Day 10


EFL537, Cohort#4
Day #10, July 30, 2010
To the Finish Line & Beyond 

I want to thank all of you for your hard work, determination, and collaborative spirit. As a teacher and a CALL practitioner, I always learn a lot from teaching this course and I am once again amazed at the amount of progress motivated students can make in only two weeks.  I am especially pleased with not only how well this group has worked together, but how you seemed to really value the learning, not just the grades. This has been a really enjoyable, gratifying teaching experience for me and I thank each of you for helping to make it that way.

Like you, it seems to me that Day#10 comes so quickly with this course and there are more topics to cover and more questions to answer. I do hope though, that this course was just a beginning for you and that your CALL journey will continue long after today. I will look forward to staying in touch via this course website and various social networks, and hope to hear about your post-EFL537 experiences. Until then, I thank you again and wish you all the best with your personal and professional futures. 
A couple of  notes...
  • Life After EFL537
    • The EFL537.com website will remain online and available for at least a few more years.  If ever it disappears, I will move all of its contents to jefflebow.net. You welcome to use the site and its resources.  You are also welcome to log in and post bog entries and forum questions. In fact, I'd be delighted if you share future CALL experiences with me and the entire EFL537 community.   I will do my best to continue answering questions you have, but please do not send them via skype.  Please post them in the 'How do I' forum on EFL537.com.  That way, others can benefit from and perhaps share in answering the question (and I only have to answer questions once).  I do however encourage to continue using the Group Skype Chat for communiation (CALL related and otherwise) with each other.  You can also invite others into the chat if you wish.  I will keep an eye on it as well. 
    • I have uploaded files that that include all Daily Agendas and Skills Training pages.  These can be printed or accessed from your own computer, whether it's connected to the internet or not.
      To Save these files, RIGHT Click, 'save link as' DailyAgendas.htm  Daily-Agendas.pdf  EFL537-Skills.htm  EFL537-Skills.pdf
       . 
  • Assessment Stuff
    • Please make sure that all the information in your profile is accurate and up to date.  Click on the Profiles page to see what's listed under your account and click 'My Account/Profile' to make any changes.  Make sure your email address is accurate and that you have included Twitter if you've created an account, and any other websites (like Facebook or SingSnap) in the 'Other Personal Websites' section of your profile. 
    • As I mentioned in the Welcome, assessment is my least favorite part of teaching, but please know that I am very satisfied and proud of this this class as a  group and will be as generous as I possibly can in determining individual grades. Your final assignment is due August 2.  I will determine individual course grades as soon as I've seen all of the final reports and will aim to notify you by next Friday (August 6) by email. I am sorry that I have not been able to provide each of you with more  feedback on each assignment throughout the course.  I  have some comments prepared for each of you already and and will send you general feedback about all of your work when I notify you of your grades.
  • Odds & Ends - You can now see the complete Day#8 video with Sarah at: http://blip.tv/file/3940837  and the entire chat log from yesterday's social networking invitation to the world at: http://www.efl537.com/summer2010/day9/chat-log   (Sorry so many of you were unable to participate in the live text chat)
Today's Tasks
  • Audio Group Reflections - The point of this task is to share your thoughts on the course and discuss  anything else you'd like with you group member. Please form groups of three or four people.  Each group will sit around one computer and use Audacity to record their conversation. The entire recording should last between 10~20 minutes.  Please pass one headset mic around as you discuss these questions.
    •  Which EFL537 assignments and skills where most useful  or interesting for you?  Which assignments and  skills were less useful?
    • What advice do you have for future EFL537 students about how to adjust the unusual course and how to make the two weeks of EFL537 as productive as possible?
    • What suggestions do you have for Jeff about how to improve the course?
    • What else would you like to discuss with each other or share with Jeff?

      When you're done recording, please export the audio as an mp3 file and one person in each group can post it on EFL537.com (create/audio). Please give it a title like ' Final Day Audio'.  In the body of the post, please enter the names and class ID's of everyone who participated in the discussion. (Quy vnu4w, Duc vnu4x, Binh vnu4y, Lien & vnu4z')

  • Independent Study/Play time, One-on-one Sessions with Jeff  -  When the group discussions are finished, the rest of the period can be spent working on any unfinished assignments, practicing skills, and or playing with your favorite CALL tools or websites. I would also like to have short one-one-one sessions with everyone to answer any questions you have, discuss your EFL537 work, and to say good-bye au revoir. 
     
  • OK, one last optional skill - Online file storage - I wasn't going to cover any new skills today because I didn't want to leave you with too little time to finsih things up, but since many of you still seem hungry for more skills and I need to introduce this in order to answer Xuan's excellent question about how to post Hot Potatoes activities online, here goes.
    Online File Storage (using Esnips)