Hi all
This is a collaborative writing tool - another example of social software applications.
I set a text up here
http://123.writeboard.com/1c4e26d555cf2f47d/v/new
login educ7006
p/word manchester1
Check my text, correct anything, add or make changes to make it more readable or more advanced:-)
Then see how you can track these changes.
Any potentials here?
See also Nik Peachey's trial wiki space on Cinderella at http://cinderella-their-story.wetpaint.com/page/The+Cinderella+Story
I really like this creative writing idea that could easily be adapted for online collaborative writing activities. Nik invites you to join in an experiment too.
BW
Diane
Tuesday, 2 December 2008
Experiences of computer mediated communication in language learning
Those of you who have taken a look round have, I hope, got used to the features of a blog, an example of asynchronous communications.
As this has developed, it begins to feel very much like a VLE - as Julia says it's almost like setting up a web page with links to different resources though the centre of gravity here is the communications function.
Of course as with all CMCs and indeed all technologies, we need a reason to exploit the tool. Can we collect stories of your own experiences with CMC technologies? This might be as teachers or indeed as learners. Tell us what the purpose was; what role the tool played and any positive effects and challenges you think might be useful for others to think about. You might think back to how I narrated the research with the children using email to develop writing last week.
Remember recounting challenges is an important part of learning. Julia made some interesting comments about the public nature of this blog and I think we had similar comments when we did the group enquiry activity requiring reorting back on BBrd:-)
Can we also think ab out the nature of language production too? we did this when we thought about email. What expectations do we have in this tool? Might these define how we integrate it too?
Look forward to your thoughts:-)
As this has developed, it begins to feel very much like a VLE - as Julia says it's almost like setting up a web page with links to different resources though the centre of gravity here is the communications function.
Of course as with all CMCs and indeed all technologies, we need a reason to exploit the tool. Can we collect stories of your own experiences with CMC technologies? This might be as teachers or indeed as learners. Tell us what the purpose was; what role the tool played and any positive effects and challenges you think might be useful for others to think about. You might think back to how I narrated the research with the children using email to develop writing last week.
Remember recounting challenges is an important part of learning. Julia made some interesting comments about the public nature of this blog and I think we had similar comments when we did the group enquiry activity requiring reorting back on BBrd:-)
Can we also think ab out the nature of language production too? we did this when we thought about email. What expectations do we have in this tool? Might these define how we integrate it too?
Look forward to your thoughts:-)
Setting blog options when you post
Hi all
I've been fiddling with this and can't see how to change this feature permanently.
I noticed that when Julia posted, therewas no comments facility. I now see that when you open a new post, there is a Post Options link bottom left of the editing screen and you need to change that to Allow Reader Comments
I'm sure we must be able to set that as default but can't see where
anyone help?
BW
Diane
I've been fiddling with this and can't see how to change this feature permanently.
I noticed that when Julia posted, therewas no comments facility. I now see that when you open a new post, there is a Post Options link bottom left of the editing screen and you need to change that to Allow Reader Comments
I'm sure we must be able to set that as default but can't see where
anyone help?
BW
Diane
Sunday, 30 November 2008
Teaching old dogs new tricks...
Hi everyone
Just finishing off my assignment for Diane ready to hand in tomorrow....... ONLY JOKING!!! If only I could even decide where to start....
Anyway, I have to admit that I don't find all this blogging business very comfortable. It's really hard to start writing, knowing that different people might read what I say and think it's rubbish! Sending an email seems much less public, somehow, and therefore less scary.
I know one thing - it's important to realise that you're never too old to learn how to do new things. My mother is 84 and has learnt to do all sorts of things using the internet - she doesn't like having to learn the new 'tricks', but if she wants to see photos of my brother's family in Saudi, she has to do it, if she wants to shop online and have access to goods and services she can't reach in person, she has to do it. She finds it uncomfortable at first, but she's glad when she's mastered it. If she can do it, so can I....
Hope you're having a good day. I'm going to visit my Indian friends for a meal tonight, and my stomach is already rumbling in happy anticipation of delicious food.
Julia
Just finishing off my assignment for Diane ready to hand in tomorrow....... ONLY JOKING!!! If only I could even decide where to start....
Anyway, I have to admit that I don't find all this blogging business very comfortable. It's really hard to start writing, knowing that different people might read what I say and think it's rubbish! Sending an email seems much less public, somehow, and therefore less scary.
