Webheads chat
logs are posted on the Internet to assist language learners with
comprehension of our conversations and to strengthen our sense of community
through shared familiarity with one another. All are welcome to join us, but
your participation in our activities implies that you approve of our posting on
the Internet interactions in which you take part. Please address any comments
or concerns to Vance
Stevens.
(C)opyright 2003 Vance
Stevens
Webheads Chat Logs from
2003
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Saturday January 4 and
Sunday January 5, 2003
Saturday January 11 and
Sunday January 12, 2003
Saturday January 18 and
Sunday January 19, 2003
Saturday January 25 and
Sunday January 26, 2003
Saturday February 1 (no record
on file) and Sunday February 2, 2003
- wfw030202.htm - Sus's comments: We started in
Tapped In as usual but moved to yahoo Messenger because a lot of webcams were
at hand. I have one picture with nine cams up! Many of you seemed to have great
fun with voice - unfortunately this feature has not yet been available to Mac
computers, and although Ive tried hard to run the virtual PC emulator on mac,
it does not cooperate with the webcam (or, not yet, I might have to work harder
on this). So, today, my own WCam only mounted after a reinstall of the webcam
plugin and one more reboot of the computer - so I was only present for the last
period. Apart from that I can recall the happy faces of Aiden (with younger
son), Tere (with husband and someone else), Vance (in relaxed shirt and tie),
Chris(topher) with his hats-on show, Rita with a great smile , back from
holidays), Michael (the man in Orange), Arnold (testing voice in vain?) plus
Claire (looking stoned) and Scott (with a lot of bookshelves, too).
Tutors online today:
Vance in the UAE, Maggi in Germany, John in Pennsylvania and Michael in
Australia
Friends and students present: BJB in Pennsylvania,
Arthur in Ireland, Susanne in Denmark, Ying Lan in Taiwan, ...
Saturday February 8 (I should
have a log somewhere) and Sunday February 9, 2003
Teresa: "Last Sunday at Tapped In was
certainly a fabulous 'entree' for the week and this Sunday a 'grand finale'!
Wow! I was amazed at how well
Wimba
Voice Direct worked - after all, none of us were just around the corner! -
and how 'democratically correct' it is with the turn taking. What a 'handy'
attribute!"
Scott Lockman in Tokyo: Sunday's session was
amazing (for me at least). Between webcams on my screen, text chat in the TI1
(no luck with TI2 for me), and the WIMBA voice direct chat, there was just too
much going on on my monitor and over my headphones. The WIMBA experience was so
captivating that I neglected the text messages in TI1. I apologize if I
appeared to be ignoring any1.
Teresa made a wise move to get out of WIMBA when she did. I could tell
that she was just as amazed as the rest of us were with the clarity of the
sound and the ease of operation of the beta product (thanks to MichaelC for the
heads up on this one). The reason I say it was wise of Teresa to get away when
she did, is because she has been doing so much work and is in contact with so
many people that she realized that she would have sacrificed some productive
exchanges with other webheads not on WIMBA by lingering any longer.
For those of us who did stick it out in WIMBA for the duration, it may
not have been productive in the utilitarian sense of the word. But OMG, it was
fun and dazzling. And I think it was productive in the sense that a group of us
became better acquainted with the package. Hopefully we will be able to provide
some assistance to those of you who want to try to connect next Sunday. I
heartily recommend that you give it a try.
Dafne pointed out that there appears to be no facility within WIMBA to
create a transcript of the text portion of the chat. We also fumbled around
with trying to make some form of audio recording of the conversations. More
experimentation is required on this aspect. I was able to record my speech and
Dafne's using the Sound Recorder program of Windows 98. But while I was
talking, I realized that other room members were sending me text messages that
they couldn't hear me. To make matters worse, I was unable to relinquish the
microphone when I wanted to stop. This required my shutting down the browser
and logging back in - Sorry about that.
As Michael pointed out, WIMBA voice direct is a beta software package.
We at WIA are very fortunate to have the opportunity to check it out in this
trial phase. That said, it would behoove us as well as WIMBA to offer comments
and suggestions to the developers. Perhaps we can encourage them to include a
transcription feature in a future version. The link to send comments is at the
bottom of the WIMBA chatroom page.
Well, I'm sorry for rambling on like this. I know you all have more
important things to do than read this. But I do think it would be useful to
have a brief introduction to the WIMBA interface for future new users. Maybe a
screenshot with graphics painted on describing what each of the buttons are for
would be helpful. It would also be a way to introduce the concept of having the
floor and relinquishing the mic, and requesting the floor. It is actually
brilliant the way the WIMBA people have put it together, (but more than a few
of us made the mistake of not relinquishing the mic on our first use of
feature. I will try to put such a primer together. If any of you have
suggestions, please feel free to send them my way.
Saturday February 15 and
Sunday February 16, 2003 - The Sunday group broke into three
sessions (1) WIA CoP Week 5 planning (2) Week 4 wrapup, and (3) Webheads in
reception. Logs from later in the week are documented from Dafne's Week 5 web
pages, and include
Saturday February 22 and
Sunday February 23, 2003 - Aiden has issued the following
invitation for this Sunday:
I use CMC to augment my classroom activities while at the same time
providing students the opportunity to interact and participate in an authentic
form of discussion with people (in my case, usually, webheads teachers) who are
competent speakers of English (regardless of ethnicity). The idea is to have
the students speak out their thoughts and opinions about a particular topic.
Discussions in the classroom will then follow (the next day) with chat logs and
experiences in hand.
