Hello everyone!
The live meeting today was very interesting and the best attended we have had to date, despite some scheduling conflicts and some technical glitches. Hopefully the recording will be of a good enough quality and without too many breaks for those who weren't able to make it to listen to this week.
We're starting Week 4 of Web 2.0 for ESP EVO 2008 now and the topic for this week is wikis.
You can read more about this week on the Web 2.0 for ESP PBwiki.
Here is a brief summary of our agenda for the week:
1. Review the wiki comparison chart on the class wiki and decide which wiki best fits your needs as an ESP educator.
2. Skim some of the resources on the resource section of the class wiki to get an idea of how wikis have been used for other classes.
3. Read the article about Web 2.0 applications (including wikis) for educators: Wikis and Podcasts and Blogs! Oh, My! What Is a Faculty Member Supposed to Do? from Educause. (link on the class wiki)
4. Set up your wiki.
5. Practice adding photos, audio, and video to the wiki pages in the Sandbox on the class wiki.
6. We will also discuss using wikis for peer editing.
7. Share your wiki via Twitter, YahooGroups or the Web 2.0 for ESP blog (there will be a specific post that you can comment on with your wiki url).
Jen and Debby on behalf of the Web 2.0 for ESP team
Feb 4, 2008
Feb 2, 2008
Weekly LIVE session rescheduled
Hello everyone!
Apologies for the short notice with this announcement. Due to scheduling conflicts and technical problems, we've had to reschedule today's/tonight's live session for tomorrow Sunday February 3rd at 8pm GMT.
Hope to see/hear you then!
Apologies for the short notice with this announcement. Due to scheduling conflicts and technical problems, we've had to reschedule today's/tonight's live session for tomorrow Sunday February 3rd at 8pm GMT.
Hope to see/hear you then!
URGENT: Do not open email from Buth about Zorpia
Greetings all,
Please do NOT open a message from Buth about a new tool called Zorpia.
It is a virus and will infect your computer and send out invitation messages to everyone in your address book.
Debby
Please do NOT open a message from Buth about a new tool called Zorpia.
It is a virus and will infect your computer and send out invitation messages to everyone in your address book.
Debby
If You Are Using Moodle...Read this!
Results of the poll created earlier, by Debby in our YG, showed that some of you are interested in learning more about Moolde!
Harold Jarche has blogged some interesting informative comments about the book, Moodle Teaching Techniques, by William Rice, stating that: "This is a good guidebook for anyone developing online courses with Moodle. The introduction covers some basic instructional techniques and then the book gets right into the “how-to’s” of course building."
One thing I really liked was Harold's bottom line about the book and his comment on Rice's recommendations on how wikis, forums and blogs should be used. Thanks, Harold!
Hope this helps, folks
Harold Jarche has blogged some interesting informative comments about the book, Moodle Teaching Techniques, by William Rice, stating that: "This is a good guidebook for anyone developing online courses with Moodle. The introduction covers some basic instructional techniques and then the book gets right into the “how-to’s” of course building."
One thing I really liked was Harold's bottom line about the book and his comment on Rice's recommendations on how wikis, forums and blogs should be used. Thanks, Harold!
Hope this helps, folks
Feb 1, 2008
Jan 27, 2008
Audacity and Online Audio
Hello all! Yesterday during the online session, Mike mentioned a tool called Audacity. He said he was starting to use authentic audio texts from the web with his students. I mentioned that that's where I started in terms of getting more curious about the tools the web could offer me as a teacher back in 2004. Everyone takes a different path in terms of developing his/her own technology repertoire, but the greatest thing is when we share the tools that work with us with other teachers so that everyone doesn't have to reinvent the wheel or to rediscover fire, in this case!
Audacity is a free program (it requires that you have the right to download software onto your computer) where you or your students can record your/their own voice(s) and/or where you can record any audio that you can hear when you are online and turn it into an MP3 file. The advantage of this is that there is a great deal of audio available online, but much is it is 'streamed' meaning that you cannot directly download the file, so in order to use this audio in an unwired classroom or in a classroom with an unpredictable or slow internet connection, you need to be able to make the audio portable. Once you have created an MP3 with Audacity, you can play it directly from your computer, burn it onto a cd if your computer has a cd burner, transfer it to a memory stick or disk, or put it on your MP3 player or iPod.
I have attached a tutorial to our wiki (here on the tutorials page) about how to get started with Audacity. Don't hesitate to contact Debby or me if you have any questions about using it (we created the tutorial together last autumn).