I know one thing - it's important to realise that you're never too old to learn how to do new things. My mother is 84 and has learnt to do all sorts of things using the internet - she doesn't like having to learn the new 'tricks', but if she wants to see photos of my brother's family in Saudi, she has to do it, if she wants to shop online and have access to goods and services she can't reach in person, she has to do it. She finds it uncomfortable at first, but she's glad when she's mastered it. If she can do it, so can I....
Hope you're having a good day. I'm going to visit my Indian friends for a meal tonight, and my stomach is already rumbling in happy anticipation of delicious food.
Julia
Saturday, 29 November 2008
Del.icio.us
As we saw in our last session, del.icio.us is an example of social bookmarking.
You have a link to the educ7006 del.icio.us page on the righthand menu.
You can share a del.icio.us page or set up your own page and link to this one as part of your ‘network’. For this first experience, I have suggested that we work collaboratively on the 7006 page, using a shared login.
username: educ7006
password: manchester1
Adding resources
In order to add resources to our del.icio.us page, the easiest way is to download a toolbar that that provides quick access buttons to enable you to link to del.icio.us and tag resources as you're browsing. Click here for an overview http://del.icio.us/about/ and then follow the links to How do I get started? and then to Register’. This involves downloading the toolbar - follow the instructions through. Once you download the toolbar, you will see that this sits at the top of your browser.
The principle is, when you arrive at a specific webpage that you want to save, click on the Tag button. You will see tagging helps you to describe and categorise the resource.
If you don't have the toolbar on the machine you're working at, you can choose Add Bookmark from the top righthand menu on the screen, paste the URL you're looking at and then proceed to tag.
As you add more and more resources, use new or existing tags. If you use tags that have already been used, these will appear as an autoentry that you can select from. You can also add notes to help us know what the resource refers to. Then click save. This will be added to the resource page and we can search related tags. You can see the tags I’ve used so far on the blog itself. experiment with a few additions form the resources you found - either on web 2.0, blogging, wikis etc or other useful sites that might relate to other topics we've looked at.
Share any thoughts as you proceed
Diane
You have a link to the educ7006 del.icio.us page on the righthand menu.
You can share a del.icio.us page or set up your own page and link to this one as part of your ‘network’. For this first experience, I have suggested that we work collaboratively on the 7006 page, using a shared login.
username: educ7006
password: manchester1
Adding resources
In order to add resources to our del.icio.us page, the easiest way is to download a toolbar that that provides quick access buttons to enable you to link to del.icio.us and tag resources as you're browsing. Click here for an overview http://del.icio.us/about/ and then follow the links to How do I get started? and then to Register’. This involves downloading the toolbar - follow the instructions through. Once you download the toolbar, you will see that this sits at the top of your browser.
The principle is, when you arrive at a specific webpage that you want to save, click on the Tag button. You will see tagging helps you to describe and categorise the resource.
If you don't have the toolbar on the machine you're working at, you can choose Add Bookmark from the top righthand menu on the screen, paste the URL you're looking at and then proceed to tag.
As you add more and more resources, use new or existing tags. If you use tags that have already been used, these will appear as an autoentry that you can select from. You can also add notes to help us know what the resource refers to. Then click save. This will be added to the resource page and we can search related tags. You can see the tags I’ve used so far on the blog itself. experiment with a few additions form the resources you found - either on web 2.0, blogging, wikis etc or other useful sites that might relate to other topics we've looked at.
Share any thoughts as you proceed
Diane
Wednesday, 26 November 2008
Web 2.0
Hi all
You can see that this blog was used by my distance learning class that ran last Spring. Instead of starting off a new blog, I thought it might be useful for you to read some of this content.
You can peruse the tags on the labels menu. There are various links to resources that you might like to explore and comment on.
To start off though, take a look at the first clip on the Video bar. This links to an increasingly well known YouTube clip about Web 2.0. Take a look and post any comments in reply to this message.
You'll see that I've tagged this message as Web 2.0. Any further comments or questions on Web 2.0 should be posted here. Otherwise start off a new message, and tag this in ways you see fit:-)
Looking forward to your postings
Diane
You can see that this blog was used by my distance learning class that ran last Spring. Instead of starting off a new blog, I thought it might be useful for you to read some of this content.
You can peruse the tags on the labels menu. There are various links to resources that you might like to explore and comment on.