I intend to bring 6 groups of students in Tappedin this Sunday,
February 23, 12:00 noon GMT. The students are 4th year University Level,
majoring in Applied Foreign Languages, in Aiden's Advanced Communication Skills
course. Click on the url to see some of the students you will be meeting this
Sunday.
http://www.geocities.com/aidenyeh/shih_chien/sy2002_1stsem/communication_skills_course.htm
Topic of Discussion: What's in a name?
To have a better understanding why and how Chinese names come about.
Names given to most Chinese people have meanings and many were based on fortune
tellings and superstitions. But the most significant influence in this aspect
is the number of strokes a single character has. For instance, a character that
looks or sounds like "Si" with a strong downward tone is considered taboo
because the word means 'death'. It's considered an omen and therefore, brings
in badluck. This topic is interesting because you will find out the trouble a
parent has to go through just to give his/her child a name, a name that would
ensure happiness and prosperity.
Invitation
So, I invite new and the savvy webheads to join my students this
Sunday. Each group will have about 8-10 students. 1-2 webheads per group.
Where
TappedIn. This is where you will be tested :-) I have an office in
TI- AidenY's office at East 802. You could use my office or you could also set
up your own office in TI, simply page in BJ Berquist, TI's helpdesk 'wonder'
woman, hey, she's a super-dooper webhead, too. Or go to
http://www.tappedin.org for details.
What's in it for students?
They get the chance to talk and be heard by intelligent folks like
the webheads. They'll be there to learn, and to have fun. They have done this
several times last semester, so they're familiar with TI's interface.
Note:
A similar topic has been
used and posted in efiwebheads by my students from NKFUST, this time, the
students from Shih Chien University will be doing this
activity.
Feb 25, 2003 -
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/evonline2002_webheads/files/2003/week6-feb24-mar2/022503chatlog.html
April 26 and April 28, 2003 - Webheads at the TESOL conference in
Baltimore. Arlyn's reaction: "It took until the live demonstration in Baltimore
for me to realize the full potential brought about by incorporating TI, YM,
webcams, and voice. While it sounds like a huge mess -- and even the images
give the impression at times that a lot is going on but nothing is happening --
this is not the case. Stimulating all those senses is more interactive than a
"live" meeting, more invigorating, you are more atuned to all that is happening
(because so much is!), but also so much more informative because of this
heightened stimulation. For me, the downside is not being able to keep up with
the pace -- I'm not certain if that improves with practice...." We've got lots
of pics. From the Colloquium March 26, browse to
http://photos.groups.yahoo.com/group/webheadsinaction/lst
then browse to TESOLpix > 2003_Baltimore > March26_colloquium. From the
March 28 Classic Internet Fair session, visit
http://photos.groups.yahoo.com/group/webheadsinaction/lst
and then browse to TESOLpix > 2003_Baltimore > March28ClassicsFair. There
is also a video from this session here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/webheadsinaction/files/TESOL2003/vsj_sicjjbrwlhs.avi
(huge) but if you have a Real player, the same thing compressed:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/webheadsinaction/files/TESOL2003/vsj_sicjjbrwlhs.rm
April 4, 2003 - Teresa has placed a report on her first
audioconference with Webheads in Action Daf, Chris and Michael here:
http://www.malhatlantica.pt/teresadeca/webheads/sessions/4apr03-fletras.htm
At the 23rd annual conference of the Morrocan Association of Teachers of
English in Morocco on April 8 - 12, 2003, our
Webheads
friend Ismail Fayed is giving a presentation
Saturday April 19
(Maggi and Vance met in TI2 since TI classic was down; no record kept) and
Sunday April 20, 2003 -
wfw030420.htm - Mike Marzio and Vance bravely
broadcast webcams but no others were in the mood for either broadcasting or
viewing on this day (Chistopher was busy cooking Mexican food). Turnout was
good and chat was lively. as usual
April 23, 2003 - The chat that Aiden did with Arnold
Muhren on TPR integrated voice, text and video is available at
http://www.geocities.com/nkfust2003/listening/tpr/tpr1
Saturday, April 26, from
15:40-16:40 GMT - wfw030426.htm -
Webheads were invited to meet online at the GMTIV JORNADAS CETA
"Teaching English: emotion in motion" conference April 25-27 2003
Universidad de Córdoba. http://www.infoceta.org/jornadasIV.htm.
Dafne Gonzales and Maria Jordano organized a Webheads online event for this
conference.
Title: Webheads a Community of Practice for Language Teachers
Professional Development in CMC
Abstract: Summary of talk/workshop (only one paragraph of no more
than 100 words) Language Teachers around the world are incorporating online
components to their face to face classes to offer students the opportunity to
communicate with speakers of the language. To take this challenge, teachers
need to be e-literate and learn to take the best from the web tools available.
Webheads in Action is a virtual Community of Practice comprising language
teachers worldwide, with the purpose of exploring a/synchronous and web-based
multimedia communications formats, and the best way to use them for the benefit
of their learners. In this presentation, we will show how this community works
with the live online participation of Webheads located in different countries
via synchronous modes (text chat, voice, and webcams). Web pages product of the
community collaborative work will be shown.
WIA url: http://www.geocities.com/vance_stevens/papers/evonline2002/webheads.htm
Here's what will happen, according to Dafne: "We will be at Tapped In
in the ASO. The presentation starts at 15:40 until 16:40 GMT. I have prepared a
web page and a power point presentation, as well as some written notes. In the
first part of the presentation, I will introduce webheads, where we are (that
was the purpose of the interactive map), what do teachers get from WiA, and how
we learned in WiA. Then, you will be able to interact with the audience at
Tapped In. We might use Yahoo Messenger for voice but we are not so sure yet.
