Posts by Diddly:
Mar
31
This was my original story, but I have changed it. If you want to see what I did, go to the “Story” page.
I really liked PhotoPeach and I was going to use it to tell my story, but I decided on Voicethread. It has two advantages for my context. FIrstly it allows for audio as well as text. Secondly, it is collaborative. If anyone else subscribes then they can add comments to my photos as well, (and their avatar would appear on the side of the image just as mine does).
Photopeach is really good, but I was looking for an easy way to get students to speak rather than just write. There are many more opportunities for writing than there are for speaking. I designed my little life story, not as a material to use with my students, but as an example for my students. I want them to produce their own voicethread, working in groups.
I want to create ways for beginner students of English to personalize their learning environment and find as many multimodal ways to use the English they have to express them selves authentically. The idea of having them find images of their environment, their hometown, their interests, and their family is that it is intrinsically motivating. The idea of them working together in mixed ability groups where they comment on a group thread is that it gets them into a zpd. They are interested, and they want to understand each others’ comments, so they actively look for meaning.
It was mildly tricky to subscribe to Voicethread as I had to lie and say I was a K-12 school, but once that was out of the way, I had no problems. Voice thread is just great, and I could easily take my students down to the computer center and get them all registered in 15 minutes. You can upload your own photos, or use photos from Flickr commons directly, so it is really easy. Why not try it out and comment on one of my photos?
Mar
31
A screen shot of my Webpage
I spent the morning looking at web design and HTML authoring using the E-Learning Tool Kit. The activity is pretty long, but quite interesting; Luckily I had a little background knowledge of HTML, which made things a bit quicker as I worked through the tutorial on web page design.
I had never heard of CSS (cascading Style Sheets) before, but it is really great. It makes it much easier to follow the code as you develop a web page, as you can separate much of the formating from the content. It also helps to make the format of the page consistent. I really enjoyed doing the How to Build Websites Tutorial.
I managed to make a simple webpage, but I really didn’t have enough time to build something I would consider uploading. Next I downloaded Amaya (all 20 Mb of it on my limited satellite link!) It isn’t easy to use or intuitive and I couldn’t work out how to have more than one page for my site.
I was getting desperate so I went to Bravenet to have a look at how I would be able to upload something. After registering and giving my personal details, it kept sending me in circles and I couldn’t get a free hosting 🙁 I think the site is a bit of a dud. I did some research and opted for Webs.com instead. There is a small advertising banner across the top, but it isn’t too bad. It was easy to set up a web page and I had the option of uploading my simple creation in HTML. However, after having looked at Web Pages That Suck, I lost confidence and decided to build a site online. It is really easy, though obviously you have less flexibility than doing something from scratch. In fact there is a great similarity between creating a web page and a blog. They are almost the same, really. Each option offers certain style and functionality advantages, so it all depends on what you want to do.
The process of building a web page from scratch is very labor intensive and time consuming. If you are using a WYSIWYG editor, it isn’t much better (especially if you don’t really know how to use the software). I recently wanted a webpage for my school at the university. Honestly I don’t have time to build a webpage, and I don’t know enough about graphic design. I paid a professional, and it wasn’t expensive. I would recommend this for any business. For small time users, I would recommend building online.
Here is my web site: http://englishdiddlyverma.webs.com/. It’s not much yet, but it’s mine 🙂
Mar
30
I am not a social software user, and though I have spent the best part of the morning reading up on the sites I mention below, I have no experience using them. Overall, my impresión is that, as has been mentioned in the forums, teachers must teach students how to use the Internet safely. I was not surprised by the Terms of Use policies of the social software sites, but I would never have bothered to read them had I not been instructed to do so. A starting point for any social software usage in an educational setting would be to read the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy and discuss with studetns the posible consequences of sharing personal information.
It is a little difficult to understand how Twitter Works without actually using it. I searched and read a few twitter feeds, but I am not sure I entirely get the idea.
Though users own the content that they upload to Twitter, Twitter collects infomation about its users and shares it with other companies. Twitter and its partner companies also reserve the right to reproduce, modify and distirbute user content in any way it sees fit. Twitter appears to consider this personal information as acompany asset because it reseves the right to sell it on if Twitter ever changed hands. Though presently Twitter doesn’t use advertising it reserves the right to place advertising specific to user content. Don’t post personal information that you don’t want shared. I think this site could be useful for certain EFL exercises. For example having the students keep a journal on Twitter using the present progressive. I see no reason why students can’t use it, especially if they create imaginary profiles.
