Scribd (Creating an E-magazine Part 1)

I remembered the site Scribd as I was thinking about using blogs as a learning tool. Scribd is kinda like a blog, but a more official type of publication. For example, The Rutgers Review uses Scribd to share its publications. So what is Scribd and how could a language teacher use it? First, a language teacher could use Scribd as a source to find and present authentic language sources to your students, such as a six page Time magazine article about how the grilled cheese is changing the world. But there are many, many sources for authentic language materials. So what do I really have in mind here?

Scribd basically is a blog, that is, it's a site where you upload your very own information so it can viewed/shared by others. What's different is the method in which you upload your information. Instead of a simple word document, you can upload PDF documents like a magazine (i.e., The Rutgers Review or Time Magazine). Check out The Rutgers Review here: http://www.scribd.com/TheRutgersReview

A user can create a profile and publish its magazine regularly, garnering followers who will automatically see your updates like Facebook. There's a bevy of different kind of documents a user can upload. A teacher could probably set up an entire class around Scribd by uploading handouts, grammar sheets, exercises, and by guiding students towards authentic language materials, and then finally by having students create their own material to upload to Scribd. Ah, there's an idea. But what if a class created its own magazine over the course of the year or semester and uploaded it to Scribd? I envision a project managed by the teacher with contributions coming from the students. Ok, so that's my big idea: a class could make it's very own journal just like The Rutgers Review. Let's say you taught a class of ESL students from Korea and China, aged 18-25, who were studying in the United States for a year. That's a perfect opportunity to create a magazine that chronicles their time in the United States. Perhaps over the year you would have them write reviews for tourists attractions they saw in NYC (for example, The Lion King Broadway or Top of the Rock) or you would have them chronicle their food experiences, their bad experiences, an art show, a movie, their dating experiences (opportunity to be funny here!)...the possibilities are absolutely endless. It doesn't even have to be NYC-specific. You could give them as much freedom to be creative as their age dictates. Then you publish a magazine via Scribd. If you had younger students you could still have an immense amount of fun guiding them.

The key here is the teacher. He/she would probably use a PDF-generating program like Abode to help students create a quality magazine. I look at The Rutgers Review and think: ESL students could do that. And they can. But this is a more complex project. I may write a related blog on Abode to see if I can fully connect these ideas, but I really love the idea of creating an E-magazine and sharing it via Scribd. There are endless possibilities for many age groups and difficulty levels. All the motivating factors are there, the fun is there, and the educational goals are there: opportunities for speaking, writing, listening, interacting, group work, individual work...I love this idea.