Joy Luck Club Webquest... Impressed?

Software/Website Title: Assimilation in America

Website URL: http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/plegal/tips/t5prod/gershwq2.html

Grade/Age Level: Looks like high school

Language & Content: English -- It is a webquest based on the Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
This webquest seems to have all of the parts of a standard webquest, although that is not usually the case as I found when I did a Google search and found several websites only masquarading as webquests. Anyway, the sections were there and there was some attempt to make them attractive and organized. The introduction and task set out were fairly creative and seemed to have just enough zip that many students would find them interesting. THere is the idea that these studetns are part of an immigration and assimilation department in the U.S. government, not bad. In fact, there is a step in the webquest when studetns were asked to reflect upon their own expereiences of coming to America, leading me to believe that this is in fact a CALL style site for an ELL class. That makes sense since there is such an identity and assimilation bent in the novel itself. One of the resource links didn't work, but for the most part there seemed to be a variety of resources that were valuable: class projects, online journals, and publlic radio. There were some reasonably helpful "help" links that the teacher created and hyperlinked to her process list. There seemed to be a decent table exlaining the rubric to be implemented.

There was a vagueness to many parts of the project that would likely hurt its implementation. The task semed fairly straight forward and organized until a seemingly loosely related strand (how to assimilate better) became the focus without using consistent, specific terminology to aid in that transformation. It simply became "what is the problem?" I have a feeling there were questions at that point. It almost seems like that section was a revision that wasn't smoothly integrated, and the author left the old project, but tacked on a new section. The external documents meant to aid int he collection were also rather vague. They did not give many examples or specific guiding questions. It seems almost impossible that this doesn't need a fair amount of classroom guidance just on the project's task, which leaves less for teachable moments and strategy. I must say that the process/tasks seem worthwhile and have good variety but lack unity. Maybe the author could have the agent apply for the position (thus doing self-reflection) and later take his/her first assignment. Finally, although there were a couple references to group work, there really were no guidelines as to roles within the groups that could be manipulated to allow for preferences in learning style. THat could easily be rectified.

I did choose this topic because it is very likely that I will choose it for my own webquest project. I am impressed byt he creativity that people show in these projects and I am curious to see how I will match up... considering time pressures and technological constraints that hamper so many efforts.

Student Autonomy For the Masses

Deborah Healey's article "Autonomy in Language Learning" covers some points that most of us are aware of, even if we've never put labels on them. Self knowledge and self-motivation play a large role in effective learning, and sometimes students donnot guage their own skill levels honestly; these are all important concepts to remember in the creation of a (hopefully) autonomous learning environment.

Healey's discussion of the 5 recommendations for optimal technology-assisted language learning seem a little focused on the idea that software will take the place a of a teacher as the source of feedback and thus give highly specialized feedback. This seems to ignore some of the opportunities for authentic situations that would also help with motivation. It has a more Web 1.0 feel to it, at least. I do like her call for partner work on computers, and I think that setting a culture of expected cooperation goes a long way... but of course that applies to almost any learning situation. I think that Healey has some good principals to consider, but in this class I feel like these are reminders that maybe should have come earlier in the coursework.

One additional idea that could spring from Healey's repeated suggestion that a teacher or program keep track of progress for a student to aid in their motivation is that the students could keep a blog of their own authentic successes and challenges in Web 2.0 interactions. This type of a diary or journal would help almost any learner of any activity appreciate their successes and identify their continued needs.

Searching for Meaning... Engines in CALL

The first search engine that I used was called COLOSSUS and it claims, "Explore 342 countries and territories!
Search in other languages! Submit websites to search engines! Since 1998." COLOSSUS is found at http://www.searchenginecolossus.com/ Oops. I see now that that is just a search engine directory. I guess I will leave it here because it seems useful. That lead me to one of the English language engines in the U.S. called http://search.ezilon.com/ That engine produced no hits!

