Hello all, back after an extended period...insert standard excuses here!

If you haven't read it, I highly recommend Chris Dede's latest work(s) on "neomillenial learning styles."

For some time, I have been trying to describe the latest developments on the net (blogging, podcasting, RSS, social software, etc.) to educational colleages in a coherent way. I have explained that progress in this area now reminds me of the excitement of the mid-1990's, as the Web broke onto the scene for all of us, but summarizing the varied array of emerging tools has proved difficult.

Table 1 in Prof. Dede's piece gets to many of the latest developments and weaves them into the framework of emerging learning styles. What we are seeing is an explosion of tools and environments which, applied to learning, allow students to learn based on "collectively seeking, sieving, and synthesizing experiences rather than individually locating and absorbing information from some single best source" and to express themselves through "nonlinear, associational webs."

As an aside, I had a chance to meet and interact with Professor Dede several years ago, when he was a guest and keynote speaker at UTA's Technology Fair--he is clearly a writer to add to your reading lists!

SITE Conference

Hello from SITE (http://aace.org). Discussions hear have been centered around the new standards for research as dicted by the federal government. This organization and the content organizations which are represented here are dialoguing about how to define our principles of research in this context and set up some guidelines for people who are submitting to content, technology and ed journals. There wil be a SIG at AERA which will be led by editors from various journals. People can submit studies to these editors, and the editors will comment on how these papers would be received by their editorial board.

I am way fired up to be part of these discussions. I stood up and made a rather impassioned speech about the buisness/political model that is driving research design via the projects they will fund and asked the questions about how our principles of research design are designed? How can they be supported duing changing political climes? What happens if we swing one way now, and then another in four more years? I said it a bit more eloquent than that, but those are the questions that are driving me.

I'm determined to get on the technology committees at my content organizations: IRA and NCTE so that I can have a voice about research that investigates technology integration in the schools.

I got a lot of support from Ian Gibson (president of SITE) after I presented our paper on online assessment.

The "Read" in Read/Write

I have often heard the "blogosphere" defined as "the read/write Web." An interesting definition in and of itself!

In most of the popular press on and discussion about blogging, the emphasis on writing/publishing is clear. Where, I have asked, is the growth of tools to manage/share the intensive and extensive Web-based reading, which we know fuels good Web-based writing?

I am heartened on that front by furl. If you have not explored that tool, I urge you to give it a look. This post on Weblogg-ed has some great ideas and starting links.

Among other thoughts, asking students to collect/annotate/share reading sources may be less daunting as a first step than self-publishing via a blog. And no less a creative exercise in research, organization, critical thinking, and writing!

Hey--great article--I just pasted it on here for quick reading! This is the one that Pete referenced,

Washington, D.C. -- We love instant messenger for the little pleasures it provides: workday diversions, covert flirting opportunities, parental contact with an easy out.

But communicating using instant messenger, text messaging, even blogging are changing the way humans communicate. The technologies have opened up a whole new field of linguistic studies, and researchers say the impact will be as significant as the advent of the telegraph and telephone.
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Traditional linguists fear the internet damages our ability to articulate properly, infusing language with LOLs, dorky emoticons and the gauche sharing of personal information on blogs. But some researchers believe we have entered a new era of expression.

"Resources for the expression of informality in writing have hugely increased -- something not seen in English since the Middle Ages," said David Crystal, an author and linguistics professor at the University of Wales at Bangor. He presented at the American Academy for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Washington, D.C., by recorded DVD when the live feed failed.

At first glance, you might not expect Crystal to get excited about IM utterances. But from behind a long silver beard and coke-bottle glasses, his excitement is clear. The internet is getting more people to write, he said, and that's a great thing.

Some believe the informality of internet-mediated communication is causing the language to deteriorate.

"The prophets of doom emerge every time a new technology influences language, of course -- they gathered when printing was introduced in the 15th century," Crystal said.

But linguists should be "exulting," he said, in the ability the internet gives us to "explore the power of the written language in a creative way."

During a seminar on language and the internet at the AAAS meeting Friday, researchers presented their findings on internet communication techniques.

In the spring of 2003, Naomi Baron collected 23 instant message conversations from college students: nine between males, nine between females and five between males and females. She studied 2,185 total transmissions.

The results did not fit typical stereotypes, she found. They used few abbreviations, acronyms and emoticons, the spelling was reasonably good and contractions were not ubiquitous. Overall, the study suggested that conversing through instant messenger resembled speaking more than writing.

Had the study focused on high school students, the results likely would have been very different. For high school students, IMing is more like fashion. See Microsoft's latest cheat sheet for parents. But high school students are difficult to study because researches need informed consent from parents, who usually want to see the results.