Maria and I were trying it today, and she could listen to me, but I could not
hear her (we think it was her mic). In any case, people could write the
question in Tapped In and those in YM could answer using voice. We will see how
technology behaves this time. I have plans A B C, and hope plan D (which has
not been prepared) is not needed. While I present there, you will be shown the
webpages, you can also read the paper or follow the presentation through the
power point slides, depending on what fits your cognitive style ;-)
Sunday April 27,
2003 - wfw030427.htm -
April 29, Tuesday, from 08.30 to 09.30 GMT Teresa
Almeida d'Eca organized a Webheads online event at the April 28-30, 2003 - APPI
(Portuguese Assn. of English Language Teachers) conference in Sesimbra,
Portugal on Rethinking Language Teaching Resources,
http://www.appi.pt. Teresa made a short
presentation (about 15 mins.) of the Webheads in Action and then had Webheads
come in through voice chat to talk a little about us and the work we've done,
and answer any questions the audience may ask. There is a short paper based on
the content of the presentation at
http://www.malhatlantica.pt/teresadeca/papers/appi2003/meet-wia.htm
Thursday June 19, 14:00
GMT at the TI2 interface at http://ti2.sri.com/tappedin/index.jsp - - Elizabeth Hanson-Smith and Michael Marzio held a
video chat for the Real English YahooGroup <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Real_English_Online/>.
There is considerable overlap between Real English and Webheads in Action,
whose moderators (Elizabeth and Michael) have a similar approach to online
shenanegans. Elizabeth's synopsis of this one is: "We had a really good chat on
Thursday, with some interesting ideas for video use. Susanne Nyrop has
suggested we join with Webheads in Action, another excellent Yahoo Group, at
the Tapped In Festival on July 19 with a focus on video. More details to
follow. I'll have the chat log posted to our group soon--look for
Vance's
Shark Whale, face painting, and other intriguing ideas!" and she posted the
chat logs here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Real_English_Online/files/Chat_log_06-19-03.html
June 25th GMT 23.30 - 00.30 (June 26)- LearningTimes member
Michael Coghlan will be presenting at the "ED-MEDIA: World Conference on
Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia & Telecommunications" in Hawaii. Major
portions of his session will be taking place live on the Web. SESSION ABSTRACT:
The majority of Internet communications between student and teacher in online
educational interactions is still based predominantly on asynchronous written
text, with email absorbing the lion's share of that communication. While there
are technical difficulties facing those who might wish to explore more dynamic
forms of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs), there are also
significant pedagogical barriers preventing teaching staff adopting these tools
as part of their core teaching repertoire or practice. This paper and
accompanying presentation will demonstrate how the use of online voice
technologies can improve the delivery of both campus based and distance
learning programs, and pose some suggestions as to what methodological
approaches can maximise their effectiveness.
Live from ED-MEDIA Conference in Hawaii: "Voice - The Missing Link?"
http://home.learningtimes.net/learningtimes?go=183640
. Here's what you'll find at that URL:
MICHAEL COGHLAN will be joined remotely (online) for his Hawaii-based
presentation by the following panel of guests:
More information on this session is available on Michael's ED-MEDIA
website: http://users.chariot.net.au/~michaelc/edmedia/mcsession.htm
Tune in ahead of time to download the new Aldo java applet (this
applet only works on PC's) Here's the link:
http://www.alado.net/sbdc/id9.html
You don't need a password, just your name. You will have two popup screens the
first time around. Michael's presentation will also take place in Tapped In. If
you haven't logged in to the new version of Tapped In yet, go to
http://www.tappedin.org/new
Afterwards: Dafne writes: "The event turned out to be a complete
success. We were 19 people online, and Michael reported that even though at the
beginning of the pres. there were only 10 people, at the end the room was at
its full capacity. Michael did a superb job as planner, speaker, and moderator
of the session. It was a WOW event."
Aiden comments: "Michael's Ed-Media conference ... In this kind of
presentation, it's not what you say that's important, it's how you say it.
Making sure that f2f participants understand what you're saying. The way
Michael presented and the way things are organized fit very well in such a way
that it answers and supplements the title of his presentation: Voice: the
missing link? People were very much interested in the tool rather than the way
it¡¦s used. This is a good because it signifies that EFL/ESL
teachers nowadays know why such tools are used in and out of the classroom.
Perhaps, many of the participants have tried applying the methods but are only
missing the right tool. Alado is certainly the right tool if we want to
integrate voice and text, plus all other features without the fear of losing
voice."
Damian has placed a recording of the lead-in to the session at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/webheadsinaction/files/
- the name of the recording is AladorRecording.wma and this might be a
direct link:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/webheadsinaction/files/AladorRecording.wma.
This file is available to the general public without password protection.
Either Michael or Alado will try to place a recording of the actual
presentation up somewhere, or so they had said when Damian stopped his
recording at 2:30 a.m. his time.
