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Portals: 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
Workshops presented by Vance
Stevens
Group 2 (week 2) July 26 - 31, 2004, in Mahdia, Tunisia
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Workshop activities for Week 2
Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday |
Thursday | Friday |
Saturday
see materials
under development for Week 2
View
Ofoto pictures album | See participant:
Blogs and
Webpages
Workshop topics Monday through Thursday:
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Workshop topics planned for Friday and Saturday:
Feedback, October 2004 ...
As a result of this workshop at least two of these students have written to inform me and communities I work with of their work with students keeping blogs:
 Hela, Ilhem, and Dalel made keynote presentations at the plenary session |
I was invited to attend a plenary session which gathered the teachers for this week of activities into one big group which would split later, half coming to my smaller workgroup. The topic of discussion for the morning was professional development through formation of communities of teachers sharing resources and expertise online (tutoring each other, in other words). After the break the teachers presented on some of the projects they had accomplished and posted to http://www.edunet.tn.tnelt/. It was suggested that the group remain together for this so I attended and recorded my notes in my blog at http://vance2004tunisia.blogspot.com. This is my record of that event. Please help me correct it: On Saturday July 26 we are being treated to a series of presentations by Tunisian teachers reporting on their projects. I decided to 'blog' my notes (record my notes in my WebLog). |
Abdulmalek presented Spread Your Pens http://www.edunet.tn/tnelt/projects/perso_site ...
Dalel showed Mourad's ELT corner http://www.edunet.tn/tnelt/projects/mourad/exerc.htm
and Primary School English Clubs http://www.edunet.tn/chabakati/EspEns/...
http://www.edunet.tn.tnelt/projects/perso_site/tataouine/michleoui/index.htm Flash and course builder developed site writing, grammar, flash zone, Welcome to english Lessons, update notices done with flash announcement
http://www.edunet.tn/depinteg/projectstic/secondaire/projects/anglais/pro_index ...
ONline magazines Besma's at http://www.edunet.tn/tnelt/mags/besma/index1.htm Dalel's ?? http://www.edunet.tn/tnelt/mags/first_net ...
at http://www.edunet.tn/tnelt/ Resources / ICT experiences Olfa Bougacha, Talking about Music listening activities, listen to song and do exercises (gap filling with Lean on Me) Hot Pot integrated with HTML and media play Discussion of this activity teacher chose popular song so difficult lyrics didn't matter teacher moved around the room making sure that all students on task integration of skills, assisted by computing teacher (two teachers, one with computer skills, one concerned with content)
AbdulMalek showed http://www.edunet.tn/tnelt/ict_exper/bac/test1.htm
Lamia was introduced as a 'novice with ITC having had only one training course in Malaysia.' She presented pictures depicting stage of life, problems with drugs, loneliness, etc (aimed at teenagers) Students choose titles for the pictures (vocabulary like stress, depression, self esteem, personality traits) Say sentences about yourself (students express themselves straightforwardly, to the point) uses http://www.mgprojekte.mgjever.de/1circle/7.html
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Rationale for the course: Online classes vs. face to face classes (and blended environments) I went over my rationale for this
course (which I presented in a handout); |
I thought the previous group didn't get sufficient information about me and my work to enable them to ask the most pertinent questions that would help them understand the material with respect to their needs, so with the second group I took more time to introduce myself. Because my work is generally not reachable from Tunisia, I used my laptop (local links in the column on the left). The middle column gives the URL for people with unfettered Internet access, and the right hand column gives the version of the pages cached at Google for those whose country proxy blocks Geocities sites.
