We heard Brian Blackburne of SHSU speak at SCMLA. He talked about using Xtranormal in the Technical Communication classroom.
My colleague loved the idea of assigning Xtranormal as a group presentation project on plagiarism for our “proposing a solution” first-year composition assignment.
Another professor, as her/his assignment, had students create an animation of three JSTOR articles. The grading rubric is included, which requires proper citation, a good video, and adhering to the time limit.
I like this, especially since Dr. Blackburne mentioned that there are companies out there already using Xtranormal. Geico and Toyota are two that he mentioned specifically.
I think I am going to pay for a month’s worth of Xtranormal and the student cost (or ask them to pay, since it is $.50 each) and have them do a plagiarism movie for the proposing a solution assignment.
After the movie is done, they will write a shorter (not 1200 words) piece defending their choices within the movie and saying why or how they think it will be persuasive. They will also need to identify their target audience (which I had thought I was going to assign, but maybe I will give them some choices).