International Association for Citizenship, Social & Economics
Education: "Global Challenges: Local Responses" to be held in Egmond,
Holland (June 30 - July 2). Dafne Gonzalez and Arnold Muhren's
proposal "Webheads in Action" was accepted . Dafne and Arnold will be there
physically, and are counting on Webheads and others to be there virtually (if
not physically, too :-)
The Internet: Collaborative Tasks and Project Work > Nicky Hockly and
Gavin Dudeney > A new online course for EFL teachers interested in exploring
the potential of the Internet for use in their own classes. The course will
cover 4 weeks in July 2003, comprising 6-8 hours of online collaborative
group work per week coupled with tutorial time and offline reading and
reflection. You will receive a detailed study timetable to help you organise
your workload effectively. The course looks at a variety of types of
Internet-based collaborative tasks which are applicable in EFL situations. The
focus will be on short writing projects, and especially on webquests.
Sunday July 6,
2003 - wfw030706.htm - In which we discuss the shaky
job market for educators of our ilk and with it the need to augment our skills
with server side scripting skills, so we find links to ASP and PHP training
sites. We also discuss how we might teach simpler HTML skills to ESL/EFL
students, and Buthaina shows us numerous examples. Present were: Maggi in
Germany | Vance in Abu Dhabi | Fernanda in Portugal | Heather, Amy, and Leanne
in Bernie Dodge's course in San Diego | Susanne in Denmark | Christopher in
Germany| Buthaina in Kuwait | BJB in Pennsylvania | Rita in Argentina | Kelly
in San Diego perhaps? | Teresa in Portugal | Amanda | Juani in Chile | Nancy in
Michigan | Guohuaye in China | Sandy | Maria in Cordoba | and Sara .
July 16 - all day, the annual Tapped In Summer Festival - Come
help us launch the new version of Tapped In during the 12+ hour TI2 Launch
Festival on July 16. There are lots of extra pre-festival tours and tips
scheduled to help you get the most of your festival experience. Certificates of
Participation will be offered for members and guests who register for three
hours of events. (Continuing Ed Credits for the certificates are determined by
individual educational institutions.) See
http://tappedin.org/ti2web/calendar/festival03.html
for the Festival schedule and Festival information updates.
REO meets the Webheads: Experience Our Collaboration! This Tapped In
Festival Event is scheduled for 8am PDT/11am EDT/3pm GMT on July 16 in
the ASO. Real English Online is a project for teachers who use video and CD. We
discuss teaching strategies, try out new videos and movies, and generally help
each other with the pedagogy of CD, tape-based, and online video. Teams are
working on new ways of using video, new tools, and Hot Potatoes exercises to
supplement hours of free Real English movies online
Lots of chats in here not logged, esp one with Elluminate
with screen shots
Sunday August 17, 2003 - wfw030817.htm - From Buth right after the
chat: Dear Webheads, I would like to express gratitude to Vance, Michael, Sus,
Maggie, Fernanda, Maria, Venny, and Claire, for joining me at the
vClass/Conference Room of Compu.Ed, on Sunday, Aug 17. I appreciate your
support and hope you enjoyed the informal presentation on "how to use this
vClass as a moderator". Actually, being a moderator of this Conference Room,
despite the unexpected technical troubles that faced some of us, gave me the
chance to learn more about this kind of CMC tool. Your comments, feedback and
questions during our "action" at the Conference Room helped me to ponder and
discover for myself new issues related to e- learning and teaching,in general.
This experience has also given me the opportunity to implement a number of
skills and e-learning attitude learned from Webheads in action. Followed by a
short chat/discussion at Tapped In later, where Arif and other colleagues were
also available, I can proudly announce to you that this event was a new
learning moment to me. Moreover, it was one of those "EYES Wide Opened" moments
I/we keep searching for individually or in groups and they suddenly occur
urging us/me to continue, starting a new advanced search. Furthermore, I
believe, the example, which was given by Vance Stevens at TI when he was trying
to explain an issue realted to an educational theory, can beautifully summarize
the point: "Like Webheads, no one controls it, people make it happen through
individual efforts that cannot be described except through very complex
analysis." Finally, I would also like to thank two Compu.Ed representatives,
Geoffrey Kaye in Australia and Henry Kaye in UK, who joined us yesterday as a
moderator, for inviting all Webheads to use a Compu.Ed vClass, on Sundays for a
couple of hours or so. So, please feel free to contact them if you are
interested. Much Obliged WIA, Buth
Sunday August 24, 2003 - wfw030824.htm - A
small summer time group met and discussed topics such as MMS vs. SMS and
audioblogging (not free, unfortunately). Participants: Claire in Pennsylvania |
Christopher in Germany | Maggi in Germany | Aiden in Taiwain | Jahido in Amman
| Susanne in Denmark | Dafne in Spain | Corrinne | Michael in Australia | Jiang
from China | Vance up before dawn and about to fly home to Abu Dhabi from
Southern California
Thursday, August 28th, at GMT 4.15 Michael Coghlan,
eLearning Coordinator Douglas Mawson Institute of Technology, introduced a
group of staff in Adelaide to the thrills and spills of using Voice Online! We
gathered in the Wimba voice chat room in LearningTimes (http://www.learningtimes.org/). He had
written: "it would be great if there were some people there for them to talk
to. So if you're around and willing to drop by to join in a voice chat Michael
would appreciate it. It will be very informal with no set topic other than the
general focus of use/application of voice online tools." There turned out to be
about 20 people there from Australia and around the world and when the main
body moved off we ended up in the Elluminate 'Meeting Room' exploring that tool
with its developers.
