TESOL Electronic Village
(EV)Online 2006)
Session
Establishing and maintaining
'Web presence' 2.0:
The
Moodle
January 16 -
February 26, 2006
http://webpresence.pbwiki.com
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TESOL Electronic Village Establishing and maintaining January 16 -
February 26, 2006 |
facilitated by:
Welcome to Webpresence 2.0, the Moodle, an online course prepared for TESOL/Electronic Village Online 2006.
This is a reincarnation of a course presented at last year's EVO 2005 sessions.
This year I (Vance) am revitalizing, as
opposed to merely repeating, this course with the help of the two co-moderators
mentioned above. In order that we can collaborate on our presentation, we are
using a wiki:
http://webpresence.pbwiki.com
After you have read what you find here, you should click on the wiki link for updated information.
I (Vance) am traveling at the start of this session January 16. Therefore, my co-moderators will be conducting this session with my subdued presence until I am able to return to Abu Dhabi on Jan 28 and take a more active role in the proceedings.
Starting in week 3 I will try and engage my student Webheads group at http://wfw.webheads.info in a round of development of Webpresence. This may surprise you but up to early January I hadn't really decided how to do it. The options for web development seem to be changing rapidly. Toward the end of last year I was encouraging people to post their photos to Buzznet, but now Buzznet has restricted viewing to registered viewers. Registration is still free, but it's an aggravating impediment. I've become intrigued with Peanut Butter Wiki, which I've used to set up http://webpresence.pbwiki.com. I'm also starting to look at http://elgg.net as a possible base for an online community. I like Frapper as a means of showing faces of group members, and the code there can be pasted to a web page so that the page then has a slide show. The Frapper code can also be pasted into a Moodle. I am planning to beckon the Webheads to follow me to a Moodle community, or perhaps an Elgg one, and we will know shortly which it is.
The idea is to find a spot where the members of the community can develop their own web presences and others can link to them. This is a far cry from the pages I've had to set up and maintain on behalf of members of previous communities I've helped to start and nurture. If this works we will have all learned something about community development online, how to do it more efficiently and therefore more effectively than in the past.
The following syllabus was envisaged when our session was proposed. Now my co-mods and I are working on a more organic and collaborative version of the syllabus here: http://webpresence.pbwiki.com/NewImprovedSchedule
Look there to see changes in what we have made to the original proposal. Note that changes made at the URL above supercede what was originally planned in our proposal, below.
1. Title of online session:
Establishing and maintaining 'Web presence' Part 2: The Moodle
2. A brief description of the content (an abstract):
There are many reasons why teachers might be interested in Web presence.Teachers might want to share with peers information on a particular area of expertise within their field, or they might want to help students establish a web presence of their own so they can write authentically and communicatively to an audience that extends beyond the walls of the brick and mortar classroom, or they might be interested in setting up their own course or content management learning environments. In either of these roles teachers might be members and perhaps even facilitators of an online community. Such communities are enhanced by participants' getting to know one another through artifacts available in the online environment. Where the facilitator must establish and maintain these artifacts (in the form of web pages) this becomes such a burden on the facilitator that interaction within the community may be compromised.
This is a continuation of a session that was given during the 2005 EVO program. That session showed participants various ways of establishing web presence and set out a tutorial that can be used or taught to others to ensure that members of an online community are capable of taking on the responsibility for establishing and maintaining their own web presence, thus freeing the facilitator to devote attentions to other aspects of community building without having to neglect the crucial one of creating a means by which community members can meet and appreciate the skills and personalities of one another. This year's session improves on the concept by improving on the Moodle that was created for the 2005 session, with particular emphasis on how Moodles can be set up and used to develop platforms for the artifacts mentioned above and effectively implement such tutorials online.
Content will be presented in this course through web pages that will constantly model
In the course of the 6 weeks, participants will learn collaboratively and hands on to manage the kind of online learning environment they feel capable of setting up. These might include:
3. The target audience and potential member group sponsor:
Teachers and trainers of teachers of foreign languages, including ESL/EFL, wishing to learn more about setting up web presences for themselves and their students, and managing these through a course/content management system, in this case Moodle (and/or Joomla ...we'll experiment). The focus however will not be on absolute beginners to an online community. The target will be those who already interact in online communities and who would like to push up to the next level of managing and archiving their interaction, and those who facilitate such communities and want to inculcate a sense of responsibility in participants regarding setting up and maintaining their own online presences.
4. A week-by-week outline of the proposed activities during the 6-week period (subject to alteration between now and January 2006)
Week 1 - introductions and familiarization with the interface-
The moodle will be introduced and forums set up there for participants to get to know one another. Participants will modify their profiles. Tutorials will be set up on:
Week 2 -
More interaction will be explored in the Moodle. Tutorials will be set up on:
Week 3 -
More interaction will be explored in the Moodle. Tutorials will be set up on:
Week 4 -
More interaction will be explored in the Moodle. Tutorials will be set up on:
Week 5 -
Week 6 - closing week for evaluations, completion of projects, and final discussions-
More interaction will be explored in the Moodle. Tutorials will be set up on:
5. The communication media expected to be used (discussion postings only, chat, Website, links related to your topic, etc.) Check back here for updates to specific URLs
7. A brief biographical statement (50 words) and link to your Website (if available)
For Vance there is a biostatement here:
http://www.vancestevens.com/vance.htm
For
ElderBob and Buth ...
This update January 12, 2006