The table below describes some of my web projects and explains how they can be accessed from in and outside Tunisia:
Differences between online courses and face-to-face courses
Just before the break, participants formed groups and started their own charts, like this one ...
| Characteristics of pedagogical environments | Face to face | Online |
| presentation of material | predictable order, linear | hyperlinked, branching, non-linear |
| classroom management | can be lockstep or project based | self-paced |
| feedback from instructor | Instructor responds 'on the fly', feedback ends when instructor stops discourse, or students pursue suggestions in notes | can be comprehensive and hyperlinked to further information if well thought out in advance |
| most suitable learning paradigm | any paradigm can be applied, but teachers tend to dominate classrooms as 'sage on the stage' | favor constructivist paradigms, teachers function best as 'guide on the side' |
| Duration of learning | stops at end of class | continues beyond end of class with asynchronous modes of communication possible, even synchronous ones |
| Demands on teacher | takes place during class times and marking after class | tends to be very demanding |
| Individualization | suppressed | conducive to individual effort |
| Interaction with students | many slip through the cracks | can be intensively one-on-one |
| Mode of presentation | tends to be paper-based | no paper, works via web pages |
 Moncef and Mohammed |
At break time there was some pressure from the participants to get on with hands on learning. It was explained to me at this time and after the class that these participants had responsibilities for taking charge of tutoring online starting in September and they had been told that an expert (me) would teach them how to do this. Therefore they were relying on me for crucial assistance with this task. Furthermore they had been pulled from their families and were sacrificing part of their vacation to attend these workshops so they would resent anything they considered a waste of time. I explained that in the previous week when I had gone straight into the tools I had been critiqued for not explaining clearly enough why my methods were effective. It appeared that we could reach a happy medium in my presentation, and so I deviated from plan and devoted the rest of the afternoon to setting the students up with Yahoo Groups, having them create blogs (some told me they weren't leaving till they had a blog), and then in response to student questions, putting pictures up at the blogs. The participants seemed satisfied with this shift in emphasis. |
mahdia_2004 Yahoo Group: Our main online shared space
We need everyone to enroll in our YahooGroup at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mahdia_2004.
We examined some of the features of the site; particularly Files, Photos,
Calendar, Links, Messages, Database, Chat, and Polls.
Participants
should:
To enroll, you must be a Yahoo member (Sign up at
http://www.yahoo.com)
If you are a Yahoo
member, simply
You can also subscribe by email: mahdia_2004-subscribe@yahoogroups.com (in that case you can receive email but you won't be able to utilize the Yahoo Group web site features at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mahdia_2004)
Once you've subscribed, do the following:
Why Blog?
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Here's a must-read for teachers both novice and those wanting to know more about the potential of blogs and how they can enhance language learning: |
http://members.tripod.com/the_english_dept/blog04/ |
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How to start a blog at Blogger |
http://www.homestead.com/prosites-vstevens/files/efi/blogger_tutorial.htm |
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Start a blog here: |
http://www.blogger.com |
Register your blog as a link in our Yahoo Group
When you can access the http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mahdia_2004 website as a member, add a link to your blog by adding a bookmark to the Our Blogs folder under Links. Here are the steps:
Skills inventory: By the end of the day, participants had learned how to:
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I upload photos from my camera to my computer, and from there I upload them to http://www.ofoto.com. This creates 'albums' which you can share with your friends, this way:
Or if you choose to 'share' your photos through the site interface:
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The photo albums the Mahdia workshops are here:
Using photos on the Internet
How can I create a web site to give my pics a specific URL?
For example, I created a web space named mahdia2004. I uploaded a pic (to test that it works from Tunisia). Its URL is http://mahdia2004.tripod.com/DSCN0196.JPG (capital letters are significant)
For our class, we added the syntax to display a
picture from the Internet (in a Notepad) and pasted it as a Posting in our
blogs.
In the example above: <IMG
SRC="http://mahdia2004.tripod.com/DSCN0196.JPG">
At the break, most if not all participants had
After the break, I had the participants
I created the following page on the digital projector and had the students follow its creation: http://mahdia2004.tripod.com/vance.htm
The students learned and incorporated into their own projects the ability to:
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Dalel has a presentation for us on Thursday. We'll
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In the afternoon, we worked a little more with images and how to get them up on web pages. By way of review ...