Again without actually seeing the game , World of Warcraft, it is difficult to imagine what use it could possibly have in Education. The Terms of Use seem to protect the user and Blizzard, the company that owns the game, does not require personal information to play the game. However, any personal information voluntarily provided will be combined with other non personal information and can be shared with affiliated third parties. This information can be used for comercial opportunities, but it appears that users can request not to recieve publicity. Blizzard considers this information about users to be an asset and may sell it in some cases. Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_of_Warcraft) notes that Blizzard uses a spyware type program to check that users are not cheating by using third party programs. To do this the program collects certain information from the user’s PC. It is not clear if this information is also passed on to Blizzard.
Del.icio.us allows users to post links to websites. Any content posted by a user is available to be used by others unless it is marked by the user as private. User posted can also be labelled with one of several licenses so that other users know how they may use this content. Though delicious may collect some personal information about users, and uses cookies and web beacons to track information about users and usage, this information is not shared with third parties.
I can see that del.icio.us could be used to build learning communities. Students and instructor could work collaboratively to create a resource for the topics in the course by contributing relevant links using a tag established at the beginning of the course. This project could continue to grow, semester after semester, creating a valuable resource for students, ex-students and instructors.
According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Life) “The Second Life Terms of Service ensure that users retain copyright for any content they create”, I understand that this allows users to buy and sell virtual objects in the virtual world. Second Life collects personal information on users, but does not share this to any third parties without permission. Other users may see non identifiable information about other users. Second Life offers enormous opportunities for authentic second language practice. According to Linden Lab Vice President of Platform and Technology Development , Joe Miller, Second language learning is the most popular educative use of Second Life, especially when it is used with VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) (http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/2009/05/second-life-embraces-voice.html). I would love to take my students on a guided trip around London and let them meet some of the local color to practice their English. However, the possibilities for experiencing non appropriate behavior seem large. For this reason it seems wise that Second Life is only for users over the age of 18.
Mar
21
I had used a Wiki once before in ETEC 540 when we worked as a group to analyze the differences between oral and text based cultures. I think in that course the experiment of collaborative writing was more successful than it has been so far in ETEC 565. In ETEC 540, we brainstormed by throwing up ideas and quotes and then organized our ideas, coming out with a reasonably succinct list. In this weeks exercise, I didn’t find the Wiki such a good space for our activity. What was the problem? Well the Wiki is not linear nor is it temporal. We were using it for a discussion, but it was not easy to see what new information had been added. It was necessary to read through everything to see if there was anything new. Not everyone seemed to be present. If everyone had been contributing it would have been even harder to follow the thread. My conclusion is that Wikis are not spaces for discussions; a forum works much better.
We were supposed to come up with a list, and this works in a Wiki. However, the spark to organize didn’t materialize. I started off the list, but only a few have added to it. There was not a spontaneous movement that gathered momentum. Nor was there any editing of other peoples submissions. We didn’t or haven’t yet touched anyone else’s work. This is unusual in such an experienced group. I think that this goes to show that perhaps the most important aspect of any activity are the instructions. A Wiki is a great collaborative space, but something was lacking in the instructions of this activity. Perhaps it would have worked as a small group space rather than whole group space. Perhaps instead of the instruction to discuss, we should have gone straight into making the list. I am not sure.
On a different note. I came up with some good activities for my Moodle course this week. If you have a moment please take a look at these two: http://moodle.met.ubc.ca/mod/resource/view.php?id=4648, and http://moodle.met.ubc.ca/mod/resource/view.php?id=4627. They are not quite finished, but you get the idea.
Mar
11
Boris Godounow
Image retrieved from Flickr Commons, http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/2808251447/ . No Known Copyright Restrictions
Boris from Bulkley needs a virtual component to his course. He has a very specific and clear need, and that is good. He wants to design a self-directed module that allows students to develop an understanding of the periodic table and how this theoretical model relates to practice in the lab. This component should be self correcting and provide instant formative feedback that helps students to correct their misunderstandings.
I think Boris should develop a component based on the Moodle Lesson activity followed by a Moodle quiz activity.
Boris should gather together digital resources available on the Internet and organize them into a structured lesson sequence. Perhaps there would be pages on different aspects of the periodic table, different groups of elements, and even specific elements that are commonly used in the lab.
A Moodle lesson consists of pages of information/ activities/ links followed by a question. The answer that the student gives to the question determines to which page the student is sent next. Upon reaching the end of the lesson the students would take the summative quiz.
