mondaaaaaaaaaaay, part two

Well, the second session went somewhat better. The students had been grumbling about connecting their smart phones to the College wireless network, so I demonstrated how to do it to them - a bit of faffing, but, as it turned out, extremely useful faffing. We were doing a section on holidays and, in particular, city breaks - form filling, asking for information in a tourist information office etc. I then decided to change tack from the rather worthy, but somewhat dull task about to heave into view, and wrote the following up on the board:
          Imagine someone is coming to visit Reading for a couple of days. Where can they stay? What can they do?

We brainstormed a few suggestions, then I told them to whip out their smartphones and research things to do in Reading, places to stay, restaurants etc, organising them into groups of 3/4. They wrote their ideas down on flipchart paper, and, with minimal intervention from me, researched and organised their ideas. They then presented these to the other groups, and the class as a whole voted for the best places to stay, eat in, go to etc.
Good, eh?
It didn't finish there. While they were doing that, I went to Page O Rama, and set up a web page, which I then added to the college intranet for all to gawp it. It isn't finished yet, but the whole lesson finished with a satisfying zing.