Friday, August 29 at 01:30 a.m. GMT, which was the middle
of the night or very early morning for most participants. Frank Chou from Wimba
Taiwan invited Aiden and Webheads interested in collaborating with Aiden in a
research project for her Communications Skills course, for a hands-on training
on how to use Blackboard. Aiden has been given a free Blackboard account and
5-6 Wimba accounts (to be incorporated on the Blackboard site). Participants
met for a view of how Wimba worked with Blackboard. The live synch chat opened
in a separate window but other Wimba components appeared as components to the
BB interface. These included Wimba voice discussion board and voice email. We
tried sending voice emails and posting recordings to the discussion board while
in the synch voice chat and had varying degrees of success though we could hear
recordings playing simultaneously with people talking in voice chat. We spent a
couple of hours putting the interface through its paces. Webhead participants
included Vance, Aiden, Elizabeth Hanson-Smith, Dafne Gonzales, Susanne Nyrop,
and Michael Coghlan. Here's what Aiden had to say afterwards:
The site that Frank showed us today is a demo site and the features
that were in there were created to show us what's in BB and what can be created
using Wimba. The voice conference rooms can be created by the moderator and
he/she can create as many as he/she wants as long as the total number of
participants does not exceed 50. The groups can have simultaneous voice
conferences but a participant can only join one conference at a time. If she/he
tries to join another conference, he/she will lose the existing voice
conference that he/she was currently at and a new voice applet will appear. The
ability to create simultaneous voice conferences in one BB account is good
enough for my project. I could assign groups and decide on a schedule for
simultaneous voice chats. Still, saving chat logs and voice is still a dilemma,
not until Wimba's upgraded version is released. I'll try install Total Recorder
and see if this will do. The voice board is also great for archiving oral
responses.
Frank has requested Wimba France to grant me a free BB account for my
research. Webheads Instructors will also be given free access to this account.
Aiden
Wednesday, September 24 - Aiden Yeh hosted chat sessions with her
students.
Saturday, October 3Teresa created a Web page on the chat with
Louise and Saranda. It's at
http://www.malhatlantica.pt/teresadeca/webheads/sessions/2oct03-street-life-chat.htm
Saturday, October 11 - GLD VII warms up with a virtual "training"
session, aimed both at presenters and technologists interested in how we hold a
24 hour interactive event with large reach and small budget
http://www.bfranklin.edu/gld7/training.htm.
Sunday, October 12 - Children's Day and Global Learn Day in
Brazil. GLD VII's Brazilian partners will be celebrating Children Day which
Franklin will be webcasting. This celebration will last about four hours. On
Global Learn Day VII, November 16, we will return to Brazil and feature
highlights from Children's Day plus subsequent commentary about novel learning
programs in Brazil http://www.bfranklin.edu/gld7/brazil.htm.
Maria Rendon and Diane MacEachern will be doing a presentation of vClass
and a class simulation in Learning Times on Sunday, October 19 at
2 am GMT (check the time difference with your zone at
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/).
The presentation will be held at http://www.learningtimes.org. You will
need to become a member of Learning Times to use the services. Once you log in
as a member, go to "Members offices" and click on Diane MacEachern's office,
where the presentation will take place for one hour. And there will be a Q/A
session afterwards.
When you access the virtual classroom (vClass) for the first time, you
may be prompted to download Sun Microsystem's Java Web Start (or OpenJNLP for
Mac), a pre-requisite for the virtual classroom. To do this beforehand please
go to http://www.learningtimes.org,
go to "Meeting Room" and then click "Enter now" to get the software. If you
have a microphone, please have it plugged in on the day of the presentation. It
will be a pleasure to have you there! Let me know if you are interested in
attending. If you can't make it on that date, still let me know you are
interested. We may change the date if it is not suitable for many people.
Please contact me at m.rendon at pgrad.unimelb.edu.au or monina37au at
yahoo.com -thanks- Maria Rendon. MA CALL Candidate The University of Melbourne
Melbourne, Australia.
Sunday, October 19 * Webheads in Action/Writing for Webheads:
World friendship thru lang. learning 5:00-7:00am PDT/8:00-10:00am
EDT/12:00-13:00 GMT ; meet at http://www.tappedin.org/new and go from
there. See
http://sites.hsprofessional.com/vstevens/files/efi/software.htm
to fathom possibilities inherent in 'go from there'
On this day we experimented with Andy Pinchon's tweaking of
http://www.alado.net/webheads (on
port 430) and http://www.alado.net/login --> test
portal on port 80 (which sends packets allowed in by the phone company
watchdogs as http packets). Andy tweaked their portal at
http://www.alado.net so that we could reach
it on port 80 in order to get around the blocks on telephony imposed by service
providers in UAE and Argentina (two we know about) who have vested interest in
preventing voice communications on port 443, which
http://www.alado.net/webheads has
been set up to use. I think Andy might shift that one to port 80 (if he hasn't
already) but he had set up a special portal from
http://www.alado.net/login (port 430)
where you click on the test link (upper right of window) to patch in on port
80. The only downside was we could only get ten users in each portal and we had
more than that, all in different countries, so Andy (who had two computers) put
a mic up to the speakers of one so we could talk to each other in the different
rooms. Our chaos navigation multitasking challenge for the evening was to keep
up the banter in Tapped In while staying coherent in the voice chat.
Here is Rita's message just prior to this event
Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2003 23:57:17 -0300
From: "Rita Zeinstejer"
Subject: thanks, Andrew!
Hi, friends! Even though I've been more off than on lately, for
personal reasons of various kinds, I try to follow you as much as possible, but
only participate when I feel I can add something interesting to you, as it
hopefully is the case today.