Where can you acquire digital images
You can download files to your computer from the Yahoo Groups and Ofotos
album areas
You can link to photos on anyone's personal website by using the
syntax (as an example)
<IMG
SRC="http://www.location.com/picname.jpg">
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Source |
Does the image have a URL? |
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From the Internet (e.g.
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Yes, and you can find
by right clicking on the image and selecting 'Properties' |
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Take photos with a digital camera and transfer them to your computer |
No, the image is on your computer, not available to anyone on the Internet |
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Scan analog photos and store the files on your computer |
No, the image is on your computer, not available to anyone on the Internet |
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Screen capture |
No, normally the image is saved locally, not available to anyone on the Internet |
Storing photos on the Internet
I asked the participants what was the big advantage of uploading files to their own web space (in our case, on Tripod).
Answer: In order to use photographs on the Internet, they have to be
Any picture stored on the Internet will have its unique URL but not all URLs can be accesses by anyone from anywhere on the Internet.
Here's how pictures you have access to now are stored on the Internet.
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Image location on the Internet |
Can you use the picture's URL in your blog? |
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At a web site (such as Tripod, or any on any page you find on the Internet) |
Yes (right click on the picture and select Properties to find its URL) |
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In a Yahoo Groups Files or Photos area |
Yes, and you can right click on the photo to see its URL, ... but anyone who tries to see the image will be promted for a Yahoo ID and password and THEN Yahoo must recognize that person as a member the group, or it will deny access to the photo |
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In an Ofoto album |
That depends; we have seen Ofoto URLs work at Blogger one moment and not work when the page is refreshed - so, not reliable. We did some experiments at my blog. We tried to display the image using IMG SRC and it worked once and then stopped. So we created a hyperlink to the picture (from the blog) so it would open in a browser window, and that works. You can see the results of our experiments at the blog: http://vance2004tunisia.blogspot.com |
Sometimes you want to keep an image of something that is on your computer screen. To do screen captures you
In order to use the image you must manipulate it. For example, rarely will you want to display the contents of the entire screen. You need a cropping tool to select only the part you need. You might need to convert your huge BMP image to a smaller (compressed) JPG or GIF. You might want to resize the image or make other adjustments. Do this you'll need to trial or purchase image editing software. You can find some shareware products listed here:
Here's a screen shot that I made during the workshops to
illustrate the process
Displaying pictures on a web page using Tables
The result can be seen at http://mahdia2004.tripod.com/vance.htm (When I upload it, view source to see the tables that have been added.)
 Fatima, Hafedh, and Abdulmalik |
Once your pictures have a specific URL, you can link to them at Blogger There are three places you could put pictures in a blog hosted at http://www.blogger.com:
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Displaying images through HTML code, including resizing them
All you need to know about HTML Vance's HTML Tutorial on Inserting Images into web pages - this tutorial page has the syntax for both displaying the picture URL and resizing it
- http://www.homestead.com/prosites-vstevens/files/pi/very_basics/example06.htm
- Here is that code: <IMG SRC="http ... " height ="123" width ="321">
We look at Buzznet, http://www.buzznet.com. Here are the steps:
Last week I started one here http://mahdi2004.buzznet.com, and I quickly showed the participants the interface and how to upload photos to it. Within 15 minutes at least two participants had downloaded photos from our shared album at http://www.ofoto.com/BrowsePhotos.jsp?&collid=31747063206&page=1&sort_order=0 and uploaded them to their Buzznet blogs which they had just created:
If any other students have Buzznet blogs, please notify us via one of our learning spaces (create a bookmark or post a message at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mahdia_2004 for example).
