Multimedia Courseware Development Project:

Preliminary Proposal Guidelines

Your Preliminary Proposal is due by noon, Wednesday, September 23, uploaded to the ICON Dropbox (in the Preliminary Proposal folder). Your filename should consist of the initial letter of your first name + your last name plus "-prelimprop" (e.g., sotto-prelimprop.doc).

Also, please put your name at the top of the document (or in the header).

The multimedia courseware development project constitutes a major component of the course, so it is important to get off to a good start. Here are some guidelines for you as you develop your basic concept for your one-page proposal:

Begin by brainstorming topics that interest you and that you think students will find appealing. Everything is possible, so think creatively. You can worry later about what your target student population is going to be or how it will relate to a specific curriculum.
Then, surf the web and find one or two interesting authentic websites (authentic websites = websites produced by and for native-speakers of your target language) on which to base your project. You should avoid the following:

Dull all-text websites. You may find that an interesting topic that you have identified has a lot of websites dedicated to it, but they turn out to be really boring - nothing but very difficult text and no pictures or other media to illustrate the content. If this is the case, go back to brainstorming and come up with a different topic.
Self-developed webpages. Except in extreme cases, we do not allow projects to center on websites you create yourself, even if you are a native speaker of the target language. The primary goal of this project is to exploit available authentic web resources and make them accessible to the language students.
Webpages developed at other schools/universities for instruction. Sometimes there are great websites developed at other universities for use in teaching languages and culture. We do not allow you to base your project on such websites. If you find a site with a URL that includes .edu in the domain name, keep on looking for other websites to use.
Tourist webpages in English. Many pages contain interesting cultural information, but they tend to be in English. Find ones that are in the target language.
Pages with unstable content. Do not pick websites that have content that changes constantly, such as news or weather websites, blogs, or retail sales pages. Although all websites tend to be updated over time, it is best to look for websites with content that seems unlikely to change too regularly.

You may opt to include other authentic media texts that you acquire from other sources (e. g., music from CDs or video clips), but keep in mind that copyright can be problematic. Your preliminary proposal must include at least one authentic website (a specific URL) that you plan to use for your project. If you do not have any websites identified in your proposal, half the possible points for the proposal will be automatically deducted.

Focus in on a single narrow topic. Your lesson should treat your subject in depth and include preparatory exercises and follow-up/culminating exercises in addition to exercises focused on the content of the websites. Do not propose to create a lesson that covers an entire broad topic - food, music, national festivals, major cities, etc. However, your lesson may be imagined as part of a larger unit. Think ONE: for example, a lesson on one specific rock music group in as part of a unit on popular music or a lesson on one major festival or holiday as part of a larger unit on festivals and holidays.