through typing words.
3. It breaks the limitation of space. It can be used in long-distance classes or a joint class connecting two classes from two different countries.

How can it be used?                                                               

• In class

1. In writing class, it can be used to help students to brainstorm their ideas or collecting relevant vocabulary they want to use in their writing. Students can also do cooperative writing in the virtual room. They can make up a story by taking turns to write a sentence.
2. It can be used as a tool to check students’ reading comprehension by questions and answers.
3. It is also a good tool to review the vocabulary. Students need spelling skills to type the vocabulary.
4. At the end of the class, students can review and share what the main points they learned today.

• Outside class

1. Students at home can have group discussion in the virtual room after class. The teacher can also join in the discussion or give them suggestions.
2. Students from classes in different countries can have interaction in this virtual room. Teachers can set up discussion topics and students can use target language to exchange their ideas involving different cultures.

What are the limitations?                                                      

1. When using the virtual room in discussion or brainstorm, students might neglect or ignore other people’s ideas because the information flow is so fast. New ideas keep coming out and some overlapping or repeated opinions might occur. A host is still needed to organize and list the ideas.
2. Some students might keep silent and not involve in the discussion.