Did media-making help students in the ESL through Technology after-school program?
Interestingly, many of the students referred to how the computers helped them read or spell words. Their perspective is different than mine. I saw reading, writing, and especially spelling as things that happened through our projects. Our focus was on media-making; the reading and writing that took place was necessary for the projects whether as planning or as text. The writing in the projects was authentic because it came from the students. The dialogue, in turn, was constructed by students out of a great interest in creating videos within an all-English environment. The English hats acted as physical, tangible code-switching tools that shifted students’ processing from Spanish to English. I maintain that the combination of working they relate to personally created a very specific environment in which students found ways to communicate in English. Defining the environment (in this case in terms of language) and presenting students with extremely engaging work using new tools such as c
