Debate

The Debate e-tivity is based on pros and cons type of dialogue. The students are given two opposite statements and they have to represent or defend one of those statements against those who are representing the other. This e-tivity can be performed in form of a contest or game with the goal of one student or group persuading those who represent the opposite statement. Often the public is present and the argumentation of each side is evaluated or a decision is made of the winner in the argumentation contest. When there is enough time, the students can use online and offline resources to prepare for the debate. This is mostly a cognitive learning activity that provides more insight and different viewpoints regarding some topic of a lecture and is predominantly based on peer learning. The verbal interaction during a debate is usualy documented (transcript, audio- or video-recording) and archieved or published on the web.

Various Web 2.0 tools can be used for this e-tivity, including instant messaging tools (Google Talk, Google Wave), collaborative writing tools (SpringNote, Zoho Notebook), social networking tools (Ning, SocialGo), video-sharing tools (YouTube), wiki and blog.