Developing a Community in Online Language Learning

A presentation by Vance Stevens, Amideast UAE/MLI Project

TESOL Conference 2000, Vancouver

March 15, 2000, 9:30-10:15 a.m.

session #5365, Convention Center Room 3

Vance's website: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/4631/esl_home.htm
Email vstevens@emirates.net.ae

This handout is linked from http://www.netword.com/vance@tesol2000

This handout and the PowerPoint slide show serve as a point of departure for these other sessions:

• Discussion session #1288 - Interactive web-based language learning (basic), March 15, 2000, 7:30-8:15 a.m., Convention Center Room 8
• Discussion session #5377 - Building rapport with students in online instruction, March 15, 2000, 8:00-8:45 p.m., Pan Pacific Gazebo 1
• Invited session - Teachers' perspectives on designing and delivering online esl courses, Friday, March 17, 3:00-3:20 p.m., Pan Pacific Crystal Pavilion A – Conducted live and online with teachers Margaret Ann Doty in Germany and Michael Coghlan in Australia, and students Moral in Kunming, China;Ying Lan in Taiwan; and Ming (from Taiwan) in Oregon.
• Discussion session #1296 - Developing a sense of community in online ESL courses, March 18, 2000, 7:30-8:15 a.m., Convention Center Room 12

See the PowerPoint Slide Show

Overview

This presentation intends to cover several tools found useful in synchronous mode online language learning. These tools have used to great effect in the online class Writing for Webheads This class, is conducted as a hobby by the presenter in conjunction with two other teachers (Margaret Doty and Michael Coghlan, never met personally). The WFW class has been meeting regularly and developing a strengthening sense of community together continually since 1998.

The following has been prepared to briefly overview and demonstrate the freely downloadable online synchronous communications tools we have used over the past year during the course of this class.

Preparations for class

Student email accounts registered with egroups

An egroup was set up via http://www.egroups.com. Called efiwebheads, it is reachable by its members at efiwebheads@egroups.com

Passwords can be obtained for egroup accts by visiting http://www.egroup.com and following simple instructions after clicking on the word: forgot?

Installations

Participants in the class install the following programs on their computers:

ICQ from http://www.mirabilis.com

The Palace from http://www.thepalace.com/products/client/index.html, the Palace user software.

A browser, such as Netscape and IE.

Networds created

To make web access more "friendly" I created "networds" for the following urls:

To make a netword, visit http://www.netword.com

To use a netword, either go to the url above and enter a netword, or the url above slash netword; e.g.

Netword	Netword url	Page description	Realworld url
webheads	http://www.netword.com/webheads	The main page of Writing for Webheads	https://members.tripod.com/vstevens/efi/webheads.htm
Webheads_chatclass	http://www.netword.com/webheads_chatclass	The synchronous chat page of Writing for Webheads	https://members.tripod.com/vstevens/efi/software.htm
Webheads_textchat	http://www.netword.com/webheads_textchat	The text chat page of Writing for Webheads	http://www.homestead.com/vstevens/
Webheads_voicechat	http://www.netword.com/webheads_voicechat	The voice chat page of Writing for Webheads	http://www.chariot.net.au/~michaelc/hearme.htm
Webheads_chatlogs	http://www.netword.com/webheads_chatlogs	A record of the logs of almost all synchronous chats with Webheads	https://members.tripod.com/vstevens/efi/chatlogs.htm
Webheads_students	http://www.netword.com/webheads_students	Meet the students and teachers in the Webheads class; visit their homepages	https://members.tripod.com/vstevens/efi/students.htm
Webheads_welcome	http://www.netword.com/webheads_welcome	A welcome to the Webheads class and overview for new and prospective students	https://members.tripod.com/vstevens/efi/webwelcm.htm

 These pages are all mirrored at http://www.homestead.com/vstevens/files/efi/webheads.htm (to give access to all students in Webheads)

As a synchronous chat class gets underway …

At a pre-agreed time (11:30 GMT each Sunday), participants contact each other in this way:

• We log on the Internet
• We launch ICQ. We have entered each other in our "buddy lists" so we look to see who is online.
• We steer each other to the following locations:
• Lately, our meeting place of choice is the voice chat room at http://www.netword.com/webheads_voicechat. This room is ok if everyone has a version 4+ browser and a sound card. Mic is not absolutely necessary since if you can hear, what is being said, you can respond in text chat.
• If anyone has difficulty with the voice chat, we retreat to the text chat room at http://www.netword.com/webheads_textchat
• If possible, we meet at the Palace. This is the text chat venue of choice. Instructions for reaching the Palace chat area can be found at http://www.netword.com/webheads_chatclass

The amazing thing about the first two chat clients is their simplicity of creation.

• The text chat was created by visiting http://www.homestead.com, using the page builder on the web site, and dragging a chat icon onto it.
• The voice chat was created by visiting http://www.hearme.com and registering for emailed code which is simply cut and paste into notepad, saved as an html document, and uploaded to any website. Anyone who visits the url can use the chat (with a sound card and a 4.0+ browser; microphone optional).

Things you can do on your own:

You can browse around the Writing for Webheads site at http://www.netword.com/webheads to get some idea of how the class is conducted and what the students have done over time.

You can visit the following urls to try to download the real videos illustrating our attempts to communicate audioVISUALLY via freely available Real products:

• Vance at https://members.tripod.com/vstevens/efi/welcome.htm
• Felix at https://members.tripod.com/vstevens/efi/felix_see.htm
• Michael's Real Slideshow presentation: http://www.chariot.net.au/~michaelc/Sound_Files/adelaide.htm

Visit the chat rooms and play around – meet us or your friends there.

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For comments, suggestions, or further information on this page, contact Vance Stevens, page author and webmaster.

Last updated: March 27, 2000

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