Electronic Village 2007

Using WebCtVista,a course management system, students and instructor create a web-based educational environment for a Methods & Materials of Teaching ESL community college course. Many students who take this course are already teachers who need this course for ESL certification. Often they have been left behind in the technology loop. Instead of the instructor being the only one to decide what goes into the hybrid online course, the students and instructor collaborate and build the online content and plan curriculum together throughout the semester. Students learn not only how to navigate the WebCtVista program but also participate in a new kind of learning community. This proposal is intended for those interested in teacher training.

http://vista.ctdlc.org

This event will direct interested parties to my website as well as archived information in the TESOL-Drama, EVO_Drama sites of previous years (2004, 2005, 2006, 2007). I will point out the various areas of the sites that deal with a number of other teacher’s approaches to teaching English through drama, my approach, and the projects preserved on video, and particular information geared to the interests of the participants as can be found in our archived TESOL-Drama, EVO_Drama files. The purpose of this event is to acquaint teachers with the possibility of teaching English through drama and to direct them to a number of sites that support such activity.

http://garycarkinseslefldramalog/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EVO_drama_2007/

While Internet technology has advanced a great deal in ESL environments, EFL teachers in Latin American still face many challenges when using the Internet for teaching. Slow Internet connection, old computers, and unupdated Windows operation systems are some of the challenges these teachers face. How are these teachers coping with these challenges? How are they implementing Internet technology in their own contexts? What are the success stories and lessons learned? An American university on the East Coast collaborates with English language programs in Latin American to help EFL teachers to implement Internet technolgy in their own contexts. Two teachers from the participating English programs will demonstrate how they have been using the Internet to develop class activities for their students. With screen shots and handouts, the presenters will describe their Internet-enhanced activities.

The National Public Radio website, www.npr.org, presents a wealth of short radio stories archived from recent broadcasts. This free online resource provides an excellent opportunity for advanced and pre-university ESL students to listen to real-world news on a variety of social, political, cultural, scientific topics; monitor their own comprehension; and then collaborate with group members to “teach” that information to the rest of the class as a formal presentation. Students are put into small groups, and each group is assigned a specific NPR story to listen to. Successfully used radio stories have included “Jordanian Matchmakers,” “Japanese Men Deal with Stress,” and “Arab and American Relations.” Students listen to their assigned NPR story (using computer lab work stations with headphones, if available) and take detailed notes. Group members then discuss the main points of the story, compare notes, and put together a five-minute “lesson” in which they present their NPR story to the class in verbal-presentation format. This activity provides an opportunity for collaborative communication in English, teamwork, monitoring of one’s own comprehension, public speaking. One obstacle is that students might not have access to a computer with a sound-listening device or headphones installed.

This session will demonstrate a video-based EFL teacher training course made up of worldwide best practices modules on topics such as Managing Large Classes, Integrating Skills, Alternative Assessment, and Reflective Teaching. Participants engage in video observations of actual ESOL classrooms, in related discussions, and information from a wide range of readings. They then and develop individualized projects that reflect their findings and build on the strengths of their own teaching skills and environments. The goals of the course are to: Introduce the most recent English language teaching methods and techniques to a far-reaching audience; Enable local teachers to share their knowledge and skills with peers in a country or region; Offer participants an opportunity to engage in an innovative distance-learning program which employs the latest in modern technology; Provide foreign English teachers access to professional development opportunities that would not otherwise be possible, and Ultimately improve the quality of international English language teaching. This presentation will detail some lessons learned and strategies for success for this type of course, pinpointing ways in which it can serve as a model for other similar online education and knowledge-sharing endeavors.

http://oelp.uoregon.edu/shaping.html

Setting up and using Moodle can be a daunting task, especially with little or no help. This short, hands-on presentation allows interested instructors an opportunity to discover what Moodle can do by giving a model course a short test-drive. “Moodle Review” is a chance to see what Moodle looks like when it’s up and running, as well as providing an opportunity to ask a non-expert user important, often neglected questions about prep time, class room application, assessment, and student receptiveness to this powerful online language classroom tool. This presentation is open to all, but will specifically model a typical 15 week college-level, classroom. It is intended for beginners and pre-beginners looking for more exposure to course managements systems (CMS), a practical, easily applicable component of CALL.

http://www.greendoorworks.com/moodle/course/view.php?id=65

Afghan Universities are mostly geographically isolated from one another. It is thus very difficult for English teachers to meet, interact and collaborate professionally. While infrastructure remains extremely poor in the provinces, road reconstruction progresses slowly and security has not stopped deteriorating in conflict provinces, most universities, fortunately, are now being equipped with computers and the Internet with the help of the international community. The strong desire among the Afghan faculty to use technology for educational and professional purposes is also evident based on a study I conducted in the last quarter of 2006. A website is being developed for English teachers around Afghanistan. It includes resources of all kinds that can be accessed via the WWW. It also offers spaces for teachers to share their problems, ideas that work, relevant resources, student products and so on. International experts will be invited as contributors and co-learners in this professional learning community. The participants in this session will be invited to explore the site, give comments for improving it, and, if interested, volunteer to participate as experts to assist struggling Afghan teachers of English. This site is expected to be officially launched in April 2007.