Comparison of Buzznet and Blogger
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Blogger |
Buzznet |
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Appearance of Blog |
Blogger allows much greater manipulation of appearance of the overall blog, with changes possible to template and blog heading that give users with knowledge of HTML and other web based tools great control over how the blog will look. |
Buzznet presents a set interface (with advertisements) and does not allow much alteration to appearance |
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Organization of posts |
Blogger lists recent posts in the side-bar according to their title, and as posts become old, they are 'archived' but not in a way they can be easily retrieved. There are ways to improve retrieval but knowledge of HTML and work with the template is required |
Buzznet associates each posting with a photo. Thumbnails of the photos are arrayed and postings can be retrieved by clicking on the associated thumbnail. As the cursor is passed over the thumbnail, the title of the posting is displayed. Therefore it is possible to set up web spaces here which can be organized by picture association. |
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User Accounts |
With Blogger, you can create as many blogs as you like within one user account. This is convenient from a management standpoint. Through one logon you can manage many blog URLs. | As far as I can tell, Buzznet allows you only one URL per account, so to create multiple blogs, each has to have its own account. |
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Upload of photos |
Blogger requires users to use <IMG SRC=""> and specify location of URL of photo already on the Internet in order for pictures to appear in blogs. I have noticed that there is mention of photo blogs in recent versions of the interface but haven't had time to check this out yet. |
Buzznet allows users to upload photos stored on their computers. These are then stored on Buzznet's servers; no need to upload photos to spaces where each has a URL |
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Allowing comments from others |
Blogger requires that you initiate the invitation to others to share comments in your blog. You provide that person's email address and Blogger sends the invitee an email (this means you must know the email of the person you want to share your blog with). The invitee can then respond and be added as a member of your blog. The invitee needs to have a Blogger account and is prompted to start one if this is not the case. When your invitation is accepted, your blog appears in the list of blogs available to the invited member, but the member can only post to, not edit, the blog. The owner of the blog has complete control over editing and deleting anyone's posting. People who post have no write permission to alter anything they have posted. |
Buzznet is set up so that anyone can initiate a request to comment on your blog. The only stipulation is that the user has to sign in to Buzznet to do so. That means that the user has to start a Buzznet account, but once signed in, the user can comment on your blog without your invitation. Comments can appear in your blog from anywhere without your having to do any setup. Although users can write comments in your blog at will, the owner of the blog has complete control over editing and deleting anyone's posting. People who post have no write permission to alter anything they have posted. |
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Posting and editing posts |
Blogger has a clear system of changing numerous settings to the blog. It offers many options but the existence of options can make it more difficult to use. If users only post and edit posts, the interface will remain simple, except that sometimes users get the HTML editor, and sometimes the WYSIWYG editor, which can be confusing when it happens. Also saving a posting (in a workspace) and publishing it (so others will see the change) are separate steps. Users might save but not publish. Also any changes to the template or settings require users to 'republish entire blog' which is also unclear to many users. |
Buzznet has a clear system of changing postings, titles of posts, and pictures associated with posts. The user has little control over other features, such as the URL for the blog. However, the interface is consistent for most operations. Clicking on the Save button publishes the blog, and there are not settings or templates to be concerned with. |
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Hyperlinking |
Sometimes users get the HTML editor, and sometimes the WYSIWYG editor, which can be confusing when it happens. If the WYSIWYG editor appears then there is a hyperlink tool which creates hyperlinks in a dialog box. Otherwise users must manually input the code: <A HREF="html link goes here">Text to click on goes here</A> | Users must manually input the code: <A HREF="html link goes here">Text to click on goes here</A> in order to create hyperlinks in postings. |