For those of you who do not have the rights to download software onto your machine, I know that it's possible to use podOmatic and OdeoStudio to record your voice and save it as an MP3 file. Does anyone have experience using these tools for capturing streaming audio? These two tools are great for creating podcasts (basically an audio blog) that might be interesting for some of you to explore in the future.
One more thing... Mike said yesterday that he had enjoyed using VOA (Voice of America) 'Special English' reports with students in the past. It seems that this service still exists here.
Audacity is a free program (it requires that you have the right to download software onto your computer) where you or your students can record your/their own voice(s) and/or where you can record any audio that you can hear when you are online and turn it into an MP3 file. The advantage of this is that there is a great deal of audio available online, but much is it is 'streamed' meaning that you cannot directly download the file, so in order to use this audio in an unwired classroom or in a classroom with an unpredictable or slow internet connection, you need to be able to make the audio portable. Once you have created an MP3 with Audacity, you can play it directly from your computer, burn it onto a cd if your computer has a cd burner, transfer it to a memory stick or disk, or put it on your MP3 player or iPod.
I have attached a tutorial to our wiki (here on the tutorials page) about how to get started with Audacity. Don't hesitate to contact Debby or me if you have any questions about using it (we created the tutorial together last autumn).
For those of you who do not have the rights to download software onto your machine, I know that it's possible to use podOmatic and OdeoStudio to record your voice and save it as an MP3 file. Does anyone have experience using these tools for capturing streaming audio? These two tools are great for creating podcasts (basically an audio blog) that might be interesting for some of you to explore in the future.
One more thing... Mike said yesterday that he had enjoyed using VOA (Voice of America) 'Special English' reports with students in the past. It seems that this service still exists here.
Recording of Week 2 Live Informal Group-Meetting & Thanks for Your Participation
Hi all,
This post is to thank, Anna, Toni, Janet, Moira, Jen, and our special guest, Michael Ivy for their participation in our second live group-meeting of week 2. The meeting went very well and the discussion was so fruitful with many new tips and ideas on blogs and blogging for ESP classes.
Michael Ivy shared a link to his ESL/EFL blog for EFL learners in Rome. He talked to us about some the techniques he uses through his blog to invite for more interaction from his students. He also talked about how easy and quickly it is now for anybody to add widgets to a blogger blog. He showed an example of how to install the widget of Tag-Board into your blog; indeed, doing that was a breeze! Finally, Michael invited us all to post comments to his ESL/EFL blog! Michael also talked about some different types of blogs, such as personal and just for hobbies and fun blogs, like the bicycle blog, Rural Rides in Central Lazio, which he's been maintaining!
Later, Jen did an interesting short presentation on blogger vs wordpress blogs! She highlighted important features available at both platforms, in addition to advantages an backwards of each. She then talked to us about tags and how they can be used to help in the assessment process in any online course that uses a blog as its main LMS. You could learn more about this technique and other relevant stories through Jen's latest post to this blog.
For those of you who couldn't make it to the second live informal group-meeting, please check out the link to the recording of the event provided on our Recordings wiki page.
Thanks, again for your participation, and we look forward to meeting you all live online next week!
All the best :)
This post is to thank, Anna, Toni, Janet, Moira, Jen, and our special guest, Michael Ivy for their participation in our second live group-meeting of week 2. The meeting went very well and the discussion was so fruitful with many new tips and ideas on blogs and blogging for ESP classes.
Michael Ivy shared a link to his ESL/EFL blog for EFL learners in Rome. He talked to us about some the techniques he uses through his blog to invite for more interaction from his students. He also talked about how easy and quickly it is now for anybody to add widgets to a blogger blog. He showed an example of how to install the widget of Tag-Board into your blog; indeed, doing that was a breeze! Finally, Michael invited us all to post comments to his ESL/EFL blog! Michael also talked about some different types of blogs, such as personal and just for hobbies and fun blogs, like the bicycle blog, Rural Rides in Central Lazio, which he's been maintaining!
Later, Jen did an interesting short presentation on blogger vs wordpress blogs! She highlighted important features available at both platforms, in addition to advantages an backwards of each. She then talked to us about tags and how they can be used to help in the assessment process in any online course that uses a blog as its main LMS. You could learn more about this technique and other relevant stories through Jen's latest post to this blog.
For those of you who couldn't make it to the second live informal group-meeting, please check out the link to the recording of the event provided on our Recordings wiki page.
Thanks, again for your participation, and we look forward to meeting you all live online next week!
All the best :)
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