http://thinsan.org/OSAELT/

As more and more ESL learning happens online, there is a need to train both new and experienced teachers in the art of teaching the online class. This presentation will discuss how a group of online trainers from StudyCom recently trained TEFL students from Georgia State University to become online teachers. The instruction was itself online; the trainers were geographically distributed around the globe, and the students not only learned but observed and also practiced online teaching with StudyCom’s e-students. This demonstration is appropriate for teacher trainers, administrators and teachers interested in e-learning.

http://www.nicenet.org

http://www.digitalsamba.com

http://www.digibridge.com/teacherdave

 This presentation will consider elements of personal home page design from the perspective or whether a teacher’s home page is “teacher-centered” or “student-centered” and the advantages and disadvantages of each. The presenter will use his personal home pages to illustrate these concepts. In addition, he will explain how he has modified his own home pages in response to the requests, needs, and interests of his college and university students in Japan. For example, he will demonstrate how he has incorporated external links within his online syllabi to extend and supplement textbook lessons. He will also demonstrate how he has used online survey software (“Survey Monkey”) as an integral part of his reading and listening comprehension courses. This software can be used to keep track of the type and amount of extensive listening and reading the students are doing, as well as provide a venue for practicing summary and opinion writing. This demonstration will be of primary interest to teachers of intermediate- and advance-level university students and adult learners.

http://www.ne.jp/asahi/m/and/

http://www.ne.jp/asahi/m/and/agu

Although Google is well known and used by nearly everyone, many students do not fully take advantage of its power to improve their English skills. Today’s demonstration will show how students can become proficient at using Google as a tool to learn more about grammar and general English usage. The demonstration will review some guided exercises that help students interpret and apply the output generated by Google. Participants at this EV fair will receive detailed handouts that instruct students on how to get the most out of Google when checking language usage. The activity primarily deals with grammar, but is also helpful in preparing lesson plans dealing with concordance. The demonstration will be done using a special web browser which participants may acquire for free. This activity is most suitable for students at intermediate levels, but most advanced learners and some beginners may also benefit from it. The lesson plan can also be performed in groups.

 Most students, at least in EFL countries like Japan, find it hard to submit properly formatted academic papers, especially when they have to include block-quotes, references, headers, etc. It’s not uncommon to see submitted papers with no headers or footers, and improperly indented block-quotes and bibliography. Teachers can help students submit better papers by providing them with an MS Word template-like document that will make the task of formatting remarkably easy. In this presentation, the presenter will offer the audience such a document and show them in easy steps how they can teach their students to present excellently formatted academic papers. Related topics such as styles and templates too will be touched upon depending on audience’s familiarity with these advanced features of Word. Microsoft offers some thesis templates online, but they are harder to use (since they may overwrite the important Normal.dot or offer too many irrelevant options) than the presenter’s. As the presenter’s simple approach demands no familiarity with templates or styles, even Word novices can master the art of submitting beautifully formatted papers. Ideal for teachers of academic writing unfamiliar with styles and templates, Word beginners, and users of non-English versions of Word (which have few templates for writing English).

 There are many online ESL websites available to teachers. The quantity of information, however, can be daunting, and the quality and usefulness of the activities can vary from site to site. In order to provide ESL teachers with information about applicable, age/learning-level appropriate online resources, a web analysis discussion board was created as a forum to discuss and evaluate the material on these sites. In this particular course, 21 teachers enrolled in a web-based applied linguistics class as part of a state ESL certification program were asked to identify grammar websites and write a short review, including an evaluation of the information and exercises, and the applicability to ESL instruction. The participants posted these reviews to the course discussion board and were asked to visit one another’s sites and respond to these written evaluations. The finished thread of this discussion provided teachers with a comprehensive list of over twenty different websites for ESL learners and specific feedback about the usefulness of the information and activities. Although using the discussion board was a challenge, the overall strength was that it gave participants a starting point for using these resources with their students.

https://cms.psu.edu/section/default.asp?WCU=CRSCNT&id=200506SPAN905CAP

 In this era of globalization, English skills and computer skills are both of vital importance for students of all disciplines throughout the world. To this end, a group of first-year English majors at a Taiwan university enrolled in a required English composition course were asked to keep individual blogs. Students had free choice of their journal/diary topics, whereas class assignments centered on the genres of description, narration, process, and comparison/contrast. The blog site Xuite was chosen because it permitted uploading materials other than texts and provided an L1 (Chinese) interface. Moreover, some students were already keeping blogs in Chinese and recommended this site. After instruction on how to use the site, initial assignments involved uploading only texts. Later assignments, with accompanying technical instruction, included describing a picture (uploading a jpg picture) telling a story with music (uploading an mp3 sound file), describing a process (with self-made graphics or stills from their own videotaped spoken process demonstration), and preparing PowerPoint slides for a comparison/contrast topic. This EV demonstration explains the objectives of the course, shows examples of student postings on their blogs, and shares some student comments on using their computer skills in their English composition class.