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Quirks |
Sometimes users get the HTML editor, and sometimes the WYSIWYG editor, which can be confusing when it happens. I have not worked out how to control whether this happens or not. Also Blogger servers can be busy and have trouble synchronizing. You can edit a posting and publish it and not see the changes when pulling up the posting to re-edit it. When that happens it's best to call it a day and come back in the morning. I have also had problems seeing archived posts in my students' blogs. | Buzznet introduces extra line breaks between lines each time a posting is edited and saved. These appear as <br /> tags in the posting text. All but one of these needs to be removed each time the posting is saved, or spaces between paragraphs will proliferate. Also some operations cause errors (you have no right to alter this setting). When I get this message, the change has usually been made to my blog, but it's disconcerting (and if you go back into your posting to check, you have to remove the extra <br /> tags as noted above. |
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Backup!! |
There is no backup of your work on Blogger's servers. I advise students to copy and paste to Notepad their existing template before making changes to it (and save it to their hdd of course). Errors in the template can make the blog invisible (but not disappear; the blog with all its postings is there and will be restored with repair of template or selection of a new one). Old templates can be retrieved from backup if one has been saved previously, or you can change the template and restore changes you've made to it from the copies you've made. Copies of the blog can be made by doing a file/save as in your browser. You can also import your blog for hosting on another server. | There is no backup of your work on Buzznet's servers. My own work style is to keep copies of my Buzznet blogs in text documents on my hdd. I work on the documents there and past them to the Edit postings area when ready to publish. This technique keeps a copy on my computer and also ensures that there is only one <br /> tag between each paragraph each time I publish. |
Project work:
Displaying images through HTML code, including resizing them
Communities for Professional Development: Networking with other teachers
Where you can go for help in cases where you have any questions where you need tutoring in your own professional development.
Questions such as 'Where can I find text manipulation software I can download for free?' can be posted to numerous lists which I suggest participants join. Some of these are:
See http://www.linguistic-funland.com/tesllist.html for information on how to subscribe to NETEACH-L, TESLCA-L and other relevant mailing lists.
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Software for meeting on online
http://www.homestead.com/prosites-vstevens/files/efi/software.htm
 Friday afternoon, Mokhtar talks online with Chee in Houston, Jenny and Rose in China, and Jean Michel in Columbia, via Talking Communities voice chat. If you want to try, use: http://www.alado.net/webheads |
Concerning the problems we'd had running Java enabled sites, as it was downloadable, there is a Java troubleshooting guide here (at the time we were still trying to resolve the problem with Tapped In) ...
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Concordancing as tutorial feedback
Here's one thing we can do:
Create a gap fill exercise where sets
of blanks must be filled in by the students.
First we need a short list of problem vocabulary. I started looking for differences between 'greater' and 'bigger' as one of the participants had asked me earlier which adjective would best collocate with 'enthusiasm'. I ran concordances on 'great' and 'big' and we looked for classes of collocates to the right, and then checked collocates to the left; for example 'even' bigger and 'even' greater.
The words I had planned to use for the day (and whose concordances I had run in advance so I knew ahead of time what the output would be, were:
Next step was to run concordances on the words in question. At http://www.edict.com.hk/concordance/WWWConcappE.htm
- When working with concordances as with any computer-based activity you plan to use with students, it is important to preview the activity first.
- I had done this and determined that the corpus from The Times newspaper TimesFeb95 has good examples of the items I am looking for.
- If comparing IN TIME with ON TIME sort left.
- If comparing FILL IN with FILL OUT sort right.
- For IN TIME and ON TIME set Search String to 'equal to'
- For FILL IN and FILL OUT set Search String to 'starts with'
This way you include FILLS, FILLING etc.
