GraceJYK

Twitter in the online classroom

2010-04-12T08:04:00.000-07:00

Case study report
By Steve Corbett, Kevin Mace, Gretchen Regehr

This case study is to explore how Twitter can be used in online distance course for academic purpose as to improve social presence in Second Life.

Contextual Factors
The data
- by the class based on instructions using Twitter.
- by the requirement of posting a certain number of Tweets per day

Methodology
⑴ Participants
- enrolled students in an online English course at the online college of Shanghai Jiao Tong Distance University
- spring 2008 term
- using Twitter - participants’ homework accounted for 20% of grade
- one update (Tweet) per day to the question “What are you doing?”
- from Feb. 19, 2008 to Mar. 7, 2008
- a non-random purposive sample

⑵ Instrument; a content analytic framework (by Hechman and Anabi, 2005)
Framework;
i. Intellectual content of messages (cognitive presence)
ii. Instructional role (teaching presence)
iii. The interaction among the members (social presence)

Three levels of the model (to classify and analyze discourse)
i. the 1st level ; cognitive, social, teaching, and discourse processes
ii. the 2nd level ; sub-categories
iii. the 3rd level ; specific indicators or codes

Framework;
integrated Hechman & Anabi’s framework with a 7 level taxonomy of engagement by Lim, Nonis & Hedberg (2006)
Seven level of taxonomy was used to classify the type of engagement behavior.

Three interdependent process dimensions
① Social presence
② Cognitive Process
③ Academic Process

Nine sub-categories
① Affective response
② Cohesive response
③ Interactive response
④ Exploration
⑤ Analysis
⑥ Integration
⑦ Tutoring discourse
⑧ Engagement
⑨ Academic discourse

Forty-five classification indicators (Hechman & Anabi’ 2005)

Collecting Data
-The 591 Tweets were collected using the coding scheme.
-The Tweets were colleted and numbered in a Excel file along with twitter screen names, update, and time.
-Individual raters were given specific sub-topics.
-Tweets were coded by the three raters.
-The results were entered into the cells.

Finding
The use of Twitter enhanced the online classroom, especially the areas of engagement, academic use, and social use.

Twitter Use
-The large portion of the class was not very active with Twitter.
-The low users less engaged than active users when using it.
-Actively using Twitters gave the largest contributors to social and academic indicators.

Engagement (interest, cognitive effort, attention of students)
-The engaged students comply with minimal requirements of a given task, but disengaged ones do not.
-Self-regulated interest greatly increased over time than the structure dependent use

Academic Use
-Discussion of course content was the highest whereas providing tutoring was the lowest.
-Social and academic discourses were similar throughout and both gradually increase over time.

Social Use
-Students used the tool to expand social connection to their peers.
-External self-disclosure got the highest percentage of 24% whereas phatics and salutations got the lowest of 7%.
-In cognitive process, rote factual response got the highest of 73% whereas resolution got the lowest of 9%.

Conclusion
1. Twitter was used for both its asynchronous and synchronous feature.
2. As students began to show more self-regulated engagement, they tended to follow synchronous feature.
3. For structure-dependent engagement and simply set out a message without intent, they followed asynchronous feature.
4. There was not very much cognitive use of Twitter.

In sum, Twitter can be used for building community and supporting learning in the classroom.

http://www.kevinmace.net/media/artifacts/ED690_case_study_Twitter_Group.pdf

A translated corpus of 30,000 French SMS

2010-04-12T03:14:00.000-07:00

By Cedrick Fairon, Sebastien Paumier

This article presents a corpus of 30,000 French SMS with its uniqueness in quality, size and the fact that the SMS was translated into “standard” French. As well it shows the collection process and the detail of the translation process.

Sociologists and linguists started to describe how the new language of new forms in the written form such as chat, forums and SMS is adapted and how users play with each to “make sense” faster with fewer words and characters.

The shortage of reference corpora, especially with SMS due to the difficulty in collecting it made the researchers be hard in studying the new forms of written language. However recently, the collection was carried out by students and messages were manually copied from phone screens.

Two important limitations; i. corpora by restricted SMS users
ii. typing mistakes or voluntary corrections

“Give your SMS to Science”
A SMS collection in the French-speaking part of Belgium was organized;
- to facilitate the data collection, a toll free short code was made
- a call for participation was broadcast
- participants were invited to send copies of their SMS & to fill in online sociolinguistic form
- from Oct. 2004 to Dec. 2004, more than 75,000 SMS by more than 3,200 people
- 2,500 people answered the form, aged from 12 to 65, divided into 1200 men and 1500 women

Goal; to build a reference corpus as a solid base for linguistic studies

Preprocessing the corpus
73,127 raw SMS was received.

Two operations
1. the first - to reassemble messages of more than 160 characters that were split into several SMS and to remove SMS (non-French SMS, graphical SMS, duplicated, etc)
2. the second - to remove personal information

Translating the corpus
Why translate? (Motivations)
- “translate” or “transliterate” the corpus into “standardized” French (called a bilingual corpora)
- Both SMS and its translation in standardized French

1. readability; the difficulty in reading due to without spaces, mix upper case & lower case letter, non-standard abbreviations & text transformations, codes, usages and habits of SMS writers, and sequence errors
2. usability; facilitation for exploration of messages

Translation protocol

Translation rules
1. IdSMS – Index of the SMS in the database
2. User – number standing for a GSM number
3. Sex – to check gender agreements, in particular for past participles
4. Flag – message annotations
5. Message – Original SMS(already anonymised)
6. Trans. - translation in “standard” French

Two general rules;
1. original SMS – not modified
2. protocol – strictly observed in both “standard” French and the original messages

Subset rules; about foreign word, punctuation marks, mathematical symbols, abbreviations, smileys, spaces & new lines, acronyms & sigla, letter repetitions, phonetic transformations, onomatopoeia & interjections, proper names, numbers, neologisms, obvious errors, unexpected or incomprehensible symbols, character case, typing errors, and missing words, accordingly

The corpus
The translation of 30,000 SMS was finally made.