Contemporary ESL population is comprised of people of various ages and literacy levels; however, most of them, especially Generation 1.5 and younger students use computers, predominantly Internet, and camera cellular phones. This type of technology can be successfully used as a different literacy mean connecting technological literacy with the academic one in English. The participants will receive cues to using the existing websites for practicing such grammar items like Present and Past Perfect Tenses, Past Hypothetical conditionals among others. World Time Line at Historychannel.com is an excellent resource for grammatically focused writing practice about times or events before the students’ time. Combined in a student-created shared folder, pictures on a certain theme become a personally meaningful visual and a starting point for sharing information. The presenter will demonstrate and distribute copies of grammar and writing activities from her own Web CT materials and will show the strategies of using this hands-on technology in educational setting. The indicated practices have been piloted and improved over the period of five years in a community college setting. Communicative grammar instruction for adult and Generation 1.5 students with the aid of websites and camera phones.

 Toward the goal of a more student-centered classroom, many ESL writing instructors want their students to engage in evaluation of their classmates’ and their own work, yet they often find that students are not prepared for, effective at, or comfortable with this task. CPR (Calibrated Peer Review) is a non-commercial, free website developed at UCLA, which trains students to evaluate and provide feedback on their peers’ as well as their own essays. Teachers are able to author and upload essay assignments and rubrics for evaluation or select them from a bank of instructor-developed contributions from a wide variety of disciplines. Although the website can be somewhat difficult to navigate, this weakness is far outweighed by its recursive approach to analyzing and creating language. The presenters have used CPR in their advanced ESL writing courses at the community college level and are eager to share this with others. The session will give a step-by-step demonstration of how to use CPR, show sample assignments, and cover the challenges and triumphs of using this online resource to enhance instruction.

http://cpr.molsci.ucla.edu

Virtually Endless Possibilities: Designing eLearning Projects using tools such as email, skype, and Macromedia Breeze. In this digital age, students and instructors from all over the globe can connect in ways previously unimaginable. Using a myriad of electronic tools such as skype, email, and Macromedia Breeze, teachers and students can create unlimited possibilities for the virtual classroom. Students can work on and develop tandem learning projects with partners on the other side of the globe using audio and text based computer formats. Teachers can put to use videoconferencing tools along with a digital whiteboard and text chat. This demonstration will offer a sampling of eLearning project ideas which facilitate and encourage autonomous collaborative learning while simultaneously increasing international understanding and cultural awareness as well as heightening the motivation and desire for language improvement. This demonstration is appropriate for all levels of language learning.

Use of the internet in language instruction has traditionally targeted literacy skills. However, this once predominantly text-based medium now offers an array of audiovisual tools which not only provide authentic content, but also allow for the real-time practice of oral and aural language skills. This presentation will demonstrate how various web-based tools have been integrated into an online English speaking and listening for professional purposes course. Technologies of particular emphasis include podcasts, audioblogs, audio discussion boards, internet telephony/audio chat media, and live presentation programs. Free resources and instructional ideas will be shared.

In Becoming a Webhead, we explore Web communication tools and share the best ways of using them in our teaching practices, engage with students in virtual classes, collaborate on projects, and participate in conferences as audience and presenters. In the f2f presentation, we will give an overview of the session, and the work done by participants all over the world.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/baw07

Blackboard course management system provided the venue for Adult English Literacy Online, an online course for speakers of other languages assisting participants with English Language acquisition skills and providing an educational offering that addresses issues of learner persistence. Because many adult learners do not have the time to consistently attend classes, this course blends face to face instruction with self-directed study at a more convenient time and place. Preview this interactive, skills integrated program and learn about the tools and components that support how online learning can provide best pedagogical practices and exemplary observable learning outcomes in second language acquisition. Issues addressing technology accessibility and learning how to use the Blackboard system will also be addressed. Resource is appropriate for Adult Ed, high beginning to advanced levels.

 This presentation will focus on the audio sections of the website, “Interesting Things for ESL Students (http://www.manythings.org/ ). What follows, is a partial list of the projects that will be shown. Listen and Read Along http://www.manythings.org/listen/ Learn a Song http://www.manythings.org/songs/ Listen and Repeat http://www.manythings.org/repeat/ Jokes in English http://www.manythings.org/jokes/ American English Pronunciation Practice http://www.manythings.org/pp/ English Listening Room http://www.manythings.org/el/ Audio Concentration Games http://www.manythings.org/ac/

http://www.manythings.org/e/listening.html

In our adult ESL computer lab, we support intermediate and advanced integrated skills classes. We use many typical resources to practice grammar and writing. However, rather than passive exercises, many teachers have sought more interactive exercises and wanted to target specific skills such as speaking and pronunciation. Also, some students have stated that they required more feedback. This presentation will demonstrate various activities and programs for meeting those needs. Move your students from controlled exercises with designated programs such as DynEd and ELLIS to pair work, role-plays, story-telling, and more open-ended discussions. We have used this for goal setting, simulating job interviews, and more. They’ll be excited to be broadcast on their own podcast using Audacity and sites such as www.podomatic.com. In Microsoft Word, for those who don’t type, they can even use the speech recognition feature to dictate their dreams to the computer! They can see in writing exactly what they are saying. Granted, there may be some technical issues with setting up the programs and logistical ones in pairing the students. However, the results merit the effort. With this myriad of approaches, your students will not want to stop!