For many months now I've been trying to get into Alado, to join some
of our WIA sessions there, unsuccessfully. For some reason, my computer refused
to enter the chat room. It was during one of our meetings at TI that I met
Andrew Pincon, a Webhead engineer who does technical support, and who offered
to provide me with some help to allow me to enter Alado. It was rather
difficult, due to timetables and differences, to agree on a certain day and
time, but today Andrew sent me a message to find out whether I was still
interested in sorting out my problem.
We met at TI and from there he started giving me precise
instructions, as he wanted to find out what my problem was. We stayed connected
for more than 2 hours and a half, on a Saturday afternoon, and first he thought
it was a question of changing my settings in my Windows XP, as I seemed to go
in and out, so he finally led me to download some software which enabled me to
use another portal, and even sent me the url to go through an internet
connection speed test. Finally, he concluded that here in Argentina, they have
a router switch which blocks us from talking on the internet through our normal
port. The Argentinian Government privatized the state owned phone company some
time ago, and the company that now is the phone company knows how to block
using the internet for voice, so that they won't lose any $$$ on overseas phone
calls...
As a solution, Andrew decided he'd move webheads into a different
portal that gets through the problems with this local phone company. That is,
if I have not misunderstood Andrew, he'll have all the changes made for a
different port entrance, just to allow other users like me, particularly me
this time, to join the sessions at Alado.
Andrew is another committed, low-profile, most generous Webhead who
will give out his precious time to help another Webhead in need, for almost
three hours! Out of sheer gratitude, I felt the need to share this with all of
you. Once again, it´s a privilege to belong to a community made up of
people like Andrew Pincon.
Michael Coghlan's series of presentations on the use of online voice
tools took place on Thursday, October 23rd at GMT: 3.30 am - 4.30
am as part of the Networking 2003 conference. (http://flexiblelearning.net.au/nw2003/)
Many of you will remember NetWorking 2002. This year it is a physical
conference. Anne Fox joined for part of the presentation to report on her
recent voice chats with her students. The session is entitled Finding Your
Voice Online
http://users.chariot.net.au/~michaelc/nw2003/mcsession.htm
Saturday, October 25, 08:10 GMT (to 9:00) Vance webcast his
presentation at the Wen Shen conference, Taipei Taiwan. We gathered in Tapped
In at http://www.tappedin.org, and we
tried to Webcast through the meeting room at
http://www.learningtimes.org but
ended up using http://www.alado.net/webheads, where
Andy Pinchon made us a special portal (on port 80; the reason was that voice
quality from the conference site at 25 kbps was marginally better on Alado;
otherwise we would have gone for the Mac compatibility and greater robustness
of LT - 30 simultaneous users vs. 10 at Alado). Presentation slides are at:
http://www.vancestevens.com/papers/webheads/taiwan/wenshan2003.htm.
In preparation, Vance sent this email Fri, 24 Oct 2003 20:43:29 -0000 (Subject:
last update before 8 a.m. GMT Oct 25)
Hi everyone,
Here's the plan for Oct 25
We have decided to use http://www.alado.net/webheads. We will
meet anyone interested there at 8 a.m. GMT. If we can't webcast our
presentation we will try to bring you into a demo at around 8:40 a.m. GMT.
Explanation:
Thanks very much to Maria in Melbourne, Buthaina in Kuwait, and Dafne
in Spain who helped Venny and I test earler Fri Oct 24.
After many experiments we determined that Alado was working better
than LearningTimes for us and that neither was working well. The reason is that
the LAN at the conference site is only giving us 25 kbps throughput. Voice is
breaking up.
Here's a possible solution. Aiden is getting about that with her
Bluetooth connection but it's a consistent 26 kbps and we tested it this
evening and found it acceptable. So we'll do this:
- We'll have my computer presenting at the conference site and
possibly broadcasting a web cam on Yahoo Messenger
- We'll have Aiden on Bluetooth broadcasting voice on
http://www.alado.net/webheads
- We'll have the conference computer at Tapped In to coordinate the
whole thing.
- Together we'll have 75 kbps (no, wait, we'll each have a third of
25 kbps ... no that's not true, Aiden will have her own independent 25 kbps ...
oh, nevermind, just join us and see what happens!
Ying Lan is here in Taipei and we had dinner last night and will go
to the conference site together. Aiden has just arrived (and we tested her
bluetooth). Venny has remained a remote participant but we expect to see him
tomorrow.
This is a big Webheads event and we hope to see you / hear you online
tomorrow 8 am GMT. Till then,
Vance
Sunday, November 2 * Annual Halloween Party at
Webheads in Action/Writing for Webheads: World friendship thru lang. learning
5:00-7:00am PDT/8:00-10:00am EDT/12:00-13:00 GMT ; meet at
http://www.tappedin.org/new and go
from there. See
http://sites.hsprofessional.com/vstevens/files/efi/software.htm
to fathom possibilities inherent in 'go from there'.
Thursday, November 13 Michael Coghlan (and other Flexible
Learning Leaders from South Australia) facilitated 3 x 25 roundtable
discussions on issues arising from Michael's study.
- 2.00 - 2.25 IT Firewalls: Steve Fisher (TAFE QLD) and Jon Baggaley
(Athabasca University) speak to the group about their experience of firewall
issues in their respective locations.
- 2.30 - 2.55 Firewalls of the Mind - In this section we'll talk about
the difficulties teachers have conceptualising how voice tools can be used in
their teaching. As Vance Stevens (Webheads founder) is the author of the
evocative phrase 'firewalls of the mind', I thought it fitting that he
addresses this issue briefly. And I think Jonathan Finkelstein
((learningtimes.org) may have something to add on this topic.
