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Portals:
This is the main Mahdia 2004 Workshops page | Blog:
http://vance2004tunisia.blogspot.com
| Buzznet: http://mahdi2004.buzznet.com |
YahooGroup: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mahdia_2004
or http://tinyurl.com/5g7pb |
Photos:
Ofoto
pictures album | TVS: http://www.evt.edunet.tn/ |
Participant: Blogs and
Webpages
New Information Technologies
in ELT
IT Networks in ELT
Workshops presented by Vance
Stevens
July 19 - 31, 2004, in Mahdia, Tunisia
As part of the English Language Specialist Program
http://exchanges.state.gov/education/engteaching/
in support of the Tunisian Summer English Institute for secondary school
teachers
Workshops rationale |
Week 1 Workshops | Week 2
Workshops
The course blog:
http://vance2004tunisia.blogspot.com
Yahoo
Group Portal: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mahdia_2004
or http://tinyurl.com/5g7pb
Background |
This year's workshops planning was to
include Online collaboration
Bibliography |
Ofoto
pictures album | Final comments
These workshops were intended to combine lectures and demonstrations
with hands-on workshops and activities involving participants with a view to
giving participants ideas, methods and materials they will be able to put to
immediate use in their own classrooms. The course objectives are to introduce
concepts of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) projects in
preparatory and secondary schools, digital content, production and
exploitation, online tutoring, management and optimization of ICT spaces and
networks and ICT quality control.
The focus for the workshops was modified to "basically hands-on
sessions with a simulation of tutoring based on the TVS material - which you
will see when in Mahdia ... You could use the TVS portal or any other web
resources - provided the participants get trained in giving feedback to
learners when they access the online material. "
|
Workshop rationale:  |
I've decided to start with a look at any number of the sites which
explain the principles of good online tutoring, have the participants identify
the principles that are most applicable to them, and in the process work out
with them what it is they feel they need most, and thus arrive at an
understanding of their work.
Concurrently, in the blended learning environment I intend to
foster, I will have us all recording our findings and interacting with each
other online (and set up the sites for this in class in the face to face
setting). I'll teach the students the tools to get this kind of interaction
going and some will take away some pointers from the content, and the best
among them will become webmasters. The majority should benefit from
experiencing online learning in a constructivist setting both as participants
and to varying degrees as creators of such settings.
Examples of such tools include:
|
In recent presentations such as
http://www.homestead.com/prosites-vstevens/files/efi/papers/tesol/colloquium2004/fun00.htm
some points I have been pressing home are:
- that in order to use online tools effectively with students,
teachers need to familiarize themselves with the tools in benign collaborative
settings (that is, with each other first; not use them without practice with
students straight away).
- the importance of encouraging what I call F.U.N. or Frivolous
Unanticipated Nonsense ...
- that is, take advantage of the spontaneous and sometimes unexpected
or serendipitous aspects of the medium, which sometimes involves a teacher
having to allow him or herself a paradigm shift in attitudes toward the nature
of learning, rather than hold to less flexible teaching styles that might not
apply to multi-literate learning.
So I'll be tailoring the workshops along these lines:
- starting with formulating a set of principles that apply to this
group, and
- interspersing this with learning to use various tools for
interacting in constructivist learning environments, such as the one I intend
to create in these workshops,
- and learning just enough HTML to let participants fine tune (really
use) some of these tools,
(see my HTML tutorial
http://www.homestead.com/prosites-vstevens/files/pi/very_basics/starthere.htm
- and finally to create a dynamic online environment with potential to
continue offering support to participants after the face-to-face sessions have
concluded at end of July, 2004
Hopefully, it will all fit together and make sense and be effective by
the end of the workshop.
Bibliography
The Skill of Communication: Technology brought to bear on the art of
language learning by Vance Stevens, Petroleum Institute, Abu Dhabi, UAE Plenary
address for the 9th EFL Conference: "Integrating EFL Skills: Strategies for The
Teacher, Creativity and Assessment" Wednesday January 21, 2004 - The American
University of Cairo, Egypt. Retrieved July 16, 2004 from
http://sites.hsprofessional.com/vstevens/files/efi/papers/cairo2004/plenary/speech.htm
From the EVOnline tutor training materials:
From a Google search on 'online tutor distance education'
http://tinyurl.com/6wufd
LIBRARY: DELIVERING e-LEARNING Role and skills of the Online Tutor.
Retrieved July 16, 2004 from
http://www.e-learningcentre.co.uk/eclipse/Resources/teach.htm
the above includes
A good blogger's blog on use of blogs in education: incorporated
subversion: James Farmer's Online Education Weblog. Retrieved July 16, 2004
from http://radio.weblogs.com/0120501/2004/07/15.html#a756
All about Blogs and Wikis
http://necc.edweblogs.org/2004/archives/000130.php
Curt Bonk's course on P600/R685 Topical Seminar (Ed Psych as well as
IST) "Online Learning Pedagogy and Evaluation"
http://php.indiana.edu/~cjbonk/p600syl2.html ; lots of resources of
interest to online tutors here.
The August 2004 issue of the International Journal of Instructional
Technology & Distance Learning
http://itdl.org/Journal/Aug_04/index.htm
Has four articles on Web-based teaching and learning, available as pdf files:
- The Design Elements of Web-Based Learning Environments
- A Pedagogical Design Strategy for Effective Technology-Based
Learning: iLEARN Model
- A Pilot Study Regarding Educational Effectiveness of Web-Based
E-Learning
- Distinctive Features of Computer-Mediated Bulletin Board
Discussions
Final comments on
the sessions
These sessions had a difficult start as expert and trainees got to know
one another and adjusted to realities where expectations on either side were
not met because they were unrealistic or misperceived. However, once the
trainer came to understand the situation and context of the trainees, and to
listen to and take on board their forthright criticisms, and once the trainees
came to understand and appreciate the trainer's methods, the courses proceeded
in a spirit of sharing and exploration while practicing hands on with tools the
trainees hadn't originally thought to use, but which they came to see would be
useful and help them to adapt to the environment of online tutoring.
I felt I had cracked the barrier on acceptance of my somewhat unique
perspectives on how to engage in online tutoring when the participants started
to use our Yahoo Group to have F.U.N. and started posting there rhymes about me
and giving their own unique perspectives on the material!!
|
Welcome dear Vance!
With you IT participants are in trance!
Let them learn and advance!
They might ,one day,be freelance
IT
experts with some chance!
At these rhymes ,have a quick glance.
Here is Vance.
He's here to help us advance.
He will
lead the dance.
Join the group, give a glance,
And grasp this
valuable chance! |
|
Trainee-Trainer Rapport
Teachers train,
Teachers develop.
Trainers help
And
never stop
Thinking on how to train!
Foster creativity
Or impose strain?
Encourage autonomy
Or cause pain?
Guide and monitor,
Do not train!
Facilitate but do not reign
Over pedagogy as a sovereign!
You are no master,dear trainer,
You are an elder adviser.
Care and share
Do not wear the boss’s hat!
Let us,as
friends,chat!
No slavishness,
No linear plan!
Reshuffle task sequence,
Eclectically scan!
Adapt and never adopt
Any new method as such!
For
flexibility opt!
Do not obey much
The rigid rules of training
But focus on self-developing!
Jawida Ben Afia
Participant
projects
I've set up two buzznet blogs with pictures of the people below and
links to their sites. They're at
Blogs
The following links were posted as
Yahoo Groups bookmarks on July 30, 2004
Tripod web sites
The following links were
posted as Yahoo Groups bookmarks on July 29, 2004
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Last Updated: August 22,
2004 |
Copyright 2004 by Vance Stevens