http://mohno.podomatic.com/

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

This presentation will give instructors quick and simple ideas to develop listening and reading skills for beginning to advanced students through the NPR web site while at the same time develop student interest in current events, the arts, politics, and American life. The presentation will include an overview of the website and use of NPR transcripts. The handout will provide samples of activities that take a minimum amount of preparation time, work well as quick supplements to listening or reading courses, and generate high student interest.

http://www.npr.com

 We present a pedagogically sound model of WEB 2.0 technology to show teachers a collaborative ways to exploit lectures for use in intermediate to advanced, university-level listening comprehension classes. This website is based on a collection of Stanford faculty lectures from diverse academic fields accompanied by supplementary material and exercises. This resource is a collaborative effort by instructors on a wiki, responding to the lecture content with vocabulary and comprehension questions. It includes: Pre-listening exercises with a vocabulary preview and a 5-minute discussion Post-listening exercises with additional vocabulary, comprehension questions and audio clips for transcription and cloze assignments. A Lecture Follow-Up with a 15-minute discussion on issues raised in the lecture to provide further listening comprehension, highlight main points and stimulate further discussion. Instructors can also point out discussion strategies, such as giving and supporting opinions, and agreeing and disagreeing. The Lecture Blog enables students to exchange ideas to prepare and to increase class interaction. Advantages Offers opportunities for students to interact with the lecture material compared to other web listening resources. Goes beyond standard vocabulary and comprehension exercises. Enables students to interact outside class Provides opportunity for instructors to collaborate Offers easily developed and expanded technology.

http://tinyurl.com/yow6nq

Podcasting and video blogging are emerging tools that educators are utilizing in the classroom. Within the ESL classroom, podcasting is effective for student-centered listening and speaking assignments. Apple iLife, including iTunes, iMovie, iPhoto, Garageband, and iWeb, offers a highly user-friendly software solution for producing audio and video materials. With little training, students with varying degrees of computer literacy can manipulate the software to craft quality podcasts. While not achieving \”end-all-be-all\” status, the software does provide the basics, with a few extras, to get students interested while keeping them motivated for further productions. Intermediate to advanced language learners will gain the most benefit from iLife podcasting projects due to the need not only to speak English in front of the camera/microphone, but also to be able to express ideas and concepts in the pre- and post-production phases. While secondary to post-secondary students would be the best target, projects can and have been created by elementary level pupils. Works created, filmed, and edited by upper-intermediate to advanced level university students will be shown to highlight the different aspects of iLife podcast production.

http://www.switchpod.com/cats.php?a=4111

This demonstration will focus on creating simple podcasts that can be used as listening tasks using the website: www.podomatic.com. It is easy to tailor the content to whatever curriculum you are using in your classes. The presenter will share a bank of low-level ESL exercises that were designed for noncredit community college students. The podcasts demonstrated here focus on topics such as: clothing/colors, grocery items/money, medical appointments, job information, and vacation plans. Participants will not only learn how to access podomatic.com and create their own podcasts, they will also receive handouts with listening exercises for each of the podcasts featured in the demonstration. The strengths of using this resource are that instructors can provide more interesting and relevant listening content for their students very quickly and efficiently. The weakness of podomatic.com is that its recording device is not as high in quality as programs such as Audacity or GarageBand. However, the simplicity of the program far outweighs this consideration.

http://www.podomatic.com

The six-week “Teaching with Power Point” EVO session focused on showing participants how PowerPoint can be used by teachers and students. Teachers learned how to use it effectively for their own teaching, e.g. to support a lesson, as well as how to use it as a tool for collaborative student projects. The workshop combined technical training and expertise with pedagogical insights and focused on practical applications in the classroom. Our presentation in the Electronic Village will offer an overview of this session, demonstrate how the session was run and show results through participant generated PowerPoint presentations.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TeachingwithPowerPoint

Mobile Blogs provide an authentic setting for online presentations or informal diaries anywhere, anytime. Using mobile devices, students can capture and document activities outside of the classroom in a non-inhibitive manner, and bring these experiences into the language classroom to participate in authentic and collaborative language learning tasks. The presenter will illustrate how mobile media projects are being used to promote language-learning in Japan. Two mobile blog modules developed at Kochi University of Technology will be introduced. The modules can be used with popular open source software applications such as Moodle or Gallery . These modules allow students to email images, audio or video with accompanying text to a website using any camera-enhanced mobile device. Students are able to create eye-capturing web pages with thumbnails, captions, slideshows, and video feeds without the use of editing applications. These modules can be used for language instruction at any grade level, but due to the various types of mobile devices and techniques used to capture and send media files, the modules need to be thoroughly tested before implementing.