Each page would contain a series of content (videos, web pages etc) including a formative evaluation. At the end of the page their answer to the question would determine if they could continue. On completing the entire lesson, the students would move on to the pre quiz. The pre quiz would offer formative feedback and allow for multiple attempts. Questions would be chosen randomly from a bank to avoid repetition. Students could practice as many times as they wished until they felt comfortable with the format and content. The final quiz would be a summative multiple choice exam, and the exam would count towards their final grade. The exam would be synchronous in that it opened at a fixed time so that all students had to do it at the same time. It would also organize the questions in random order to prevent students copying. By making the exam time limited, students would not have time to look up answers in their books, but instead have to rely on their understanding of the concepts.
This is a solution to what Boris wants, but I believe that we could take it a step further. Once students had taken the lesson and passed the quiz, Boris could put them into groups in a Moodle forum and set them a problem to solve in which they had to apply their newly acquired knowledge of the periodic table to design an experiment or explain a hypothetical result in the lab or better still an authentic situation. The groups would post their solutions and then their peers could assess them in the forum with formative feedback. Boris would offer final feedback to each group and grade them based on a rubric he had given each group at the beginning.
This is my initial idea, but I have not yet mastered the Lesson activity in Moodle, so I don’t know if it would work out as I imagine it. I will experiment and post again soon.
Mar
9
In ETEC 565, communication is nearly completely through asynchronous forum discussions. This allows busy mature students and teachers in multiple time zones the flexibility to enter into the discourse whenever their schedules permit.
My Moodle course focuses on a different type of student in a different context, therefore I am exploring other avenues for communication.
The course is a blended English as a Foreign Language course at a beginner level for undergraduate students at a small university in Oaxaca, Mexico. The students take f2f classes and the platform is designed to complement and extend what students learn in class. The virtual component is designed to offer linguistic practice with grammar and vocabulary exercises and “authentic” performance based tasks especially for weaker students. Krashen’s Input Hypothesis (Krashen and Terrell, 1983) suggests that the learning environment should be as close as possible to an immersion situation therefore all the instructions for the activities in the Moodle course are in English. I will go over the instructions for each activity in f2f class, and demonstrate any software they need. However, I expect some students will have questions even after receiving instructions within the physical classroom. Since I have access to teaching aides, undergraduate students working towards a degree in language teaching, I would like to take advantage of this resource by offering students access to synchronous help each night for homework activities. As Anderson (2008) notes, synchronous communication can create a sense of community. Hopefully this “scaffolding” will help weaker students to gain confidence and eventually become more autonomous. Here is my chat: http://moodle.met.ubc.ca/mod/chat/view.php?id=3780.
I have fixed a time everyday, but I can’t see how to set an end time.
An EFL course at the beginner level offers some challenges to online course design. Options for authentic communication are limited at the start of the course. So far, I have come up with the following communicative activities that use communication tools that are asynchronous and cooperative. In the first activity, a group of students work together to prepare for an authentic performance. A Wiki will act as a record of how the group worked cooperatively towards the goal, and the forum allows the group to share their product with others. In the second activity, Students create a useful product, a glossary of new words for the course. The students decide what words to include and what words will come in the summative assessment. In some way they take control of their learning.
The interview – This is a group activity. I have registered some of you into my course and split you into groups. You get to see a photo of a stranger with family and thenwork together on a Wiki to develop a set of questions to ask this person in a face to face interview. You ask the questions and go back to the Wiki to write up a paragraph about what you found out. When your report is ready you post it to the accompanying forum and accompany it with a photo, video or podcast. Then you have to see what the other groups did and comment on at least one post individually. Here is the link to the Wiki:
http://moodle.met.ubc.ca/mod/wiki/view.php?id=4022
and here is the link to the forum:
http://moodle.met.ubc.ca/mod/forum/view.php?id=4122
The Class Vocabulary-This is a whole class on going activity that incorporates peer assessment. Each week students have to add 5 words related to what they have learned in the class and in the online activities. to the class glossary. Obviously words cannot be repeated. The definitions have to be in clear, simple English and students get to vote on the relevance of the words and the clarity of the definitions. This grade contributes to the final grade of the author of each entry. The highest scoring words will appear on the vocabulary exam at the end of the month. I have figured how to see the ratings in the grades section, but I don’t know how it will work, because I need to enter the course as a different student to rate my example vocabulary. Here is the link to the glossary:
http://moodle.met.ubc.ca/mod/glossary/view.php?id=4101
Anderson, T. & Elloumi, F. (2008). Theory and Practice of Online Learning. Athabasca University
Krashen, S. D. & Terrell, T. D. (1983) The Natural Approach: Language Aquisition in the Classroom. San Francisco: Alemany
Feb
28
A hotpotato reading comprehension exercise
Hello again.
