Archive for the ‘teaching and learning’ Category
Monday, February 12th, 2007
I wrote before I left that I would write about my research while I was on sabbatical. I wrote one excuse below for not blogging in general. The other, bigger one is that as I dug into communities more and more, I realized that the topic has been researched to death. Who wants to go into a major research project knowing that there will be no significant difference? Most of the stuff I was looking at was on using discussion forums, but the same research results exists for blogs, and the same results will be found for wikis and whatever other community-based technologies are developed. Let’s move on…
I am looking into something fresher and more interesting for me (and I hope others, too). I cannot write about the topic yet, because it’s not yet ready for primetime, i.e., I’ll wait until I’m closer to being finished. Film at eleven.
Tags: learning, online, Research, thumb down
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Wednesday, September 27th, 2006
The good folks at Lifehacker have put together a great list of resources to help us get a free online education (albeit without the paperwork annoiting us with an actual college degree). Reading the comments below the actual post, I see that our mileage may vary on the actual content. However, this blog provides us with a good starting point to see what is available online for free. There should be much more out there, so get those browsers and search engines working.
Tags: education, online, Research, university
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Sunday, March 26th, 2006
Well, I locked up my office and said most of my goodbyes for the next year. Here starts the adventure of going on sabbatical for a full year. After living in Japan for 90% of the past 20 years, I am looking forward to jumping back in to American life.
Of course, the main event is writing the dissertation, and I will strive to share what I can when I can. The Graduate School of Computer and Information Sciences at Nova Southeastern University has a great program that has been flexible enough for me to survive the courses from as far away as Japan. Now, I’m looking forward to digging into the box of books I just sent as well as those in the The Sherman Library.
That box also has some of the books I plan to read to retool my English language courses. I teach English to science students, so the focus will be on that population. Look for book reviews and ideas for teaching and learning.
Comments are welcome, but you are asked to register to do so.
Tags: Research, the U.S., Travel
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Monday, January 30th, 2006
I went to the presentation What can I do with an iPod in the classroom? in Fukuoka Saturday. It was one of the monthly presentations held for the Fukuoka JALT chapter. The speaker was Robert Chartrand, from the Institute of Foreign Language Education at Kurume University.
Robert began with an introduction to the iPod, its history and some of its features. I think the links to Apple’s iPod education site and some tips and tricks from the about.com site should be of use to anyone wanting to see what’s out there.
The second half of the presentation was on some classroom activities which Robert put together. Rather than take the steam out of his talk, I recommend going to see his talk or contacting him directly. He and his friend Bill Pellowe are putting together a podcast for learners of English. You can send your students to: http://www.eltpodcast.com. Check it out.
I thoroughly enjoyed the presentation and learned many things from it. If you can catch his talk somewhere, it’s worth the time. My only criticism would be to cut down the first part a bit and add some learning/teaching theory. I think a balance of the ‘Why?’ with the ‘What?’ can go a long way to ensure technology is being put to good use.
Nice job, Robert!
Tags: CALL, ipod, learning, listening, materials, Research, teaching, tool
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Friday, December 16th, 2005
The technology available to us just gets better and better. For those of you who are struggling with Japanese (or even if you’re on top of the language and just want to refine your knowledge), there’s an extension called Rikaichan available for Firefox which allows you to read Japanese in real time as you hover over text. My colleague, Rick Lavin, and I were passing around web pages on adding extensions to Firefox. You will also need EDICT and KANJIDIC in order for everything to work.
I like this setup so much, I save a template with html tags in which to copy and paste emailed memos. This allows me to have the same resources for reading email messages.
Enjoy!
Tags: browser, English, Japanese, language, learning, software, tool
Posted in computers, Japanese, open source, teaching and learning, technology | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 7th, 2005
I’m excited to be able to write this up on my blog. There’s a new book on building computer interfaces for language learning coming out on the last day of this year. I’m extra excited because one of the chapters was written by yours truly. The only article I’ve read from it is mine; I hope to be able to comment on the book itself when I get a copy. In the meantime, you can order it here
or here. Here’s a look at the the Table of Contents. Happy reading!