The next engine is called scrubtheweb.com at http://www.scrubtheweb.com. Scrub the web found 46 hits and it had a reasonable top 5 for my purposes. It had 3 sponsored links, clearly demarcated. One was from http://editme.com. This seems to be a competitor to wikispaces. The non-sponsored links were lead by four blogs, and then the "Online Internet Institute" which seems to be focused on technology education and support of it to teachers. It wasn't the most satisfying mix of materials, but I suppose blogs are the most cutting edge in considering wikis in education. It would be interesting to see what will be available in a few months.


The third one was about.com at http://about.com/
About.com returned the best top 5 set of results (sponsored ones) if I was looking to start a wiki, but only returned 10 overall results that were not sponsored. About.com is an engine that is similar to Yahoo in that it uses categories/subjects to organize the web. Because I had a topic that seems to have fit into the category "Teaching with Technology" I saw several good blog articles and ideas, but nothing that seeded to deal exclusively with teaching using wikis. It is such a new concept that it doesn't surprise me that that is true. Back to the sponsored links. The best one appeared to be http://www.courseforum.com/cf/. They claim: "Smart instructors already know that the better interaction between your students, the better the learning experience for everyone."

Just for the sake of comparison, I have now run the same search on Google, and the results are not even funny. The top 5 for Google are not just blogs but sites that seem to be very much more applicable to educators looking for leads in the field.

I will now evaluate the site courseforum.com/cf/ It is clearly a commercial venture and it has an attractive set of features that make it seem reliable and widely useful. There is an easily identifiable "about us" link that gives a brief history of the company and its efforts. It also has a series of options for contacting the company via email, phone, fax, and mail. What a nice development considering all of the sites that now hide such information in the darkest corner. The copyright date makes it clear that this site has been updated in 2007. The sidebar allows for a downloaded sample of the program that the site is titled after. It offers Linux, Max OSX, and Windows versions, as well as FreeBSD, which I've never heard of! The text is attractively spaced and doesn't seem too dense. In fact, one of the big selling points of this program (oft-repeated) is that it is easy to get started and easy to run. They also offer a "stripped down" free version that could be downloaded and then upgraded to add functions. The side bar also lists nearly 20 intrasite links that by their titles seem to be a comprehensive list of support and informational pages. Those links all worked and seemed relevant to the product. The product is built around discussion tools, announcement boards, etc., so wikis are a side focus for this group/product. If you are looking for a moodle of your own, this company claims they can do it for you (complete with wikis).

Review of Learning Styles Addressed Through CALL

Karen Yeok-Hwa Ngeow's article "Extending Practice: Enhancing and Extending Learning Styles Through Computers" raises several points of valuable practice for teachers of ELL and in general: to give students a meta-cognitive awareness of their preferred learning styles and to design activities that allow students to use those strengths to complete assignments in a meaningful manner. Part of her theory is that by tuning students in to their best practice learning styles they can concentrate more on the language meaning they are encountering or creating and less time trying to adapt information that is in an unfamiliar format; thus, challenging them twice when the goal is really language acquisition.

I Like Ngeow's ideas, and I think that any good teacher tries to account for these learning styles, BUT, the teachers are also drawn by a Siren's song toward their own preferences in learning styles... because it seems natural to them that all good learners could learn it that way. Of course, this is why we have teacher training, to try to counteract some of these disabling tendencies.

Of course, the programs that Ngeow recommends are a bit dated, if only in the versions listed. If this article were updated there would be no shortage of programs that would fit the bill for the various learning styles she has mentioned. The moviemaker/iMovie programs seem to be a popular alternative to call in all sorts of visual, musical, and spatial intelligences that PoweerPoint might have been best suited for in the recent past. Obviously podcasting, blogging, wikispacing (new verb?) are all reasonable alternatives to the class newsletter.

I guess that we just need to stay focused on how this new generation is learning and how computer technology may not only have made our studetns more computer preferent, but also more open to our bag of tricks as CALL teachers.