http://sl.call.kochi-tech.ac.jp/courses/gallery2/main.php

This presentation will highlight various features of a 5-week Blackboard course designed to prepare 11 NNES students in Sub-Saharan Africa for success on the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE®). The course includes both synchronous (Skype) and asynchronous instruction (PowerPoint with voice-over explanations). The presenter will explain how pre-assessment information was collected and used to inform the curriculum development of the course, how the various GRE® Verbal section topics were organized and taught, and how analytical writing skills were taught and evaluated throughout the 5-week course. This course is a university / pre-graduate level course, and it was created for use with a group of medical researchers in Sub-Saharan Africa who received test preparation and English training as part of an international research grant. Upon successful completion of the GRE®, students will continue their research and study in various graduate schools in the U.S. The English language level of students participating in the online course is high intermediate / advanced. Strengths of this training include the schedule flexibility of online learning and thorough curricular materials. Weaknesses of this online course are mostly related to students’ inexperience with online learning and the limited functionality of the internet in Sub-Saharan Africa.

http://blackboard.ed.uab.edu

This Online Audio Lab was developed within a course management system (Moodle). It gives students the opportunity to practice reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills through the presentation of various authentic and semi-authentic materials. Students can complete exercises designed to check on their comprehension of various topics presented in audio and video formats. They can also work on their speaking skills by participating in voice boards (Gongs) and receive feedback from an instructor, as well as listen to other participants and give them feedback. The advantage of an online audio lab is that as long as students have a computer with an Internet connection they can access the lab at anytime. This differs from a traditional physical lab where there are usually restrictions on when a student can access it. The Online Audio Lab is designed as an Internet tool only. Students must have a fast Internet connection to use the lab. The Online Audio Lab is intended for adult learners of English at the university level.

http://ohioenglish.com/course/view.php?id=77

Explore briefly the web conferencing tool DimDim, and its potential in teaching practices and in learner engagement. In this presentation, I will focus on DimDim, and demonstrate its potential use with geographically dispersed participants who will interact and collaborate in real-time activities within the environment. As moderator of BaW07, I will refer to Week 4 (http://baw07.pbwiki.com/week4) in the BaW EVO session, for which I am specifically responsible, presenting examples of participants’ work and contributions.

http://www.dimdim.com

http://moirahunter.googlepages.com/weblearningwiththehumantouch

When teaching business English, I use a blended learning model that includes a Web-based tool, The Business English Web. Students using this tool can upload recordings in response to text and audio prompts and receive text and audio feedback on each recording. The Web tool, similar to Moodle in many ways, has broad applications for students in IEPs or at the university level. A major benefit of the Web tool is that I can strengthen relationships with students because they receive individual feedback and personalized comments that they might not otherwise get in a group setting. The challenge is in identifying appropriate feedback for this setting and helping students feel comfortable using the technology. In demonstrating how I use the tool, I will stimulate discussion about how teachers teach in a Web-based asynchronous environment with either this tool or similar ones, such as Moodle. How do teachers modify their approach to teaching in this environment? Do experiential learning models apply in the feedback cycle I will demonstrate? The Web tool is most appropriate for high-intermediate to advanced speakers of English.

http://www.proactive-english.com/tesol2007/

Using Wizards and Templates: Business Correspondence Wizards are “engines,” small interactive programs that use dialog boxes to organize the basic information of business correspondence into professional-looking documents; templates are blank, formatted documents into which users add content. Microsoft Word provides both wizards and templates for a variety of correspondence, brochures, reports and even school projects. Using these tools, the teacher and students can spend minimal time on formal conventions and concentrate on the language and content of their work. We will present the pedagogy and the technology for a specific student project in which students become “accountants” and write memos to their “manager” to explain Excel spreadsheets that they created and to make related business recommendations. We will illustrate each step of the teaching process from brainstorming to evaluation. Finally, we will conclude with demonstrations of other wizards and templates that could assist students in producing other types of professional business correspondence. A handout outlining the project and highlighting other uses of wizards and templates, plus a project-resource Web site provided.

http://www.quia.com/pages/wizardsandtemplates.html

The internet has long been used for classes, but most of the communication has been text-based. For language learning that situation is unacceptable. Fortunately there are now several free solutions that allow students at all levels to easliy listen to and make their own audio recordings online in a discussion board setting which encourages, well, discussion! The presentation will show how “MyChingo,” “Chinswing,” and “Vaestro” all give students the same chance to speak that they have traditionally had in the real world classroom, with the dual advantages that now they can 1) discuss across time and space while retaining the ‘live-discussion’ feeling that is so important for generating enthusiasm and engagement in the language learning process, and 2)get recorded feedback from their teachers that they can listen to more than once for maximum benefit.

http://www.vaestro.com , http://www.chinswing.com , http://www.mychingo.com

The Blogging for Beginners EVO Session aimed at introducing English teachers into the world of blogging and its potential for teaching and learning. It provided the chance for educators to set up and enhance their first blog, and explore the world of possibilities weblogs provide us with. The Blogging for Beginners team will present some examples of blogging in the language classroom, showing participants how to effectively integrate this powerful tool into the teaching/learning context through collaborative work.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bloggingforbeginners

