VNU Spring2009 - Day 5

Day #5 Agenda
  • Course Overview Update
  • Group Discussions
  • Catch-up on Day#4 and other assignments
  • Explore Personal & Class websites
Course Overview Updates
  • Assignment due dates - For those who are submitted their assignments a day or two late, don't worry.  You will still receive credit.
  • Overwhelming nature of this course - My students here in New Hampshire  have a week to practice and explore each unit of material and they often feel overwhelmed.  So, I certainly understand why you feel overwhelmed having only one day (with a limited internet connection) to cover each unit of material. Again, I don't expect you to become experts at anything covered in this course, and even though I have eliminated some material from the tentative curriculum, I still want to expose you to as many skills and tools as possible.  The good news is that there's only one more significant skill to learn during the course (site building). We will practice that tomorrow and Friday, and the remainder of the course will be spent practicing and applying the skills we've already covered. 
  • Grading -  As long as you complete all of the 'required assignments' listed on the course overview, you will get at least a 'B'.  To earn a higher grade, you'll need to do some extra assignments and/or go beyond the minimums of required assignments (e.g. 60 Delicious bookmarks instead of 30). 
  • Inviting guests - If possible, I'd like to invite some guests from around the world to visit us during class.  We did something similar last year - you can see the video here.  In order to do this, we need to practice projecting skype video onto a screen that everyone can see. If  technology in the lab is being cooperative, I'd like to practice that today or tomorrow.
Group Discussions

Break into 4 groups.  Make sure there's at least one person in each group who is confident in their ability to record and publish audio recordings.  Use one of the headset microphones as a handheld microphone and pass it to the person who is speaking.  Do a short 'sound check' with everyone in your group to make sure the recording will be listenable. Background noise from other groups shouldn't be a problem as long as the current speaker holds the microphone close enough to his or her mouth.  Please identify yourselves in the beginning, so I know who is speaking.
The entire recording should be no longer than 26 minutes.  If it is longer, the filesize of the mp3 file will be too large to upload to the site.  If the discussion is very interesting and you want to go longer than 26 minutes, stop the recording, export the file as an mp3 and then record a Part#2.

In your groups, answer and discuss these questions:
  • Which ideas or resources from your Day#2 readings, did you find most interesting or useful?
  • What other CALL tools and skills do you think are useful and how would you use them in your classroom, now or in the foreseeable future?  
    (I realize many of you have very limited technology available to you in your current teaching environment, so when answering the above question, also think about how you would use the tools if your technology situation improves.)
  • Feel free to bring up and discuss any other topics of interest that you want to share with your classmates and/or Jeff. 
* If  expressing a particular thought in English gets frustrating, the group can take a 'Vietnamese clarification' break.  Press pause in Audacity, briefly work together to figure out how best to express an idea in English, the press pause again and continue recording.

When finished, one person should attempt to post the audio recording (create/audio) on the website. (Make sure the file is smaller than 7mb or it won't work)  If the connection or website is slow, make sure to save it on your USB drive and try again later.

Catch-up on Day#4 and other assignments

If you haven't had time to do the Day#4 tasks and assignments, please do so today.

Explore Personal & Class websites

There are several different ways to create a personal or class website. Below are some examples.  Tomorrow, we will begin experimenting with creating  sites, but today I just want you to take some time to look through these different sites, observing which kinds you like, and bookmarking any you think might be useful in the future in your delicious account. If any of these are loading too slowly or don't seem interesting to you, move on to other sites.

Blogs
  Past EFL537 students   Many more listed on these sites Wikis
The word wiki is a Hawaiian word that means fast. A wiki is a simple-to-use software which allows users to create, edit and link pages together. It is an easy way for people to collaborate on documents online and for this reason is often used for community websites.
Social Networks
 More EFL Teacher blogs

Readings: (not assignments, but for those interested in learning more about blogs and wikis in EFL - these can be used for your second reading reflection)
Assignments
  • Select a reading for your second Reading Reflection.  The reflection will not be due until Monday, March 16, but I'd like you to post a link the reading you select in this forum.  Rather than assign everyone the same reading, I would like you to try and find one that is especially interesting to you.  You can browse through the 'megasources of CALL related Readings and Journals' listed on the EFL537 Readings page or use the special search box there to search for articles. (shown below)
  • Keep bookmarking sites in your Delicious account and saving files in your Materials Archive (described in the Course Overview under Required Assignments)
  • (Optional - you don't have to do these!  Do these only if you've finished your other assignments and want to do something extra.