- 3.00 - 3.25 Possible Applications of Voice Tools
We will use the Elluminate vClass tool housed in LearningTimes
(learningtimes.org)
http://home.learningtimes.net/learningtimes?go=235631
and enter the Elluminate space from there.
From 10:00 a.m. - noon GMT on Sunday, November 16 - Vance Stevens
and Michael Coghlan were physically present live and f2f for the very first
time in Abu Dhabi, coordinating the Webheads program comprising presentations
from Teresa Almeida d'Eca and Barbara Dieu in addition to their own:
http://www.talkingcommunities.com/tc/gld7/speakers.htm.
My link here http://users.voice-alert.com/gld7/7066.html
was written by John Hibbs and does not accurately represent my views (not
that I disagree, it just mentions areas I have not myself delved into; e.g. "I
am particularly interested in the idea that a small radio station could serve
both as broadcast and training center" is not me talking, but John - I never
requested that this be changed to something I would have written).
Global Learn Day VII is an annual non-stop 24 hour event - with stops
in 24 time zones and also kicks off International Education Week
http://exchanges.state.gov/iew/.
Along with other presenters, GLD VII will showcase the ten Founding Members of
Friendship Through Education
http://www.bfranklin.edu/gld7/friendshipmembers.htm.
The theme will be Friendship Through Education.
Sunday Nov 30, 2003 - Teresa Almeida d'Eca has put up the
transcript of a chat with EVO_2004 members (most of whom are Webheads) together
with a link to a zipped file of the voice chat some of us had at
http://www.malhatlantica.pt/teresadeca/webheads/sessions/30nov03-evo-chat.htm
Michael Coghlan did one last presentation for the year on the use of
Online Voice tools on Friday, December 5th at 11.00 am QLD, Australia
time (01.00 am GMT). "Jonathan Finkelstein (LearningTimes) and Anne Fox
(Webhead from Denmark) will join me as co-presenters for this session that is
part of the program for the Learning Technologies 2003 conference (http://videolinq.tafe.net/learning2003/index.html).
We will be using the LearningTimes Meeting Room (the Elluminate vClass
software) for this 30 minute presentation and I invite you to come along and
participate in the session remotely. This session is for a live audience at the
conference and it is always instructive for people in conferences to see how
remote participants can join these types of virtual presentations."
Saturday, December 6 Writing for Webheads: World friendship thru
language learning is held each Saturday 16:00-17:00 GMT (9:00-10:00am
PDT/12:00-1:00pm EDT) at http://www.tappedin.org or
http://www.tappedin.org/new. Longtime
Webheads facilitator Maggi Doty would particularly like to meet ESL students at
this time. http://tappedin.org/ti2web/calendar/ti2dec03.html#lang2
Sunday, December 7 * Webheads in Action/Writing for Webheads:
World friendship thru lang. learning 5:00-7:00am PDT/8:00-10:00am
EDT/12:00-14:00 GMT ; meet at http://www.tappedin.org/new and go from
there. See
http://sites.hsprofessional.com/vstevens/files/efi/software.htm
to fathom possibilities inherent in 'go from there'.
http://tappedin.org/ti2web/calendar/ti2dec03.html#lang2
Sunday Dec 7, 2003 Teresa has posted the chat held for the
EVOnline moderators' group, many of whom are Webheads -
http://www.malhatlantica.pt/teresadeca/webheads/sessions/7dec03-evo-chat.htm.
Elizabeth Hanson-Smith files an interesting report:
Hi all-- this is the first chance I've had to report my great success
in using Elluminate - VClass in LearningTimes last Sat/Sun (9:00 am GMT Dec 7).
I was trying to join Michael at a voice chat, but couldn't find him and went to
the larger Meeting Room in LT by mistake, as it were. So there were Venny and
Raine, a teacher on the East Coast, who were voice chatting and using the white
board. This is the very first time the whole setup appeared properly on my Mac
OS X, and the audio was correctly initialized. I also got the other two to do
their Webcams on YM simultaneously, so we could see, hear, and read each other
all at the same time. I rejoiced in being able finally to get it all to work as
envisioned.
But the following day, when I tried to enter the Webheads chat room
in LT, which Vance wrote about, Java reported it could not set up the
audio--same old message. I plugged and unplugged, booted and rebooted, but
VClass would not recognize my audio equipment. Total bummer. If anyone has some
clue as to what is going on, I love to hear from you.
I should also mention that about 2 hrs later I had a short text chat
with Batasan, who is a computer lab person in Mongolia. This was on my mind
during a voice chat at Alado on Sunday with Andy Pincon, who was justifying why
Alado isn't made for Macs.
My feeling is still that no one is going to be using dialup in the
future. Developing countries do not begin by installing phones--they install
cable or microwave transmitters. I hear that in Italy or Brazil it takes 3
months to get a land phone, but cell phones are instaneous--wifi is the next
good thing, and it takes a lot less infrastructure than phone lines. If you can
receive a phone call on any cell phone, why not receive voice on any computer?
While Mac may be only 7-8% of the world market, it may be 100% for any given
teacher.