DFILM.com is a free web-based site for creating animated cartoons from pre-made templates using pre-made characters and scenes. Students of all levels can easily produce level-appropriate cartoons appropriate to their skill level that the whole class can view. Everyone enjoys making and screening their productions. Students choose the characters and scenes and fill in their own dialogue. It’s easy and fun and provides lots of opportunities for students to demonstrate their language proficiency in a wide variety of social settings and interactions.

http://www.dfilm.com/ and for a sample http://mm.dfilm.com/mm2s/mm_route.php?id=3100985

This EV Fair demonstration will focus on multimedia, online resources that easily lend themselves to adaptation for self study and classroom use in ESL and EFL settings, even in low-tech environments. The presenters will give tips on how to select from and manage the vast wealth of available online resources, especially the resources available on the “Voice of America Special English” website, while exploring how they can best be adapted for offline use. The presenters will give a step-by-step demonstration of a unique student-based, PowerPoint-based materials development project that integrates copyright-free material on the Web, showing how a resulting CD-Rom was successfully piloted with secondary and university level students and integrated into the curriculum in Russia. This will be followed by a discussion how projects such as these can be used for teacher training courses to enhance language and culture learning, as well as critical thinking skills. All participants will receive a webliography with links to sites that are rich in audio and text files adaptable for classroom use, as well as tips on how to create similar projects to match their own needs.

www.usembassy.ru/english

voaspecialenglish.com

Even beginning-level ESL students arrive in class with a variety of computer skills and experience. This presentation demonstrates Internet research and presentation tools that all students can access readily in a variety of settings from a one-computer/one-printer classroom to a multimedia SmartRoom. The simplicity of the project allows the teacher to focus on the language, organization and content of the oral reports rather than the technology. Depending upon the topics, the project is appropriate for junior high through college-level students. The process begins with students selecting individual or group topics, finding and printing appropriate images from Google Images, researching the topics with a level-appropriate encyclopedia, organizing their reports, practicing their presentations and finally presenting their reports orally. The demonstration will include discussions of topic selection, use of Google Images, outlining tools, resource citation, presentation methods, rubrics for evaluation and examples of student projects. Handout and project-resource Web site provided.

http://www.quia.com/pages/projectresearch.html

This presentation demonstrates how Professor Lyra Riabov Web-based Blackboard™, her class website, and MS Power Point make student learning more effective in ESL 5 (Advanced) Oral Communication and Comparative Culture Study classes at the Southern New Hampshire University, the Institute for Language Education The attendees will explore teacher- prepared resources and students’ projects. A Blackboard™ course account offers students an access to the following Blackboard™ features: Discussion Forum students’ postings raised their motivation to participate in oral and written discussions, supported the individual expression and learning, brought satisfaction for receiving immediate peers’ feedback, increased the competition in discussing the content issues, raised the awareness and need for improvement in grammar, vocabulary, and sentence structure. Assignments, Announcements, and External Links helped to organize and effectively manage classroom and home work activities. Digital Drop Box secured privacy of the instructor’s corrections and grades. Send E-mail feature offered a convenient way of communicating with an individual or a group as a whole. Students could attach PowerPoint presentations, and picture files to their discussions. Teacher- created class website served as a research resource for the student projects. MS Power Point helped students to organize their materials and ideas and deliver effective presentations of their projects.

http://acadweb.snhu.edu/riabov_lyra/TESOL%202007%20EFairs.htm

Two new online applications allow teachers to watch movies and videoclips together, either in an online-equipped classroom or as a out-of-class project. ClipSync and Lycos Cinema not only allow for viewing, but the clips are synchronized, so that all the spectators see the same frames at the same time, making for a simultaneous viewing experience. Both the applications have included chatboxes, so that students can discuss the films as they are watching in real time. Besides being a fun listening and conversation-practice activity, such synchronized viewing leads to more meaningful interactions between class members and more cultural knowledge based on the clips. Students can even plan a viewing session and choose the clips they wish to show their classmates! This presentation will demonstrate how to use both ClipSync and Lycos Cinema in and out of class for a richer learning experience for students.

http://www.clipsync.com , http://cinema.lycos.com

Joint projects between teachers and students from different societies aim at expanding students’ culture and at providing them with the possibility of using English in natural contexts. As advocates of the integration of CALL into language learning, we organized a tandem project to allow our students to learn from each other exchanging information on both Spanish and English. As native speakers of different languages they worked together in pairs to increase the knowledge of their partner’s language and their intercultural competence through communication, and to foster mutual help in learning. At the same time, they all had a hands-on experience using synchronous and asynchronous tools the computer offers for free. This demonstration will showcase the value and the importance of using Internet for language learning as the second best way to communicate in authentic situations, in places where students are not likely to get the necessary face-to-face encounters to use the target language. It will also pose a challenge to teachers who are reluctant to use the computer for language learning, by demonstrating and explaining how and which synchronous and asynchronous tools can be successfully exploited for the benefit of students in the era of communication and technology.