1. randomly selected messages with a sociolinguistic profile – from 1,736 authors
2. 11% of SMS with no associated profile to avoid any bias – from 799 authors

Published; in CD-Rom

The corpus; distributed as a database linked to a graphical interface for searching and sorting original and translated messages as well as author profiles

Conclusion
This SMS corpus is unique in its size and accuracy, the number of contributors and the amount of meta-data. It has also translated manually for a bilingual corpus allowing both standard French and the SMS variants.
It opens new perspective for studies of SMS languages as well as providing a high value to the corpus.

http://www.sms4science.org/userfiles/A%20translated%20corpus.pdf

Tweeting the Night Away: Using Twitter to Enhance Social Presence

2010-04-12T00:40:00.000-07:00

By Janna C. Dunlap & Patrick R. Lowenthal

This article shows that the use of Twitter (a Web 2.0, microblogging tool) encourages free-flowing, just-in-time interactions and the way in which these interactions can boost social presence in online course. Furthermore, it provides instructional benefits of Twitter and guidelines for incorporating Twitter.

Social presence and Twitter
Compared with LMS;

LMS
1. Scheduled based
2. a moment to login in to LMS leading to lost opportunities
3. Loose informal

Twitter
1. Free-flowing, before or after class
2. Immediately, just-in-time banter, chit chat, freely accessble
3. Informal

The main intention of people’s participation into Twitter
- daily chatter
- conversations
- sharing resources/URLs
- reporting news

How do users contribute to Twitter?
Through Twitter website, mobile phone, email, instant messaging
→ making Twitter a powerful, convenient, community-controlled micro-sharing environment(Drapeau, 2009) for both professional and social networking(Drapeau, 2009)

Twitter in Action
How to use Twitter in the “classroom”?(Parry, 2008a)
In 2008, Twitter was incorporated into online instructional design and technology courses (of this article)
- students were joined Twitter adventure voluntarily
- instructional potential was tested with students

Students' typical experience using Twitter
1. A student got subsequent posts including comments from practicing professionals (about multimodal learning)
2. A student could arrange a time to consult with a twit outside regarding a difficult situation with a team member.
3. Students posted their comments on Twitter while watching a political debate, etc.

Results; Twitter provided a tool with which students enabled just-in-time communication with the local and global community leading to sharing, collaboration, brain-storming, problem solving, and creating. That is from persistent presence of social interactions naturally and immediately.

Other instructional benefits of Twitter
1. addressing student issues in a timely manner
2. writing concisely
3. writing for an audience
4. connecting with a professional community of practice
5. supporting informal learning
6. maintaining on-going relationship
7. possible drawbacks of Twitter; time consuming, addictive, etc.

Guidelines for using Twittter with students
1. Establish relevance for students
2. Define clear expectations for participation
3. Model effective Twitter use
4. Build Twitter-derived results into assessment
5. Continue to actively participate in Twitter

Conclusion
The online course using Twitter gave students a great chance, ”real” way in enhancing social-presence with the synchronous just-in-time nature.
As well, with using Twitter, the faculty of online course could get a few more benefits of cognitive presence and teaching presence.
In sum, Twitter is a powerful tool in building informal, free-flowing, just-in-time communication between students and faulty.

http://www.patricklowenthal.com/publications/Using_Twitter_to_Enhance_Social_Presence.pdf

Generation Txt? The sociolinguistics of young people’s text-messaging

2010-04-08T04:48:00.000-07:00

By Crispin Thurlow

This article is about ‘net generation’s uses of mobile phone text-messaging and SMS to examine the linguistic form and communicative functions as a novel, creative means of enhancing and supporting intimate relationships and existing social networks among them.

Main interpretations and preliminary discussion;

1. message length – SMS and mobile phone have longer messages than online chat.
☞ SMS → more interactive written discourse that CMC
☞ Mobile phone text-message → ‘predictive text’

2. ‘New’ linguistic form
① shortening, contractions, G-clippping and others
② acronyms & initialism
③ letter/number homophones
④ ‘misspelling; and typos
⑤ Non-conventional spellings
⑥ Accent stylizations with capitalization(prosodic & personal style)

Primary functional orientation of each message;

1. informational-practical orientation
2. informational-relational orientation
3. practical arrangement orientation
4. social arrangement orientation
5. salutary orientation
6. friendship maintenance orientation
7. romantic orientation
8. sexual orientation
9. chain messages

From the research result, high intimacy and high relational orientation of functional categories (the number of 4,5, 6,7, and 8) occupied higher percentage portion.
SMS and mobile phone text-messaging also offer the users the other functions such as expressing humor, taboo, relative licentiousness or flame-potential and hyper-coordination & co-presence.

The communication imperative;

- Young generation prefers ‘text-messaging’ because it is the unobtrusive and relatively inexpensive mode of communication.
- Young generation’s text-messaging is becoming increasing dialogic like in online chat.

Four gratifications for young people (compared to CMC, Email)

① high transportability
② reasonable affordability(price)
③ good adaptability(voice)
④ general suitability(it is quiet, discrete)
→ need for intimacy and social intercourse; ‘technologies of sociability’

The language of SMS;

‘Re-inventing the (English) language?
;Linguistic & communicative practices of text-messages emerge from a particular combination of
① technological affordances (abilities of technology)
② contextual variables
③ interpersonal priorities

The sociolinguistic maxims of SMS

① brevity & speed
② paralinguistic restitution
③ phonological approximation

Non-standardness in SMS
① ‘new’ linguistic form → incomprehensible
② impenetrability & exclusivity of SMS language
④ quantity & manner; i. abbreviation,
ii. non-conventional spelling
iii. phonological approximation
→ The younger; ‘write it as if saying it’
They think SMS and mobile phone text-messages are intelligible and appropriate to the overall communicative function.

