For a long time I have been thinking what artifacts I will use to document my learning. I have thought of using Audacity, as it is recommended by this blog. However, I have realized that the choice of my artifacts will depend on what goal I achieve. For example, I used Audacity when I learned how to correctly pronounce words in Turkish and read simple Turkish stories (which I not necessarily need to completely understand at this point). I believe that audacity can be a very helpful tool in recording my voice while reading a specific story because I (together with my partner) can just listen to it afterwards and hear where I make mistakes. I can also record the same story after a certain period of time and compare the old audacity file with the new one. This way, I can grade myself and realize whether my Turkish pronunciation improved and whether my reading became more fluent.
I am also thinking of creating iMovie where I can use video camera to record a specific scene/event. For example, I can record myself being in a class where I speak to a friend in Turkish about our classes and weather. This is what I would do when I learn words related to school and weather. I could also use iMovie to make a short video on ordering food and drinks at a restaurant. I love food, and that is always a big topic for me. So I will definitely create an artifact (iMovie) when I learn the words related to food and ordering at a restaurant. However, I might not go to a Turkish restaurant and record myself ordering food, but I could do it in dhall or Passport or just create a scene of me being at a restaurant.
I think once I learn basic grammar such as present simple or continuous, I will set out a goal to write a certain amount of sentences using that tense and scan the documents and keep it as my documentation of achieving a goal. I believe this is a good artifact because this way I will be actually writing down sentences and translating them from English to Turkish and/or vice verse, and I might even try to write a small essay using the words and tenses I have learned. I believe that when I actually write down sentences using correct grammar and spelling that come directly from my mind without using dictionary or somebody's help I can say that my Turkish really improved. This is a very good motivational factor for me that keeps me working really hard towards achieving my goal.
Another artifact I may use is taking a you tube video of some characters or animals and deleting their voices and inserting my voice instead. I could record a dialog of me and my friend at a market place shopping for new clothes. This would actually require a combination of audacity and iMovie or even some different applications such as Final Cut Pro. This artifact might be very interesting for the audience as well, as they see animals/flowers/cartoon characters speak in an unfamiliar human language.
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