This past week I have been working away on my Moodle course, but it has been slow, as I have had a few problems. First, the text editors in Moodle are not WYSIWYG in the Safari browser. I wasted a couple of days trying to learn how to program using HTML commands so that I could get the text and images the way I wanted. It wasn’t until I went to an Internet cafe and used a PC that I saw that things are much easier when the text editor appears. This was a little frustrating, but I guess this is one occasion when the Mac doesn’t work as well as PCs. The Moodle platform is pretty intuitive, but I still haven’t figured how all of the activities work. I am working by trial and error, but it is taking me longer than I had expected to develop my course.
I downloaded Hotpotatoes and have developed activities for the Moodle platform in each of the options, quizzes, matching exercises, crosswords etc. It took quite a while to do, but what took longer was figuring how to get the activities onto the Moodle platform. I have worked out that you can do it by creating SCORM zip files and uploading them. The only problem is that again the Mac Version of Hotpotatoes doesn’t work properly. The SCORM files either don’t save or are not recognized by the Moodle platform and so can’t be opened. AAARGH!!! I also found that even on a PC I couldn’t get the Crossword built inHotpotatoes to work properly in Moodle as a SCORM file, which meant that I had to upload it as a web page. That isn’t a problem in itself, but obviously the platform doesn’t record the results of the exercise. I guess this is a bug in Hotpotatoes. I can’t get the “Masher” in Hotpotatoes to work either. Whenever I create a mashed exercise the index is always blank. Oh well….
My next mission is to upload a listening activity, with questions to answer. So far the only way I can see how to do it is to insert the WAV file into the Hotpotato quiz using HTML code (it doesn’t seem to work with MP3 files) and then upload the exercise as a SCORM file. I have tried all the options in Moodle itself like “lessons” and “quizzes”, but nothing has worked yet.
Well that is enough complaining for one post! I am sure I will figure it all out soon.
Feb
21
Hello there!
Well next I investigated the E toolkit on still images. I couldn’t download Picasa as it is over 18 Mb and it might send me over my daily download limit on the satellite. However, iPhoto has a crop option, so I went ahead and cropped a photo using the software I had. The original photo was an 8Mb image of my uncle wearing his sunglasses when he came to visit. I magnified his sunglasses and cropped the image, then exported it as a JPEG file of 20kb, perfect for uploading. That is me and my son Elliot with our sombreros. I am quite pleased with the results. I have an idea for mixing audio (podcasts) and still images for my Moodle course. I will upload an image and get students to briefly describe it, or better still they can upload an image and describe it. Perhaps an image of their family. I will have to teach them about file sizes though…
Feb
21
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Audacity.png
Hello everyone,
I am sorry to say that I have been away from the platform for a week. We have a two week reading week, but I took the first week off as I am struggling with sleepless nights and the accreditation process at work. It has been a difficult time, but I am happy to say that I am back. My plan for the next week is to advance on my Moodle course as I have not gone beyond the icebreaker yet. This weekend I am going to get ahead with the E-toolkit and see what goodies are out there. First, I downloaded Audacity. It is really simple to use, though my external microphone didn’t work, so I had to resort to the built in one. Once you download the LAME Mp3 decoder it is straightforward to save your audio in Mp3 format. For me the great advantage of recording audio instead of video is the file size. I have a satellite connection, and uploading video is really slow, so audio is great. For EFL, podcasts are a great way to get students listening to English. They could even download files from my Moodle course onto their iPods/telephones and listen to them as an extension to the class. It was really quick to make my first podcast, but designing authentic listening activities to complement my EFL classes is going to be time consuming. I will have to write a script and find actors,which is going to require time. One very practical solution is to investigate podcasts for EFL that are already available on the Web. I would like to add some of these to my course. Though posting the file is better than the link, as links tend to be transient, it may be necessary to use links to avoid copyright infringements. Another idea I have is to get students recording themselves and posting their files onto the course platform. We don’t have Wimba in Moodle, but I will see what possibilities there are for posting audio.
Feb
7
my first forum: the ice breaker
Well, I have started my Moodle course and it was straight forward. It took me about an hour to finish the E-tool kit instructions and get my Welcome web page and Ice breaker forum up and running. I couldn’t find the WYSIWYG editor, I think it doesn’t appear on my Mac, so I had to put the bullets in in HTML, which was a pain. I will investigate more. I was going to include a video introduction, but I look so tired on the photo booth video, I decided to leave it for another day!