To start off though, take a look at the first clip on the Video bar. This links to an increasingly well known YouTube clip about Web 2.0. Take a look and post any comments in reply to this message.
You'll see that I've tagged this message as Web 2.0. Any further comments or questions on Web 2.0 should be posted here. Otherwise start off a new message, and tag this in ways you see fit:-)
Looking forward to your postings
Diane
Wednesday, 23 April 2008
Fitze and approaches to evaluating CMC
I ploughed through Fitze's article today (Discourse and Participation in ESL Face-to-Face and Written Electronic Conferences). The thing that I was wondering about was the authenticity of the experiment set-up. It was extremely well-controlled, with Class A recorded talking about a subject F2F for a certain amount of time and Class B doing exactly the same in a chat, all at the same time, sitting at individual computers in a language lab. But does the Class B set-up reflect how chat is usually used? And do the results of the research therefore really reflect "real life" language teaching? How do the rest of you integrate chat into your syllabuses? Do you schedule lessons in the regular day-time timetable of the institutions you work for as an alternative to F2F session, or is it used as an additional/complementary means of communication - an extension of another class?
Tuesday, 22 April 2008
Integrating tools
I was reading your views on blogs as personal and/or class tools and fully support the view that there must be hundreds of abandoned spaces out there! We do have to ask why bother!
I suspect in terms of blogs for learning, first of all the attributes of the tool itself need to be fit for purpose (eg your own use of the wikis and blogs for the webquest were your decisions. I have to say this is the first year that groups have defaulted to these collaborative tools rather than use the forum!). Yes, we're back to that word collaboration yet again:-)
Wikis clearly facilitate collaborative text construction in a way that blogs don't. The ease with which text is uploaded and reviewed is a definite attribute for creative projects, I feel. Maybe this is their strength and uses exploiting these features would seem to be logical. I do wonder if some wikis are more intuitive than others? I find myself reacting quite quickly to the 'look' of the tool and this can impact on my decision to make it a home for anything I do. You used different ones for your webquests - any thoughts on this, especially if that was your first encounter? I guess we could ask the same for most tools where we have choices, including blogs, but wikis seem to be a particular case in point:-)
Blogs clearly provide for discussion, but also seem to form a neat space for both sharing, archiving and display and I've seen various examples of them being used in this way. Along with the ability to tag entries, this seems to be again a specific set of attributes to act as a selling point.
This is a neat site that I explore with my UG class of primary school teaching assistants here in Manchester:-) In fact here are examples of blogs, podcasts, wikis all in one place - and in a primary learning context! Sandaig Primary school
What strikes me is there is no that much commenting and I felt this could be encouraged more (eg see the book review blog) but lots of 'display' - and clearly this can be seen by the children's parents too.
Here also is a nice example of Ning used in a global project around specific tasks that are aimed to make children more aware of others' voices around the world. Check thelink to the wiki from this main page for monthly tasks and uploaded projects Voices of the World
See what you think - oriented towards younger learners of course.
Diane
I suspect in terms of blogs for learning, first of all the attributes of the tool itself need to be fit for purpose (eg your own use of the wikis and blogs for the webquest were your decisions. I have to say this is the first year that groups have defaulted to these collaborative tools rather than use the forum!). Yes, we're back to that word collaboration yet again:-)
Wikis clearly facilitate collaborative text construction in a way that blogs don't. The ease with which text is uploaded and reviewed is a definite attribute for creative projects, I feel. Maybe this is their strength and uses exploiting these features would seem to be logical. I do wonder if some wikis are more intuitive than others? I find myself reacting quite quickly to the 'look' of the tool and this can impact on my decision to make it a home for anything I do. You used different ones for your webquests - any thoughts on this, especially if that was your first encounter? I guess we could ask the same for most tools where we have choices, including blogs, but wikis seem to be a particular case in point:-)
Blogs clearly provide for discussion, but also seem to form a neat space for both sharing, archiving and display and I've seen various examples of them being used in this way. Along with the ability to tag entries, this seems to be again a specific set of attributes to act as a selling point.
This is a neat site that I explore with my UG class of primary school teaching assistants here in Manchester:-) In fact here are examples of blogs, podcasts, wikis all in one place - and in a primary learning context! Sandaig Primary school
What strikes me is there is no that much commenting and I felt this could be encouraged more (eg see the book review blog) but lots of 'display' - and clearly this can be seen by the children's parents too.