In conclusion
1.text-messaging → ‘folded into the warp and woof of life”
2.new linguistic practices → adaptive & addictive
3.young text-messages manipulates conventional practices with linguistic creativity and communicative competence for their intimacy and social intercourse

Language and the Internet

2010-04-08T03:37:00.000-07:00

By Herring, S.C.

Language and Internet refer to human language as they are used in human-like manner through text- based CMC system.

Regarding the issues like ‘What is happening?” and “Why is it happening?” on Internet language, there are two different values between a prescriptivist perspective and a descriptivist perspective;

1. descriptivist perspective – non-standardness effects on traditional language causing decline the quality
2. prescriptivist perspective – non-standard language is playful, creative, performing useful social functions

As for five major areas in language on the Internet;

1. classification – characterize and label of CMC
2. structural features – typography, neologisms
3. discourse patterns
4. lens through which to study human behavior
5. languages and language ecologies

With reference to methodological issues and challenges associated with language and the Internet;

Internet language has –

1. advantages - ① abundance of naturally occurring data for research
② transcription not required
③”Lurk” – for studies of social interaction causing ethical issues
2. weak point – lacking in sound causing questions of phonetics and phonology
3. online multilingualism
4. challenge – constantly introducing new technologies → more study and research needed

In sum, spoken and visually-enhanced modes of networked and mobile communication will be continuously introduced as a new way of communication.

Communication in CMC: Making order out of miscommunication

2010-04-07T00:54:00.000-07:00

By Giuseppe RIVA

This article is to explain how CMC users are make order and create relationships out of miscommunication processes. The term, miscommunication is defined as “pare-down” form of conversation in virtual world due to the lack of social cues and rules without real social interactions between. So in CMC environment, personal identities tend to vanish.

There is an explanation about four particular form of miscommunication in CMC.

1.Flaming – offensive conduct like intense language, swearing, negative or hostile communication
2.Lurking – the behavior of the subscribers who rarely give contributions to the community group they are involved in, making their presence known
3.Spamming and bombing – “excess of words” in both synchronous and asynchronous forms
4.Identity deception - ① Identity concealment(hiding one’s identity) ② Category deception(age deception and status enhancement) ③ Impersonation

To make order out of CMC miscommunication, in other words like ‘what are the elements required for creating an interpersonal relationship between CMC users?”, three possible indexes like ①low level of formality ②trust and receptivity ③rate of information exchange are explained.

As for expressing meta-communicative features such as emotions, illocutionary force, etc the CMC doesn’t have, emoticons, social verbs and emotes are used. And the Miscommunication as a Chance Theory(MaCHT), the Positioning Theroy(PT), the Situated Action Theory(SAT), the Social Identity Model of Deindividuation Effect(SIDE) and the Social Information Processing (SIP) perspective are mentioned are to try to counter CMC vision.

There are a few activities the CMC can perform as a process with which a group of social actors in a given situation negotiate the meaning of the various situations which arise between them. They are instant messaging, shared hypermedia, web-logs and graphical chats.

In conclusion, constantly emerging information technologies are changing the way people interact with computer as a predominant medium not only for interpersonal relationship, but also for the creation and management of information in a new psycho-social space. New selves are formed in this kind of cyber-world as a fluid form of networked communities.

So ‘how people can work with these new technologies in CMC cyber-world’ will be a constant big issue to make better connection with the rest of their lives in real world.

Identity Formation Learning Styles and Trust in Virtual Worlds

2010-04-06T22:26:00.000-07:00

By Iris A. Junglas, Norman A. Johnson, Douglas J. Steel, D. Chon Abraham, Paul Mac Loughlin

This article is to describe how aspects of virtual worlds, extracting ‘avatars’, by Second Life will affect the formation of an individual’s identity, the compatibility of virtual environments to existing learning style, and the way trust will be understood by those in this world.

As for Identity formation, there’s discrepancy regarding how much real and virtual identities match. Due to the anonymity in virtual world, individuals can explore new parts of their identities and avatar existence raise the level of real self-disclosure expressing themselves in more open manner from social norms.

As identities come from social actors in real life, exploring one’s beliefs and goals and then invest in a particular belief and goal, those in virtual world will act in accordance with, in the similar manner, the norms in the existing world.

Regarding recognizing the millennial learning style, the young millennials are required to change their learning style based on “seeking, sieving, and synthesizing” with both visual and communication capabilities in Second Life. They are visual and verbal learners at the same time and are fluent in multimedia environment which provides visual, textual, and auditory multiple communication channels where they can choose according to their favors.

With reference to trust, it is best to study trust in virtual world as a social reality, based on the social construction of reality. Trust will exist in a social system with lots of various social activities in real life. Such as, Second Life also can be regarded as a social system with lots of complicated social activities from various channels. So people need to examine the flow of the social interaction which can happen in virtual world regarding this trust issue.

Self Esteem and Self Reference in Computer Mediated Communication

2010-03-23T23:52:00.000-07:00

By Koehler, T.; Trimpop, R.

Theoretical foundation

1. Social Cues Filtered Out Hypothese(SCFO; Kiesler & Sproull 1986) – CMC as impersonal situation
① lack of social information
② de-individuation
③ difficulties concerning coordination and feedback
④ depersonalization and different focus of attention
⑤ conformity concerning norms belonging to the computer-subculture

2. Group Polarization (GP; Lea & Spears 1992) – CMC as small group process
① Reduced Social Cues / Group Polarization
② Depersonalization – less group identity & less group norms

3. Hyperpersonal Situation (HPS; Walther 1995) – CMC as communicational situation
① more socially desirable than FTF
② more positive judgment of computer mediated groups than FTF
③ Social Identity Deindividuation Theory(SIDE, Spears & Lea 192); the increase of subtle social-contextual & personal information due to the lack of communication of FTF contacts