Tapped in to Blogstreams

Here are some of my reflections on the Blogstreams Salon that I visited on Tappedin.org. I was pleased to see the forum and program so developed and clearly cared for. I was not there during the regularly scheduled meeting time so I just took a look around. One highlight is the archives of discussions since they allow a person to recreate (at a fast rate) the feel of how the meetings go. I was a little disapponted to see the chat transcript of an "openhouse" meeting on Blogstream salon was so choked early on with hellos and waves and other introductory niceties. An edited transcript to show a alittle more meat of the forum swifter would be nice. I also read a very interesting discussion starter that questioned the value of podcasts versus the chat/text formats. It contained some intriguing ideas, but again disappointingly, it had gone unanswered since May of 2006. I suppose there is a critical mass before whch htere isn't enough foot traffi to make a site or discussion go, but then i also felt that hte "open house" might have had the opposite problem... too many folks making an entrance and exit. I wonder how often blogs go unanswered when authors bite off more than they can chew, and they can't make it back to the site enough (even with aggregators!) to tend their creations. It is a commitment!

I have felt that as a full time teacher it would be a challening enough task to use a blog, wikispace, discussion forum OR other forum... without it being your job, it seems intimidating to consider monitoring. One thing that I hold some more hope for is in the integration of some of these web 2 methods into programs that are more mainstream. For instance, since this class began I have activated the discussion forum on my "turnitin.com" anti-plagarism website. By pulling these together I feel I have a better chance of making the leap into new methods for the long run.

Overall tappedin seems to be an exciting forum with a great future!

Review of Topics Online Magazine

http://www.topics-mag.com/
This is “An Online Magazine for Learners of English” This appears to be targeted for middle school and high school aged learners, but adults could also participate in it. It is a collection of articles contributed by readers from around the world. The articles and issues of the magazine seem to be thematically driven and in areas that would appear interesting to young adult readers. For instance, there is a series of 5 reader contributions gathered under “Difficult Experiences.” One submission from a boy from Korea dealt with a narrative recalling a time he fell through thin ice while ice skating! There were also themes of “Traditional Dances, “Travel,” “Traditional Games,” and “Globalization.” The pieces seem polished, but are definitely written in the simpler syntax of ELL style. This would make it very accessible for most ELL classrooms and also quite interesting as they read authentic responses. Of course this could be used as inspiration for a unit/topic within a classroom; publication could also be held up as a goal to top students and that would give a real goal to peer reviewing, etc.; finally, it could serve as a model or inspiration for a classroom’s private online magazine. It also has a teacher’s corner where project ideas related to writing appear. There is no practice, assessment, or feedback function for the masses. This appears to be a pure content site. The site is easy to use, colorful, and neat, but it obviously is not going to stay authentic if the only goal is to get published. Perhaps they could make it easier to see how to contribute… I actually never found that information!

What makes a task authentic?

Review of Guariento & Morley (2001)

The quest of an authentic text is a familiar search for teachers of ELL students. Guariento and Morley summarize the ideas that an authentic text is an essential element of classes, and that the difficulty of finding such authentic texts is inherent within the teacher’s task. Texts that reflect, simulate or actually perform a task in the wider world are considered authentic. The difficulty of the texts must be considered, and careful modification of the difficulty level is possible without losing the essential authenticity. There is a danger that in oversimplification there is a loss that connection.

In a similar vein, authentic tasks are tasks that reflect, simulate or actually perform a task that serves a valid purpose within the wider world. There were four ways to consider tasks and whether they have what it takes to be authentic: 1) A genuine purpose, 2) a real world task, 3) the genuine task that is the learning process/classroom, 4) and then the consideration of individual students’ comprehension of the rationale behind each task (providing authentic motivation). While Guariento and Morley could not assure that all four of the considerations were relevant to each case where a teacher has to select tasks, knowing these considerations gives the teacher an opportunity to find an appropriate strategy (given each group of learners and subsequent revision of pedagogical strategy).

I am most interested the idea that students will find the classroom experience itself valid and authentic, as I am teaching older students. These students will be in a content sheltered class, so they will have achieved a level of functionality in the society that makes buying a train ticket seem quite pedestrian, I imagine. The authenticity struggles I anticipate encountering the most are ones where the kids are asked to reflect on the process of learning itself and upon the rationale for the learning. Then, a simplified (or scaffolded) reading of an American Literature text might lead to a role play, story, letter writing assignment, or other activity that would not be considered valid without the ability to draw on an older student’s world experiences to realize the authenticity of thinking and analyzing regardless of the actual activity.