http://caeb2006.podomatic.com/ , http://languages.oberlin.edu/blogs/hisp305/ -“participants”

We would like to introduce a video-conferencing project between college students in China and Japan between 2003 and 2006. An Interactive Video Distance Learning (IVDL) classroom was developed. Through visual and audio equipment students of the two countries interacted with each other as if in the same classroom.  200 first-year English majors in a teacher’s college in Beijing, China, and 240 first-year non-English majors in a private university in Tokyo, Japan, participated in this project,which was a part of an elective course offered simultaneously in the two universities. The Japanese and Chinese students held one 30 minutes video conference every week. Students were asked to research on culture related topics before a conference and discuss them at the conference using English as the working language.  This IVDL project promoted cross-cultural communication as it connected students who would otherwise have no chance to meet. Students commented that they were interested in learning more about the partner country’s culture and their own culture after the project.  The presenter will show video clips of the video conferences and share the experience of the cross-cultural IVDL project.

The resource is a web-based reading comprehension unit for low-intermediate learners, which represents an example of how theory and research can inform CALL materials design. It is combines perspectives such as: interactionist views in SLA (Gass, 1997; Long, 1996), interface design (Plass, 1998), instructional design (Chapelle, 1998), learner training (Hubbard, 2004), and task characteristics (Gutierrez, 2003). This CALL unit is preceded by an operational tutorial, designed with Macromedia Captivate, which explains the functionality of the web-unit in order to help students succeed in completing the CALL tasks. It presents the targeted with two annotation modes: exact context definitions accompanied by small images vs dictionary and concordancer entries. Most of students’ responses to exercises are submitted online and stored in a database by ColdFusion which provides immediate individual feedback. After captivating learner’s responses in the database, it matches them with suggested correct answers, and provides feedback consisting of both the original answer and the correct one. The first three exercises are free of this type of control offering instantaneous feedback comments upon clicking on one of the available options, which is hoped to give learners some time to feel comfortable both with the application and the tasks.

http://www.iwrite.engl.iastate.edu/teaching/526S06/ElenaC/test/homepag

http://www.public.iastate.edu/~ecotos/Tutorials/2.htm

Language learning has traditionally been constrained by space and time; social interaction in such environments was also limited to student/teacher and student/student. Nowadays a wide variety of social networking tools allows us to create open learning environments where language learning takes place in immersion-like contexts and where learners can engage in networking with wider audiences. Learners become more motivated, engaged and autonomous while they direct their learning towards the areas that interest them most and take ownership of their own learning. Focus: During this workshop, we will give specific examples of how some of these social tools have been used in language learning, discuss the methodology and how these tools can help create wider social networks. Eg. Dekita.org

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/openwebpublishing/

Incorporating blogs into an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) curriculum helps to foster the foundations necessary for academic English language proficiency. This demonstration will highlight the blogging component of an EAP course at the University of Calgary and how it was successfully set up and maintained. Looking at the work of Friere, Roessingh, and Vygotski, blogs can be though of as tools that not only explore the lived experience of students and teachers, but also create virtual communities in which students can communicate, think and learn from others in English. As such, teacher and student blogs can be created, maintained and evaluated over the course of a semester and beyond. As this process is carried out, students will begin to develop fluency and acquire language and ideas from each other. The demonstration will also consider feedback from the students and teachers regarding their experiences with this language development technique. Visitors to the demonstration will leave with concrete ideas that they can implement with their students, as well as a theoretical understanding of the technique. The presenter will be available for comment, questions and discussion throughout. Handouts will also be available. http://www.englishforacademicpurposes.blogspot.com

This presentation will explore briefly the web conferencing tool DiscoverE and its potential in teaching practices and in learner engagement. In this presentation, I will focus on DiscoverE, and demonstrate its potential use with geographically dispersed participants who will interact and collaborate in real-time activities within the environment. As moderator of BaW07, I will refer to Week 4 (http://baw07.pbwiki.com/week4) in the BaW EVO session, for which I am specifically responsible, presenting examples of participants’ work and contributions.

http://www.compued.com.au/discovere/englishglobe/

http://moirahunter.googlepages.com/weblearningwiththehumantouch

This is a large collection of English vocabulary word lists with many online games that use these word lists. You can choose a word list then choose which game to play or you can first choose a game, then choose which set of words you want to use. You can also jump from one game to another using the same word list. Visitors may contribute new words to existing lists or submit vocabulary lists for new topics. Whenever new words are added they automatically become part of the games and quizzes.

http://www.manythings.org/vocabulary/

JavaScript allows teachers to make a variety of exercises, including exercises with interactive features, that students can do online. The exercises include multiple choice, cloze, fill-in-the-blank, and short answer questions. With JavaScript, it is possible to add a number of features. These include timing the students’ answers; timing students as they read a passage and calculating the words per minute that they read; keeping track of correct and incorrect answers (both as the student progress through the items and at the end of an exercise); keeping track of how many questions were answered correctly the first time and the second time; giving hints when students answer questions incorrectly; and allowing students to try again if they get an incorrect answer. We have made JavaScript exercises for reading, writing, grammar, vocabulary, and listening, among others. In this session, we will demonstrate the different uses of JavaScript, showing the exercises we have made. These exercises themselves can be used by teachers. In addition, we will show how the exercises we have made can be used by teachers as a template to make their own exercises.