4. The basic conditions of the MGP(minimal-group-paradigm by Tajfel 1973) → realized in most setting’s of CMC

The expectations on self reference & self esteem in CMC
⑴ self reference – social behavior is more self-referential than in FTF groups
 * Identity Scale
 * Membersip Scale
⑵ self esteem – more positive individual & private public self esteem in CMC than FTF communication

 * Private Collective Self Esteem
 * Public Collective Self Esteem Scale

Methods

2x2 multi-factorial design examining FIF vs. CMC settings
Participants
200 undergraduates at German University
45% females & 54% males, average age 22, from 18 to 32 years
randomly assigned to both conditions, tested through electronic mail & by paper and pencil

Luthanen’s and Crocker’s scales for comparing CMC vs. FTF communication
Factor1-“private collective self esteem”
Factor2-“public collective self esteem”
Factor3-“Identity/Identification scale”
Factor4-“Membership scale”

Two groups; CMC - operationalized by receiving the questionnaires as electronic mail
FTF – identical paper & pencil test sent home

Differences between groups concerning means
F1 – significant group difference
F2 – no difference
F3 – no difference
F4 – significant group difference

→ CMC groups shows more positive and its importance for group member’s personal identity is weaker.

Discussion & Finding

Has the study helped to resolve the originally stated problem to decide whether
and how CMC influences the self-concept of the communicators?

① CMC - not be regarded as generally impersonal
② CMC - not a one-dimensional concept

The difference between CMC and paper & pencil as for the private collective self-esteem
→ more important related to the sociological matter

. Experimental and experiential approaches to teaching face-to-face and computer-mediated group discussion

2010-03-23T23:19:00.000-07:00

By Bolanle A. Olaniran, Grant T. Savage and Ritch L. Sorenson

Theoretical foundation

Goal; to see how FTF and CMC affect teachers and students in enhancing instruction of group decision making comparing both sides

⑴ Participation
CMC>FTF * greater & more equalized (Heltz, Johnson, & Turoff, 1986, …)
* in communicating concurrently (Valacich, Paranka, George, & Nunamaker, 1993)
CMC – * Advantage - an increase in the willingness to participate & offer

evaluative comments(Smilowitz, Compton, & Flint, 1988)

* Disadvantage – comments; too critical causing “flaming” (Heltz, Johnson, &

Toroff, 1988)

⑵ Criticism/Embarrassment
CMC>FTF

* less likely to take comments & criticism personally by participants (Connolly, Jessup, & Balacich, 1988, 1990,…)
* having problems expressing themselves due to speech impaired and non-fluent language, etc. (Hoare & Race, 1991; Kiesler, 1986)

⑶ Productivity loss
FTF>CMC

* due to production blocking, evaluation apprehension and free riding (Diehl and Strobe, 1987)
* due to the lack of social context cues in CMC → uninhibited behavior & equalized status and participation (Hiltz &Turoff, 1978; Kiesler et at., 1984,…)

⑷ Asynchroneity and Record storage/Retrieval

CMC has those advantages.
CMC – a repository for the group’s “memory” (Davie & Wells, 1991)

⑸ Training
CMC * training required (e.g. the way to log on, to respond messages, to put comments, deal with other with manner)
CMC>FTF * be more tedious (Rogers, 1983; McGrath, 1990)

⑹ Time-binding
CMC>FTF

* in reaching consensual agreements & making decisions(Kiesler, 1986; Kiesler et al., 1984,…)
* in saving cost for traveling & physically attending group meetings(Johansen, Vallee, & Spangler, 1979; Smilowitz, et al.,1988)

H1: FTF meeting > (higher) CMC meeting in overall effectiveness
H2: FTF meeting > (greater) CMC meeting in overall satisfaction
H3: FTF meeting > (greater) CMC meeting in the perceived ease of use
H4: The greater a medium’s perceived ease of use, the higher the satisfaction with that medium

: (Maier, 1970; Olaniran, 1994; Price, 1985)
⑴ Idea generation
Goal; to produce a large number of ideas
CMC>FTF due to the medium’s tendency to prevent productivity loss
creativity is enhanced
→ H5: CMC meeting > (higher) FTF meeting in effectiveness during Idea generation
H6: CMC meeting > (greater) FTF meeting in participant satisfaction during Idea generation

⑵ Evaluation
Goal; to analyze ideas and reaching a consensus for a decision or solution to the group task
FTF meeting > (outperformed) CMC meeting in feedback & relationship development; easy in agreement and consensus development and essential to decision making & problem solving (Hiltz, et at.,1986)
→ H7: FTF meeting > (higher) CMC meeting in effectiveness during the evaluation stage
H8: FTF meeting > (greater) CMC meeting in participant satisfaction during the evaluation stage

Methods

☞ Subjects; upper-level undergraduate students, majoring in communication at Texas Tech University, age from 20 to 24 years, 46 males & 68 females, randomly assigned to 38 three-member groups
☞ Two experimental session by each group - ① using CMC
② using FTF meeting
☞ CMC system – PROFS (professional office system)
☞ Task – two semi-structured tasks
i. to analyze the problem of using standardized test score (e.g. GMAT & GRE)
ii. to analyze the problem of installing computer software
(In idea generation stage)
FTF; * to generate ideas using the nominal group technique individually preventing criticism and resulting negative impact on group productivity
CMC; * to type ideas using CMC system and to distribute lists to the group
(In evaluation stage)

* to analyze the generated ideas, discuss merit and to develop group’s proposal
CMC meeting has disadvantage than FTF in time controlling due to transmission delays

Data; from a questionnaire on a five-point, Likert-type scale from 1(strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree)
Chronbach’s alpha; to access the reliability of each scale