Tags: books, language, LMS, moodle, Research
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Wednesday, June 15th, 2005
Although there is no official announcement on the http://moodle.org homepage (it’s still linked as a beta version), the download page shows moodle 1.5 has reached stable status. I uploaded it last week, and I really like its feel. 1.5 has added a message feature which allows users to send an instant message to other members of courses. The message feature could be used in a number of ways. One is to alert learners who have not fulfilled a particular task that something needs to be done. For language teaching, it can also provide an opportunity for more spontaneous communication. Another feature is a more robust quiz module. The latest quiz module includes an adaptive function to allow users to try a missed question again or move to an easier question on the same item. Quiz-makers can choose a percentage for a penalty or allow learners to earn the same credit. I have not used the adaptive portion yet, but plans are in the works. Film at eleven…
On the downside, the wonderful Journal module is being phased out. For those of you who are not familiar with journals, they allow learners to respond in writing to a particular topic. Teachers can then evaluate all the learners as well as provide feedback, all from one page. Journals have been replaced by the Assignments module. Now teachers have to click on each student’s work and provide the feedback/evaluation on individual pages (in addition to the extra time for the loading of each page). Fortunately, Journals can be reactivated in the Modules page of the Administration area. This reactivation has saved me time and clicks in the past week.
As I learn more about the new version, I’ll try to bring my comments up to date.
Tags: e-learning, education, learning, LMS, moodle, online, Research, teaching
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Thursday, June 9th, 2005
Well another year, another JALTCALL conference, this time at Ritsumeikan University in Kusatsu, Shiga, Japan. I thought it was one of the better of the JALTCALLs, although the attendance numbers seemed to be smaller than in the past. Besides the opening and closing ceremonies, there were five types of presentations: keynotes/plenaries, papers, workshops, posters, and “show & tell.” As usual, there were a wide variety of presentations to see. The biggest problem, in my opinion, was the fact that at any one time there may have been as many as 15 presentations to choose from!
A simple breakdown of those I saw (more information coming as time permits):
Saturday
—The keynote on using video, voice, and text for for (a)synchronous communication…
—A networked project between Thai and Japanese learners of English, using a social constructivist model…
—Creating your own audio files for disseminating to learners (or anyone for that matter)…
—A workshop on putting your web page design and construction into your own hands…
—A new computer game targeted at 15-18 years olds for Japanese study…
—The latest in creating mobile CALL (think cell phones and/or PDAs)…
Sunday
—The plenary on keeping track of students’ learning in self-study mode…
—A talk on helping to make learners’ presentations more communicative…
—The latest multimedia solution from the folks at Longman’s…
—A workshop and paper on wikis…
—And, of course, mine on developing online learning communities…
Tags: e-learning, education, learning, online, preparation, Research, teaching, university
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Sunday, May 8th, 2005
You may have noticed that I have been reviewing many books dealing with education and course development. I am always trying to improve my own courses, so I have been using my DCTE 760 doctoral course as an opportunity to work in that area. Fink (2003) is the last of the books I aimed to read during my spring break from classes. Unfortunately, I read this one last and could not finish it before classes started up last week. I would like to use Fink’s model, as well as others, to revamp my own courses as soon as I can get a chance.
First off, Fink (2003) is another excellent book on designing college courses from start to finish. Fink (chap. 2) begins by outlining some of the elements of a ‘good’ course. He observes that good courses:
—challenge students to significant kinds of learning.
—use active forms of learning.
—have teachers who care about the subject, their students, and about teaching and learning.
—have teachers who interact well with students.
—have a good system of feedback, assessment, and grading (p 28).
Fink mentions Bloom’s work (see my post #111 for a chapter review of the updated version) on creating a taxonomy for learning. Fink has created his own taxonomy which he claims can increase opportunities for significant learning to take place in college courses:
—foundational knowledge
—application
—integration
—human dimension
—caring
—learning how to learn (pp. 31-32).
Fink provides examples in several academic disciplines where his taxonomy can be used to create courses of all types. The first two chapters lay out Fink’s philosophy and the foundation for the taxonomy, and the rest of the book is a step-by-step guide on putting his ideas into practice. I can recommend this book to anyone looking to improve one’s courses and teaching.
Reference
Fink, L. D. (2003). Creating significant learning experiences: An integrated approach to designing college courses. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Tags: education, learning, preparation, Research, teaching, university
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