Here also is a nice example of Ning used in a global project around specific tasks that are aimed to make children more aware of others' voices around the world. Check thelink to the wiki from this main page for monthly tasks and uploaded projects Voices of the World
See what you think - oriented towards younger learners of course.
Diane
Saturday, 19 April 2008
Chat
I am thinking of trying a chat experience with a group of young adult intermediate learners next week. I have created a dedicated chatroom for this purpose using Chatzy: http://www.chatzy.com/.
The reason I want to do this is I have a couple of very shy Japanese female learners in the class and 1 very dominant male Chinese. Speaking tends to be hard for the 2 female students who lack confidence when speaking 'in public'. After having read so much about how CMC can redress the balance in the papers we have been looking at for the current module, I'd like to see if whether and in what way the dynamics of the class during interaction change.
I'd like to leave the students as free as possible to chat but will either give them a topic to discuss or a task that involves reaching a concensus (which I think might generate more output and ensure that all the students will have to participated in some way). Any ideas?
I will keep you informed as to how I proceed and how it goes.
The reason I want to do this is I have a couple of very shy Japanese female learners in the class and 1 very dominant male Chinese. Speaking tends to be hard for the 2 female students who lack confidence when speaking 'in public'. After having read so much about how CMC can redress the balance in the papers we have been looking at for the current module, I'd like to see if whether and in what way the dynamics of the class during interaction change.
I'd like to leave the students as free as possible to chat but will either give them a topic to discuss or a task that involves reaching a concensus (which I think might generate more output and ensure that all the students will have to participated in some way). Any ideas?
I will keep you informed as to how I proceed and how it goes.
Thursday, 10 April 2008
Approaches to blogging
As I was posting a comment back to Tony, I described Nik Peachey's blog as 'one to come back to' and I began thinking about the number of blogs I take a quick look at, but never return to, and the few that I do look at more regularly.
This made me wonder whether we read other people's blogs solely because we are interested in what we find there or whether as blog authors there might be some principles which could guide our approach to structuring and therefore make blogging a quick and easy experience for the reader.
To illustrate, Nik Peachey often posts on new software or Web2.0 applictaions he has come across. He systematically posts comments under headings: How to use this with students; what I liked; what I didn't like. Under these, bullet points are used quite a lot rather than extensive text. He also uses tagging systematically so you can easily browse the topics.
Tagging is a specific issue I suspect. This site by Ann Foreman (BC Spain) has some great posts (a veritable treasure trove of practical advice) including some nice examples of blogs. The tagging list is huge and possibly less transparent than Nik's as I wasn't sure why some tags took me to where I went, but does this make a difference? http://encouraginglearnerautonomy.blogspot.com/2007/03/setting-up-blog.html
Of course both these examples are targeted at teachers and are likely to grow quite large. Maybe learner blogs are set up more for specific projects and are more focussed by their very nature. Ann links to this BC blog which struck me as a nice idea to support exam classes and I suspect will continue to be easy to navigate as it grows http://fcebritishcouncilbilbao.blogspot.com/
So I wondered if you had examples of blogs that you might return to regularly, or learner blogs that look particularly clear and enticing?
Diane
This made me wonder whether we read other people's blogs solely because we are interested in what we find there or whether as blog authors there might be some principles which could guide our approach to structuring and therefore make blogging a quick and easy experience for the reader.
To illustrate, Nik Peachey often posts on new software or Web2.0 applictaions he has come across. He systematically posts comments under headings: How to use this with students; what I liked; what I didn't like. Under these, bullet points are used quite a lot rather than extensive text. He also uses tagging systematically so you can easily browse the topics.
Tagging is a specific issue I suspect. This site by Ann Foreman (BC Spain) has some great posts (a veritable treasure trove of practical advice) including some nice examples of blogs. The tagging list is huge and possibly less transparent than Nik's as I wasn't sure why some tags took me to where I went, but does this make a difference? http://encouraginglearnerautonomy.blogspot.com/2007/03/setting-up-blog.html
Of course both these examples are targeted at teachers and are likely to grow quite large. Maybe learner blogs are set up more for specific projects and are more focussed by their very nature. Ann links to this BC blog which struck me as a nice idea to support exam classes and I suspect will continue to be easy to navigate as it grows http://fcebritishcouncilbilbao.blogspot.com/
So I wondered if you had examples of blogs that you might return to regularly, or learner blogs that look particularly clear and enticing?
Diane
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