Analyses and Results

ANOVA(analysis of variance) & Pearson product moment correlation; used to examine the hypotheses
① For overall effectiveness(H1)
② For overall satisfaction(H2); supported
③ For ease of use(H3); supported
④ For a correlation between ease of use & satisfaction(H4); supported
⑤ For effectiveness during idea generation(H5); partially supported
⑥ For communication media on satisfaction(H6); not supported
⑦ For effectiveness during evaluation(H7); marginal supported
⑧ For satisfaction during evaluation(H8); supported

i. FTF>(greater)CMD ; in overall satisfaction
ii. FTF>(more effective)CMD ; in both idea generation & evaluation
iii. CMC>(more)FTF ; in producing ideas when brainstorming
iv. Implication – satisfaction during idea-generation stage may increase with increase use of and familiarity with CMC
v. Students clearly preferred FTF meeting in decision-making process

Implication of using experiments to teach CMC vs. FTF for students

Shedletsky(1993)

1. understanding both CMC & FIF decision-making by students should be enhanced
2. better able to critique such research
3. learn some basics of experimental methodology
4. get objective frame for group analysis to compare assumptions with actual outcomes

Active voice versus Passive voice

2009-11-17T04:37:00.000-08:00

Explore LiveMocha, Facebook and Ning

2009-11-02T00:45:00.000-08:00

1. LiveMocha

i. What is possible
-offer online language program with foreign partners (or native speakers) over the world giving and taking exercise reviews (receiving feedback on submission)
-more than one language is possible
-be possible for learners to manage their own pace in practicing English.
-offer interactive English learning with people from all around the world
-offer self-study lessons
-answering learners’ questions through the LiveMocha chatting system
-offer award-winning English teaching method
-video conversations
-role play to focus on speaking and listening
-download audios and videos

ii. What is not possible
-not create group networks (like relationship between learners and partners)
-not offer customer’s own posting photos and videos
-not find friends who customer knows
-not provide social networks, only English practice programs
-not share customers’ experience with more of their friends

2. Facebook

i. What is possible
--find friends who coustomes knows
- share the Facebook experience with more of customers’ friends
- upload and tag videos of customers and their friends on Facebook
- use webcam to record customer themselves in a video message and send it to other friends
- send mobile videos via email or MMS to customers’ personal upload addresses
- create photo albums with comments and photo-tagging to share photos with friends and family — no matter where customers are
-create new group and join it depending on people’s own interests
-create events like friends’ events, past’s events and birthday

ii. What is not possible
-not provide well-organized English learning programs
-not provide chatting place

3. Ning

i. What is possible
-create customers’ own social network
-create My Page and visit friends’ Pages
-upload and tag photos and videos of customers and their friends giving rating and comments
-held discussion forum
-add events and blogs
-call chatting with invited members
-see others programs doing chatting
-send broadcast message
-manage gift store uploading custom gifts, and participating in revenue sharing
-see latest activities
-post music (Podcasts)

iii. What is not possible
-not offer organized language practice programs
-not offer find friends option
-not create groups with their interests

4. Suggestions for how I can use each of these sites with my students

i. with LiveMocha
-I will recommend LiveMocha program to my students suggesting that they log in and practice English with native or foreign speakers from over the world in this site. This site will be beneficial for them in terms of being familiar with foreign speakers in real life in a virtual world, building confidence in using and improving English
-I have them find and choose their partners by themselves for receiving feedback on submission (at their discretion-autonomous learning) – self-study and self-evaluation with their partner
-I collect some English activities for them to finish as for monitoring and checking them. (I will give awards as additional points; I will check and mark their works online)
-There is a requirement that all students should have their own foreign or native partners for them to check students’ English practice.

ii. with Facebook
-I can just introduce Facebook to my students to use it for fun and pleasure with their friends within a short time as I worry about their long spending times there like Cyworld in Korea considering Korean Educational environment. But I will not use Facebook for my class as an Educational purpose, especially for students under University because they should be under the control by teachers due to their lack of time management with it. (There is high possibility for them to surf it to be fun all the time with their peer groups.)

iii. with Ning
-I will use Ning as an educational course management sending out assignments (including texts, posting images or photos, and videos related to topic), receiving them and giving feedback.
-I will use Ning for students under University, but in case of university students or other same level of people I will prefer Moodle as it is rather closer to the classroom course management for higher level of students in education.

Lesson plan utilizing existing technologies and adaptive materials

2009-10-20T03:57:00.000-07:00

Development and defense of a lesson plan utilizing existing technologies and adaptive materials

1. Target audience - This class is for Middle school students (in grade 2) and they are in intermediate level of English in EFL environment in Korea. This class is going to be the blended teaching between computer-based MALL (Multimedia Assisted Language Learning) and face-to-face in the classroom.

2. Topic - The topic of the class is “Proverbs (corresponding to Korean ones to see the similarities or differences between)”

3. Learning object – Through this class students will learn English proverbs as well as Korean ones comparing between as for matching and corresponding aspects. (similar meaning with similar expression or similar meaning with different way of expression)

Furthermore, learning English with many types of technologies below (4.Materials required), they will also be able to consider both social and cognitive phenomenon in terms of authentic English in virtual world and they can improve their English skills in more exciting, confident, pleasant and voluntary manner creating much more intensive outcome.

4. Materials required (technologies)

i. Podcasts (VOA: Voice of America-Learning English Podcasts)
ii. Twiddla.com
iii. Google scholoar.com
iv. Manythings.org.
v. Dictionary.com
vi. a4esl.org.
vii. Moodle.

5. Assessment – Groups are judged by their performances according to the degree of their participation in group using Twiddla and by the appropriate analysis of the proverbs they choose and quality of the oral presentations. The activity of http://a4esl.org/q/h/9704/ck-proverbs.html will be self-assessment and the handout for fill-in the gap test will be evaluated by marking the scores.

6. Homework

i. Group work; each group will make a chart to compare similar expressions of proverbs from VOA Special English including comments and Korean ones and post them on ‘Moodle’.
ii. Invididual work; http://www.manythings.org/fq/1/8997.html
iii. Group work; Have each group contribute to
http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/archive/2009-03/2009-02-28-voa2.cfm by putting Korean proverbs along with their meaning on the comment section.