http://kkitao.e-learning-server.com/javaS/contents3.htm

This presentation shows how ESL readers enrolled in the Advanced ESL Hybrid Reading Course (ESL 17) at the Alexandria campus of Northern Virginia Community College construct meanings of the assigned texts through participation in Blackboard Discussion Forums. By responding to both pre-reading and post-reading questions posted in the Discussion Board, ESL students have opportunities to be active readers, increase their vocabulary, develop fluency, and practice writing skills. The design of this hybrid course helps engage students in an ongoing interaction with the Blackboard site and its resources, the course textbook, the novel (Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451), the classmates, and the instructor. The presenter will demonstrate how the interactive nature of this hybrid course offers a unique blend of both writing and reading tasks that require active involvement in the reading process through reflection, analysis, and synthesis, thus helping students become independent and critical readers.

Quia Web is a great online resource for teachers to use to quickly and easily design activities, self-graded quizzes, and surveys. Teachers can create Jeopardy, Millionaire, or a dozen other types of games to play in the classroom with the whole class to review vocabulary, grammar points, or content. Students are motivated to learn while they have fun! Student performance can be assessed and automatically graded with no paperwork using quizzes with multiple question types. Quia Web is appropriate for all learning levels and any teaching environment with at least one computer and an Internet connection. An annual subscription grants teachers unlimited storage space and an unlimited number of student logins.

In a continuing effort to improve the institutional research and quality of its Intensive English Program, the English Language Program at the University has chosen to employ Gradekeeper. It is an extremely affordable software product that can be used on a variety of platforms across a range of grade levels and at a variety of educational institutions. Its greatest strengths are cost and ease of use, even for techno-phobes, with both soft and hard reporting capabilities. The most significant weakness is its inability to link with standard LMS’s, as its tools are superior in user-friendliness compared to tools available on popular LMS’s. The presenters review the program, its advantages and disadvantages, implementation and its impact upon instructors, students, instructional quality and institutional research. The presenters will provide handouts for participants.

http://www.gradekeeper.com/

Blackboard course management system provided the venue for Adult English Literacy Online, an online course for speakers of other languages assisting participants with English Language acquisition skills and providing an educational offering that addresses issues of learner persistence. Because many adult learners do not have the time to consistently attend classes, this course blends face to face instruction with self-directed study at a more convenient time and place. Preview this interactive, skills integrated program and learn about the tools and components that support how online learning can provide best pedagogical practices and exemplary observable learning outcomes in second language acquisition. Issues addressing technology accessibility and learning how to use the Blackboard system will also be addressed. Resource is appropriate for Adult Ed, high beginning to advanced levels.

With an eye toward encouraging increased civic participation and awareness among English language learners, the presenter will introduce an internet-based student project focusing on aspects of the Florida Adult English for Speakers of Other Languages Citizenship Curriculum Progress Report. Given the increased emphasis among learners on becoming U.S. citizens–thus participating in the inherent democratic institution of expressing one’s voice via one’s vote–community-based organizations and ESL programs alike have witnessed a growing demand for civics and citizenship classes. Furthermore, with the decision on the part of the Department of Homeland Security to redress and revamp the U.S. citizenship requirements in the near future, a number of programs have sought to satisfy learners’ interest in this topic. A citizenship manual, which provides students with an engaged understanding of the rights and responsibilities of being a United States citizen (demonstrate knowledge of voting procedures), symbolic images of the United States (The Star Spangled Banner), prominent individuals and events that have contributed to U.S. history and culture ( Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights movement), and the structure and function of the United States as established by the Constitution (explain the three branches of government), will be presented for use by attendees in their respective classes.

English for All is a free Web-based multimedia system for adults learning English as a second language. An interactive Web site is the core of the program. Twenty videos tell of the experiences of four limited-English speaking immigrants. They each encounter situations where they need to make life-altering decisions. Learners actively participate in the stories by learning the vocabulary, watching the videos, doing the grammar and comprehension exercises, and deciding with a click of a button the direction of the characters’ lives. A very successful example of multiple models of delivery, English for All is being offered online, in the classroom, and on local broadcast television stations throughout the U.S. The presenter will demonstrate the features of the Web site and show videos of each model of delivery. This series is designed for low-intermediate and higher levels.

http://www.myefa.org

The EVO session Beginning Internet Activities had over 160 participants in 2007.It was designed to help inexperienced Internet users learn how to develop and use the Web in their classes either as bridging activities (like homework, but beyond fill in the blank), as class projects or even in the computer lab as a class activity. The session covered what is available on the Internet that can be used in class, how to find information, how to incorporate these ideas into class activities, how to make original activities and how to develop a website where assignments can be posted. This presentation will present an overview of the material presented in the session and examples of the kinds of activities teachers who are just beginning their Internet experiences can make.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EVO07-beginning