The Webheads Community of Language Learners Online

by Vance Stevens and Arif Altun

Proceeds from a demonstration given November 7, 2001, 12:00-12:50 GMT

http://sites.hsprofessional.com/vstevens/files/efi/papers/t2t2001/proceeds.htm

Webheads

Abstract
Rationale
Webheads
The Study
Conclusion

The Webheads communities

Writing for Webheads (Stevens, 2002a) was inaugurated around 1998 when three online teachers -Vance Stevens, Michael Coghlan, and Margaret Doty - started meeting coincidentally in regular online "3-D" chat class sessions. Students were soon encountered who for their own reasons shared our interest in communicating online, and bonds were formed among participants. Many other students were steered our way by Dave Winet, coordinator of English for Internet (Winet, 1997-1998)

We have always striven to engage members of our group in motivating, communicative, and authentic interaction. Our language learning activities are purely constructivist and encourage the participation of other community members in the zone of proximal development. Over the years a community has formed that meets regularly, supports each other's goals and agendas, and makes and keeps commitments to one another. As an example of its commitment and continuity, the group continues to meet live and online each Sunday noon GMT as it has done since 1998. This community has been described more fully in Stevens (2001a).

The main reason for the group's cohesion is that it utilizes freely available technology to project its human side in as many modalities as the latest developments in CMC will allow. One of the most basic technologies available is the transfer of digital photographs over the Internet either as email attachments or posted on web pages. Many Webheads have sent us their pictures, but one means by which group members perceive each other as tangibly fellow-human (other digitally transmitted artifacts include voice, video, and text -- both chat and essays). The photos are arrayed in a gallery on the group's main page, where they catch the eye of a newcomer who hits on the Writing for Webheads website. There is also a students' page where a complete list of Webheads enrolled in the efiwebheads YahooGroup is maintained. Introductions sent by new members to the YahooGroup list are used to create web pages for each member, which can then be accessed through links on the Students' page. Before material is posted to the student web pages, it is corrected for grammar and usage by a native speaker of English, which is one reason we call this group Writing for Webheads.

In addition to encouraging group members to get to know one another and serving as a means for providing feedback on their writing, the Students' page serves to favor group cohesion. Participation in the group is tracked at the Students' page, as the listing is sorted on the most recent interactions of each member with the group. The students at the top of the list are therefore the more active ones (and those at the bottom the lurkers). Tenure in the group is also reflected through display of gif animated 'rainbow stars,' each representing a year of participation in Webheads (there are currently several 3- and 4-star members). This page also displays other information pertaining to each student, such as birthdays and anniversaries of joining the group, and links to web pages of members who have created their own.

Webheads have moved well beyond simply sharing voice and image files via email. The group has for the last couple of years engaged in regular synchronous online text- and avatar-based chat, augmented with voice and video events. As can be seen from our list of most currently used chat clients (Stevens, 2002b) , the text-based chat client most favored by Webheads these days is Tapped In (n.d.). Tapped In is easily accessible, has an easily navigable interface, promotes a built-in community, keeps logs, and is well funded by its sponsors SRI International, Sun Microsystems, and National Science Foundation. For multimedia chat, Yahoo Messenger enables us to find each other online and provides multiple user voice- and video web cam-enabled chat as well as instant messaging. For one-on-one voice- and video-enabled chat we have also found it convenient to use Netmeeting, which we generally access through sessions already established in MSN Messenger.

More recently the community has been attracting teaching peers. Many of these have joined the Writing for Webheads group while others have formed their own community, Webheads in Action (Stevens, 2002c). While the focus of the WFW group is more on students, the WIA group is composed entirely of language-teaching peers. This group in particular has evolved into a community of practice, a support group for those interested in learning about and exploring CMC by doing it with each other. The goals of this community are forwarded through the maintenance of a virtual 'zone of proximal development' in which scaffolding continually takes place through synchronous and asynchronous online interaction. Whereas student Webheads tend to join only Writing for Webheads, several teaching professional Webheads are members of both groups. The co-authors of this report, for example, are both active participants in both groups.

Teaching members of Writing for Webheads have occasionally involved the Webheads communities in their language learning projects. For example, classroom collaboration activities were organized by Arif Altun in Bolu, Turkey, and WFW participant Yaodong Chen in Liuzhou, China. On these occasions, the students in each country spoke and wrote to each other, and photos were taken in both Turkey and China and shared among all participants in the chats via web pages posted on the Internet. These events have provided data for the study described here.

Note: See Appendix for urls of items underlined in this section



Vance Stevens
(MLI)

Arif Altun
(Nigde University)
 



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Last updated: November 2, 2002 in Hot Metal Pro 6.0