The resources (benefits form them)– computer, laptop, websites,,,

1. Podcasts; VOA special English
http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/archive/2009-03/2009-02-28-voa2.cfm
This Voice of America-Learning English Podcasts is trusted sources, news & information since 1942, providing Regions, Topics, Video, Programs, and English learning all around the world. Students can learn American English and much more reading and listening.
It allows to link to various web-services such as Podcasts, RSS news feeds, Moble, and Webcast.

2. Twiddla.com http://www.twiddla.com/149106 ;
This provides a no-setup, web-based meeting place giving people mark up websites, graphics, and photos, or start brainstorming on a white board. It also allows them to browse the websites with their inviters to share, talk, and discuss. Not only is it a fun way to swap ideas about a website or image, it’s incredibly useful as well in terms of collaborating ideas and information for their studies.

3. Google scholar.com http://scholar.google.com/schhp?hl=en&tab=ws;
This provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, people can search across many sources such as peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles. Google Scholar helps people identify the most relevant research across the world of scholarly research. Students can use this when they want to be sure of their writing (words collocation, phrases, and sentences) in grammatical matter.

4. Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/;
This is the largest and most trusted on-line free dictionary proving audio pronunciation, synonyms, word of the days, example sentences, word origin, word games, etc. Students can improve English vocabularies searching for various usages.

5. Manythings.com http://www.manythings.org/
This provides interesting things for ESL students as a fun site of self-assessment. Students enjoy various activities such as Word games, puzzles, quizzes, exercises, slang, proverbs, grammar, Podcasts, songs, tongue twisters and much more.

6. a4esl.org http://a4esl.org/q/h/9704/ck-proverbs.html
This provides activities for ESL Students like quizzes, tests, exercises and puzzles to help you learn English as a Second Language (ESL). It also provides Podcasts and YouTube links like VOA Special English, The 30 newest ESL Podcasts, and ESL videos. This project of The Internet TESL Journal (iteslj.org) has thousands of contributions by many teachers.

7. Moodle http://moodle.com/
This is a course management system designed to help educators who want to create quality online courses. It is used all over the world by universities, schools, companies and independent teachers. It is open source and completely free to use. This provides information, instructions, links to other related sites, assignments and assessment, as well as evaluation and feedback between educators and students.

Lesson Plan – Description of the activities in detail (50 minutes)

Previous preparation at home

1. Students are divided into five groups of six (assuming that there are 30 members in class)
2. Each group is recommended to make researches about “Korean Proverbs”; I suggest them to visit ‘Google’. Either in English version or in Korean with English transcripts is OK, but literal translation in English is required. Each group is to share the URL (Google site) on ‘Twiddla’ where they can see the web-site together synchronously to read, talk, discuss, and collect ten proverbs and then save into their files, as well as to take note of the deviation (=origins) of each proverb. Typing in URLs is suggested to see in class, in case. I have already explained them how to use ‘Google scholar’ when they make up their own words for the origins of Korean proverbs in previous class. They are also suggested to use ‘Dictionary.com’ http://dictionary.reference.com/ for unknown words to be sure the definition in case.

In the classroom

3. I have students use my computer in using Twiddla. All students can see the contents through a projector with one computer. I enter www.twiddla.com and make students see and share their researches together at the same time. (I have already invited each group into Twiddla as a meeting place.)
4. One representative from each group comes up front of the class to present their research using teacher’s computer while the remained students see the screen. Remained members from each group except the representative are to do their jobs with giving answers to the questions from other groups.
Benefits; I should have my students participate in using Twiddla considering more engagement time, so I am going to encourage each (presenting) group to use mark-up on the Twiddla white board. When the presenting group gives a question, the chosen member from other groups comes out to give answer using the mark-up on the white board.
5. After finishing presenting all from each group, they talk about the most frequently used things in our daily lives.
6. Each group enters the Words and Their Stories: More Expressions That Are Old and True site; http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/archive/2009-03/2009-02-28-voa2.cfm on www.twiddla.com. browse box.
7. At first, they listen to the story twice to catch the overall meaning without transcript. Taking notes of the things (key words, proverbs) are recommended. (One representative in each group can use Twiddla to write down.)
8. Students share the VOA web-site on Twiddla meeting place with transcript to check the missing words, unknown phases and expressions. Using dictionary.com, they can check and confirm the words or phrases.
9. Students including me can use color pencils on the transcription to mark up.
10. I let them find out the matching proverbs on VOA with Korean ones in the similar way of expression or the different way of expression with same or similar literal meaning. While reading and explaining the transcript, I will paint the words with color pencil to reveal them for the fill-in the gap activity later. I will distribute handout to students.
11. I let them read a few comments (1, 8, 26) on VOA to see if there are similar usages of proverbs with the things learned today or the ones from their research.
12. I have them a handout paper to do fill-in the gap activity listening to VOA recording again as well as that I give a few questions to check their comprehension. They will mark their scores on top of the paper. I will collect the handout quiz paper to check and evaluate with feedback later on ‘Moodle’.
13. Do an activity – http://a4esl.org/q/h/9704/ck-proverbs.html (brainstorming)

14. Homework

i. Group work; each group will make a chart to compare similar expressions of proverbs from VOA including comments and Korean ones and post them on ‘Moodle’.
ii. Group work; http://www.manythings.org/fq/1/8997.html (proverb game)
iii. Group work; Have each group contribute to
http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/archive/2009-03/2009-02-28-voa2.cfm by putting Korean proverbs along with their meaning on the comment section.

Transcript

Proverbs: Some Listeners’ Favorite Sayings
Correction attached

Now, the VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.
A proverb is a short, well known saying that expresses a common truth or belief. Many proverbs give advice about the best way to live.

Recently, we presented a program about proverbs. We asked our listeners to send us their favorite proverbs. A short time later, we received suggestions from around the world. We heard from listeners in Africa, Asia, Europe and South America.