Some questions that were asked in the FAQ files might be addressed through concordancing:
 Moncef Sassi, Mohamed Souissi, and Hafedh |
The online concordance site allows you to choose among a selection of 'bodies' of text, known commonly as corpora. Some of the participants suggested that the output for such texts may not contextualize well for their students. I noted that I had in my own work used texts compiled from professors who were writing text materials specifically for my students and used these as my corpus, which I then concordanced to derive language learning materials. I also noted that the truncated output strings 70 characters long proved to be an advantage because I could prompt students to complete truncated words and otherwise recall what might have come before or after each string in question. I recommended as a source of texts the project Gutenberg site: http://www.gutenberg.net/ . This site aims to digitalize as many books as possible in several languages once their copyright has expired. Texts are available for download free and their use is unrestricted. Other sources of texts online are given at http://www.vancestevens.com/textfind.htm, cached with Google at http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache:bYtF_LqUYOcJ:www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/4631/textfind.htm+Vance+Reference+Works+Available+Online&hl=en |
Tips for online tutors: (I've started this list below. Let's 'read up' on the topic and fill out this list of 'tips'
Examine these readings
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
Examine these readings
- Be an Active and Participative Instructor By Jennifer Hofmann. Retrieved July 16, 2004 from http://www.learningcircuits.org/2003/dec2003/hofmann.htm
- Training the e-trainer by Clive Shepherd. Retrieved July 16, 2004 from http://www.fastrak-consulting.co.uk/tactix/Features/etrainer.htm
- Roles and Competencies of Online Teachers by Vera Queiroz. Retrieved July 16, 2004 from http://iteslj.org/Articles/Queiroz-OnlineTeachers.html
Principles of tutoring online, which apply? -
 Clearly enjoying themselves: Ilhem and Lamia in front, and Moncef, Mohamed, Hafedh, and Abdulmalik facing the window |
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Record your results in your blog
Extensive listings of tutor resources available on the Internet
I think Tunisian teachers would be interested in the Webquest concept
http://webquest.sdsu.edu/
From
http://webquest.sdsu.edu/overview.htm
A
WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented activity in which most or all of the
information used by learners is drawn from the Web. WebQuests are designed to
use learners' time well, to focus on using information rather than looking for
it, and to support learners' thinking at the levels of analysis, synthesis and
evaluation. The model was developed in early 1995 at San Diego State University
by Bernie Dodge with Tom March, and was outlined then in Some Thoughts About
WebQuests.
http://edweb.sdsu.edu/courses/edtec596/about_webquests.html
To achieve that efficiency and clarity of purpose, WebQuests should contain at least the following parts: An introduction that sets the stage and provides some background information. A task that is doable and interesting. A set of information sources needed to complete the task. Many (though not necessarily all) of the resources are embedded in the WebQuest document itself as anchors pointing to information on the World Wide Web. Information sources might include web documents, experts available via e-mail or realtime conferencing, searchable databases on the net, and books and other documents physically available in the learner's setting. Because pointers to resources are included, the learner is not left to wander through webspace completely adrift. A description of the process the learners should go through in accomplishing the task. The process should be broken out into clearly described steps. Some guidance on how to organize the information acquired. This can take the form of guiding questions, or directions to complete organizational frameworks such as timelines, concept maps, or cause-and-effect diagrams as described by Marzano (1988, 1992) and Clarke (1990). A conclusion that brings closure to the quest, reminds the learners about what they've learned, and perhaps encourages them to extend the experience into other domains.
Some other non-critical attributes of a WebQuest include these: WebQuests are most likely to be group activities, although one could imagine solo quests that might be applicable in distance education or library settings. WebQuests might be enhanced by wrapping motivational elements around the basic structure by giving the learners a role to play (e.g., scientist, detective, reporter), simulated personae to interact with via e-mail, and a scenario to work within (e.g., you've been asked by the Secretary General of the UN to brief him on what's happening in sub-Saharan Africa this week.) WebQuests can be designed within a single discipline or they can be interdisciplinary. Given that designing effective interdisciplinary instruction is more of a challenge than designing for a single content area, WebQuest creators should probably start with the latter until they are comfortable with the format.
A survey was created at Yahoo Groups for this course. Members of Yahoo Groups can create surveys. Ours is here:
One disadvantage of YGroup surveys is you only can ask one question and you can only poll your group members. If you want to create more comprehensive surveys you can try:
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For comments, suggestions, or further information
on this page Last Updated: October 25, 2004 |
Copyright 2004 by Vance Stevens