Buthaina Alothman replies:
Elizabeth, Thanks for sharing your report on Webheads vRoom at LT by
Eluminate.Actually, no educator or teacher in the world can resist it, as it's
not very difficult to use and has that "funky" look that is suitable for young
and adult learners. The voice facility is great as you don't have to hold the
ctrl button or click and hold a button. In additon,the lay out of some of its
features, such as, the tex-chat, voice box, and the White board are controlable
by both a moderator and an attendant. Have a look at the following URL, created
earlier, when Sus and I met to explore and learn more about it, I hope you find
it useful: http://alothman-b.tripod.com/vclass-jennifer.htm
Saturday, December 13 Writing for Webheads: World friendship thru
language learning is held each Saturday 16:00-17:00 GMT (9:00-10:00am
PDT/12:00-1:00pm EDT) at http://www.tappedin.org or
http://www.tappedin.org/new. Longtime
Webheads facilitator Maggi Doty would particularly like to meet ESL students at
this time. http://tappedin.org/ti2web/calendar/ti2dec03.html#lang2
Sunday, December 14* Webheads in Action/Writing for Webheads:
World friendship thru lang. learning 5:00-7:00am PDT/8:00-10:00am
EDT/12:00-14:00 GMT ; meet at http://www.tappedin.org/new and go from
there. See
http://sites.hsprofessional.com/vstevens/files/efi/software.htm
to fathom possibilities inherent in 'go from there'.
http://tappedin.org/ti2web/calendar/ti2dec03.html#lang2
Saturday, December 20 Writing for Webheads: World friendship thru
language learning is held each Saturday 16:00-17:00 GMT (9:00-10:00am
PDT/12:00-1:00pm EDT) at http://www.tappedin.org or
http://www.tappedin.org/new. Longtime
Webheads facilitator Maggi Doty would particularly like to meet ESL students at
this time. http://tappedin.org/ti2web/calendar/ti2dec03.html#lang2
Sunday, December 21* Webheads in Action/Writing for Webheads:
World friendship thru lang. learning 5:00-7:00am PDT/8:00-10:00am
EDT/12:00-14:00 GMT ; meet at http://www.tappedin.org/new and go from
there. See
http://sites.hsprofessional.com/vstevens/files/efi/software.htm
to fathom possibilities inherent in 'go from there'.
http://tappedin.org/ti2web/calendar/ti2dec03.html#lang2
Saturday, December 27 Writing for Webheads: World friendship thru
language learning is held each Saturday 16:00-17:00 GMT (9:00-10:00am
PDT/12:00-1:00pm EDT) at http://www.tappedin.org or
http://www.tappedin.org/new. Longtime
Webheads facilitator Maggi Doty would particularly like to meet ESL students at
this time. http://tappedin.org/ti2web/calendar/ti2dec03.html#lang2
Sunday, December 28* Webheads in Action/Writing for Webheads:
World friendship thru lang. learning 5:00-7:00am PDT/8:00-10:00am
EDT/12:00-14:00 GMT ; meet at http://www.tappedin.org/new and go from
there. See
http://sites.hsprofessional.com/vstevens/files/efi/software.htm
to fathom possibilities inherent in 'go from there'.
http://tappedin.org/ti2web/calendar/ti2dec03.html#lang2
Buthaina Al Othman ended the year for webheads on a high note with her
broadcast of her EfS 162 science class at Kuwait University, during which 10 of
her students web cast six different presentations as their final project via
the Alado chat facility. The six presentations were held on two consecutive
days, December 27 & 28, 2003, from 8 to 9 GMT. Duration of each
group or individual presentation was 10 minutes, including interaction and
discussion with the audience. Buth wrote us that she "would be very
appreciative if ,at least, four (4) Webheads volunteer, two (2) to be present
on each day and are welcome to ask or comment on a presentation. Two English
instructors from the English Language Unit where I work at the College of
Science, Dot and Eman, are to participate as well. For more details on the
project and topics to be presented by my students, please check out this URL:
http://www.geocities.com/esl_efl_ku/wia_162finalproj.htm
Please note that EfS 162 students presnetations run for two weeks, from
December 27 to January 7, 2004. I have scheduled students online presentations
on December 27 & 28." Here are some reactions:
Date: Thu, 01 Jan 2004 19:21:56 -0000
From: "Vance
Stevens"
Subject: Happy New Year everyone
Hi all,
I'm reflecting on a remarkably productive past year with Webheads, one
in which the community has shown itself to be truly organic, with many members
taking numerous initiatives reflecting well on the group as a whole. We have
also gained attention and respect this past year. Our work has been cited,
mentioned, and featured in numerous professional circles and gatherings in
2003. I think we have a lot to be proud of, and I look forward to heightened
collaboration in 2004.
The past six months have been especially challenging for me as I have
met the demands of a forced career shift, but I think I've got my feet planted
after my first semester in my new job and life should be easier when next
semester I can concentrate on doing what is expected of me without having to
spend so much time figuring out what that is. I'm hoping this can translate
into a return to more time spent on Webheads. I certainly appreciate being a
part of such a robust and competent community able to recover the ball and move
it forward when team members are forced to devote attention elsewhere.
After mid January I will be in Cairo for a week giving a number of
presentations. I haven't worked out yet exactly what those presentations will
entail but I'm hoping to work in some online events involving Webheads,
especially as we now have an expert there, Randa, who knows what we will need.
I'll let you know of progress as people return to work after their Christmas
holidays.
Happy New Year to all,
Vance
Our most recent logged chat is the one above
^
Our next online chat is always this coming Saturday at
16:00 GMT and Sunday, noon GMT (for about 2 hours on Sunday, 1 hour on
Saturday). What time is that where you are? Check:
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/full.html
What will happen when we meet? Who knows? (Just about anything!)
But click here to get an idea. Meet us at Tapped
In, http://www.tappedin.org
You are welcome to join us at any of the
locations given at the top of this page!
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Last updated: January 10, 2007 |
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