The top proverb among these listeners is this one: "Where there is a will, there is a way." This means that you can rise above your problems if you have a goal and work very hard.
Some listeners liked another proverb: "Strike while the iron is hot." This means it is best to take action quickly and at the right time. Another favorite proverb was, "God helps those who help themselves."

Xu Da-ju from China wrote that his country has thousands of proverbs. Several of them are also used in the United States. One example is "Birds of a feather flock together." This means that people who are alike often become friends or spend time together.

Another proverb is "Blood is thicker than water." This means family ties are stronger than other relationships. A similar proverb states "Charity begins at home." A person should help his family or close friends before helping others.

Alina from China sent us this proverb: "He who would climb a ladder must begin at the bottom." That is good advice when working around your home or looking for a job.
Antonio Jose from Brazil says his favorite proverb is "Tell me who walks with you, and I'll tell you who you are." Didier Vermeulen of France sent us this one: "It does not matter the speed you go. The most important thing is to never stop."

Wafaa from Egypt says her favorite proverb is, "Think twice, act wise." She also says she is making an effort to use this saying in her life.
Another favorite proverb among our listeners is "Practice makes perfect." This means you will become good at something if you keep doing it. Another popular proverb is: "If you want something done right, do it yourself."

Najeeb from Afghanistan sent us this proverb: "If you risk nothing, then you risk everything."
And, here is the favorite proverb of Marius Meledje in Ivory Coast: "Your defeat now is your victory in the future." He says it means you can learn from your mistakes. This will help you do better when facing similar situations in the future.

Korean Proverbs

1) Seven falls, eight rises; If at first you don’t succeed try, try again.

2) Cross even a stone bridge after you’ve tested it; It would be wise to ask and make sure before you take action.

3) Even monkeys may fall from trees; Even experts make mistakes
4) Even if you know the way, ask one more time; It would be wise to ask and make sure before you take action. Look before you leap.
5) If you want catch a tiger, you have to go to the tiger’s cave; If you want achieve a goal, you have to go to the source, work hard and overcome difficulties.
6) A 1000-li (old Korean length unit, about 0.4 km) journey starts with one step; All things have a beginning. Even great projects must start with something, be it small or large
7) A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step; Step by step one goes a long way.
8) Birds listen to day-words and rats listen to night-words; Be careful of when or where you say, because there are always people around that may overhear you.
9) After three years at a village schoolhouse, even a dog can recite a poem; Practice makes perfect.
10) After losing a cow, one repairs the barn; Only after a big disaster, you fix the problem. 11) Gather dust to build a mountain; From dust, one can build the Tai Sahn, a mystical mountain, the highest in the world - a proverb about saving.
12) It's darkest underneath the lamp-stand; We often do not know what is going on right in front of us. It is a kind of warning to keep an eye on your own business and to take care of the matters close to you first.

Handout – Proverbs

1. Fill in the gap

2. Try to think of a Western (or other countries) counterpart.

i. Korean; Cross even a stone bridge after you’ve tested it
Counterpart; ______________________________________________

ii. Korean; A 1000-li (old Korean length unit, about 0.4 km) journey starts with one step
Counterpart; ______________________________________________

iii. Korean; A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step;
Counterpart; ______________________________________________

iv. Korean; If you want catch a tiger, you have to go to the tiger’s cave;
Counterpart; ______________________________________________

3. Try rewriting as Korean proverbs.

i. Step by step one goes a long way.
___________________________________________________________
ii. If you want achieve a goal, you have to go to the source, work hard and overcome difficulties

____________________________________________________________
iii. It would be wise to ask and make sure before you take action.

_____________________________________________________________

Vocabulary for IT and Computing

2009-10-14T05:42:00.000-07:00

Autonomous Learning, Motivation, and the Use of Technologies for Learning

2009-10-12T05:30:00.000-07:00

“Computer-assisted language learning (CALL) is a form of computer-based learning which carries two important features: bidirectional learning and individualized learning. It is not a method. CALL materials are tools for learning. The focus of CALL is learning, and not teaching. CALL materials are used in teaching to facilitate the language learning process. It is a student-centered accelerated learning material, which promotes self-paced accelerated learning.” – from Wikipedia

As a new technologically-driven tool in learning language, CALL, has been going to play an active part in educational environment, the role of the instructors also believed to be changed in terms of autonomous learning without the presence of them.

‘Learner autonomy’ and ‘self-directed’ learning have come to be focused in consistent with CALL method compared to the old-fashioned instructor-oriented classroom method, considering being free from the time limitation, place limitation, selecting materials with individuals learning pace and their abilities, etc.

Here, I have to think about Korean learning situation, especially, taking unique EFL environment into account, which means Korean learners have another obstacle as second language learners, not from mother tongue background.

Chapter 6 mentioned about autonomous and nonautonomous learners. And I also guess that autonomous learning is supposed to highly depend on individuals’ own intention, motivation, willingness, confidence and capability to proceed.

If the learners are very much motivated and goal-oriented for their future in studying, there will not be any problems; however, other case, if they aren’t capable of learning by themselves in terms of inability, unwillingness, no goal, laziness, etc, the sense of ‘autonomous’ and ‘self-directed’ would be just the pie in the sky regardless of its good purpose. It can be just ideal not driving effectiveness as of educational outcome.

Especially, to learners in EFL environment, the presence of the instructors in advancing CALL method either physically or on-line appears to be absolutely significant. I think instructors should supervise their students directing, encouraging, motivating and giving marks for them not to be lazy in completing their work. They should force their students to solve the problems and take control of their own learning confidently based on self-directive along with their intention and spontaneity.

As Wikipedia said above, CALL should be students-centered, but instructors also absolutely ought to be involved in their students’ on-line activities to help them to take responsibilities for their learning and to motivate them as for bearing fruit of better outcome in learning English. Here students’ responsibilities for their learning and instructors’ providing motivation to their students will be very important issue. Students’ responsibilities can be students-centered, students-accelerated, in other words, students’ duties in completing on-line exercises regardless of their instructors’ presence. Instructors’ providing motivation can be to encourage their students to get them recognize what the autonomous learning is and what their responsibilities are in doing so. Furthermore instructors should develop a way to give students a better sense of their social network along with the rhythms of interactions in dynamic relationships in virtual world, on-line world; finding new links and materials.

In short, I agree Class access type among a four-way distinction of CALL access types (p.72), ‘The instructor is present in a class that meets in the CALL lab or smart (electronically outfitted) classroom during a regularly scheduled class’, in adopting CALL in my class. That means I like guided, required, and supervised access putting focus on effectiveness, promoting a better understanding my students, appropriate evaluation, grading, observing, assisting, good outcome (result), etc.

I like the course management system, Moodle and Wikispace. Instructors, like Prof. Dan Craig, will be happy with either system in keeping track of their students. They can watch and observe how well their students are going to implement their on-line tasks. I also think Wikispace is very attractive as it shows all the history between the instructors and students in terms of consistent interconnection in language learning.

Web 2.0

2009-10-07T00:04:00.000-07:00

Educational technology spreadsheet

2009-10-05T03:44:00.000-07:00

Here is a link to our educational technology spreadsheet.

Podcasts & Podcasting with a focus on Korean services

2009-09-29T19:09:00.000-07:00

List of Korean service Podcasting

디오데오 http://www.diodeo.com/id=susus&movie

Daum TV 팟 http://tvpot.daum.net/clip/ClipView.do?clipid

Tagstory http://www.tagstory.com/video/video_post.aspx?media_id

Freechal Qtv http://qtv.freechal.com/Viewer/QTVOutViewer.asp?docid

Pullbbang.com http://www2.pullbbang.com/video.pull?vcode

EU 앤유 http://andu.hanafos.com/pub/enjoy.asp?conkey

판도라 TV http://brand.pandora.tv/my.dytn/

Gom TV http://gom.gomtv.com/

Write a reflection on chapter 11 & 12

2009-09-29T02:47:00.000-07:00

Write a reflection on chapter 11 & 12
Issue; Mismatch or missed opportunity?
First steps in experimenting with computers.

The issue of mismatch between student expectations and instructor practice in adapting computer technology into the class was dealt with in the chapter. In terms of active motivation and involvement of learners, especially EFL background of students, materials used in class, led by teachers, are very important and crucial matter.

As computer-dependent technology is going to change rapidly in compliance with the new generations’ (“digital natives’”) demands and requests, the role of teachers related to adapting those new methods became difficult, but more realistic due to their lack of abilities in performing sort of art, multimedia technology art.

According to the chapters, even teachers feel worried and nervous about any ominous opportunities they might loose their teaching job in return for the failure of manipulating computer-machine for the class. And most students think that their performing abilities in multimedia excel those of their teachers. I agree and accept that situation. Students would think that many teachers are very bad at dealing with computer technologies even though such capability is very significant not only in motivating them with interest, liveliness, and efficiency but also in enhancing English class atmosphere in a virtual world.

On the other hand, many teachers including me might still emphasize interactive class and interpersonal communications. Frankly speaking, for fear of the possible failure in facilitating those new methods in class, we might easily have given up introducing and learning them, not deviating from the old custom, conventional teaching.

Here, I think that teachers should try to their best to keep up with the rapidly changing new technologies to adapt in class even though being familiar with those methods don’t appear to be simple. There might be some reasons (excuses?) for many teachers to put aside adapting up-graded pedagogical methods with computer technology.; time-consuming in learning those technology, fear of slowness and lack of ability in learning technology, negligence, sense of hanging up one’s hat, etc.

Teachers, of course, can’t be experts in performing computer-art, but they should embrace such a wonderful technology to make it a family member. It’s real situation. I think that teachers should face up to reality. There are my suggestions for the teachers to become close friends with computers as for catering their students into widely-opened virtual English class environment. Anyway, the last goal for that will be to make students improve their English skills.

1. To approach computer technologies constantly everyday; don’t be panic, but be familiar with computer machine, building experience.
2. To collect a few web-sites to use in class; be familiar with the guidelines and tutorials.
3. To set up goals to use those technologies in class
4. To inform those goals to students in class
5. To come up with rules between teacher and students in using them, like time-frame, boundaries (limitations), etc.
6. To agree to accept any good ideas or methods in picking up newly coming-out technologies from students through feedback and comment sections
7. To seek support from peers from online colleagues to solve any problems
8. To have students understand that teachers are just going to open the computer sessions as pedagogical purposes and to learn more ways by themselves to give their students more chances in improving English skills in real world.

I agree that “the more I experiment with these constantly evolving tools, the more pedagogical potential I find in them; the more diverse their features become, the better they cater to different learning styles, and thus the more easily they embrace all students” (P172. Leaning Language Though Technology)

2009-09-21T22:52:00.000-07:00

Welcome to GraceJYK's place

Graham Stanley recommended language teachers to use a new technology, of Web 2.0 in their English language teaching for the 21st language learners in virtual world. He showed four tools such as Blog, Wiki, Podcast, and video.

I agree with him in using those tools for the 21st English learners in that they could have great opportunities to engage in and integrate in real English environment.

With Blog, teachers and students can open their classroom in the world keeping track of what’s happening in the world, linking Internet resources to share interesting information and news, and posting their homework, etc. With Wiki, students can do their class project with functions Wiki provides changing and revising contents easily by themselves. With Podcast, students can learn real English in the world using voice. By downloading contents from audio and video files to MP3 players, they can listen and practice English at any time continually. Even they will be very much motivated by creating their own video and posting it on Podcast.

In short, those new tools will surely excite and motivate students as a platform in learning real English with digital natives in various intercultural backgrounds. They can learn and improve their English, interacting and communicating with real people from different areas in the world.