The easier-to-study college students gave a more staid impression of IM communication. The average length per transmission was 5.4 words; 22 percent were a single word. Many were parts of sentences -- 112 included a conjunction, like this: "she's a phd student (break) and my TA," and 48 used a preposition, like this: "what are you bringing (break) on Saturday."

The college students used only 31 abbreviations specific to internet communication, 16 of which were "k" for OK. They used just 90 acronyms total, 76 of which were "lol," and they used just 49 emoticons, mostly smiley faces. Just 171 words were misspelled, and the students often corrected the spelling in a follow-up. When they could have used contractions they did so only 65.3 percent of the time.

Men were much more likely to use contractions, Baron found. She also noted that women took significantly longer to close IM conversations than males, and males were significantly more likely than females to break utterances into multiple IM transmissions.

Probably least surprising was the fact that 70 percent of college students who answered a questionnaire as part of the study said they were simultaneously pursuing other activities while they IM'd, such as listening to a media player, word processing, talking to someone in person, eating or drinking, watching television or talking on the telephone. The average number of IM conversations per student at one time was about three, the highest number being 12.

They had multiple conversations, they said, because of time constraints, and also because focusing on just one IM conversation would be "too weird."

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Web Quests

Janelle,

Have you looked at some of the great web quests on http://webquest.org/

This is such a terrific site and it looks like it is going to have some new technology added to help people build web quests. Susan Van Bose wrote at length about this in Session 3 of 5309.

She said:
went to the English/Language Arts section and clicked on the 3-5 grade range since I have several students in those grades. There were many intriguing titles, but the one I chose had to do with folktales, titled “A Tale to Tell.” The introduction was a story about some adventurers coming to a crumbling building and going inside. Each member of the group is given a task, by way of a poem, to read a different folktale, then compare the folktales. Then they would write a similar story of their own. There is even an opportunity to read stories other students have written and submit the stories they have written.

I think students would have to learn rather than just memorize because there isn’t a set of facts to memorize. The students learn to compare the tales and are given a rubric to help in recording the story for comparison with the stories read by the rest of the group. There is a graphic organizer---particularly good for my second language learners---to help plan for the story they are assigned to write, and even an evaluations page to help the kids make sure they are on the right track. All these tools will help with transfer.

There are several opportunities to take the time to learn. There are a lot of resources available on the web links provided. My concern for my students would be that they would take too long to choose a story and might need some guidance in that regard. If this project is done as it is intended to be, I’m sure there will be learning taking place. I guess that is the key right there, however. Will the students be willing to take the time to read, analyze, and write the story as is it is set out? My reaction to this in regard to my students is that they wouldn’t. I wonder, though, if I am guilty of not expecting enough or if I haven’t taught them to work through learning opportunities?

I like the way the quest starts out---as a story with a challenge. I think the students will definitely be engaged in that part as well as the poem. I think they will also wonder what happens at the end. But, as I stated above, I’m not sure that they will be willing to compare the stories or write their own without some degree of help from me.

The fact that the story is on the computer would also be an opportunity to motivate students to want to complete the quest. They always want to do things on the computer. The layout of the story is also pleasing and engaging.

I think I will try this particular quest with my students in few weeks and see what happens. I hope I will be pleasantly surprised

It will be interesting to get her feedback.

Web not "The Death of Language"!

This article caught my eye in Wired, relative to the impact of instant messaging on students' writing:

http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,66671,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_4

Hopefully good fodder for thought and discussion!

Fewer Trends, More Practical Ideas

A friend of mine always notes when we as educators lapse into "national trend speak." In looking over my first post, I may have so lapsed....

Alright then, on to more sharing of ideas, tending toward the practical. Two posts caught my eye today, both from weblogg-ed, another of my favorite sources.

The first, http://www.weblogg-ed.com/2005/02/22#a3154 , quotes Barbara Ganley, writing herself today. Basically, it asks us to consider the relevance of blogging to teaching/learning. Interesting take.

The second, http://www.weblogg-ed.com/2004/05/05#a1777 , has a wonderful, practical list of writing tasks for teachers and students related to the blogging act.

Happy reading!

Trends, Mobile, and 3D

Good evening all, from Texas! (Which reminds me to mention that I know several of your names, but have heard that not everyone blogging here is in Texas as well...am I correct?)

As you can probably sense, Jeannine and I have several parallel communication channels--meetings, email, and blogging at least. We will try to "connect the dots" on some of the themes mentioned, I promise! In particular, recently we have been discussing the future of mobile devices (smart phones, etc.) in education and another/perhaps-related topic--3D worlds.

Coincidentally, I saw an audio interview on IT conversations today that weaves both of these themes together. Available at: http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail417.html I am off to listen, and hope others will find it useful as well!

Pete

Trends 2005

Wow Pete! What a gold mine of opportunity on that web site! I've been thinking for several years about ubiquitous computing and its application in education. Moblogs--neat name--wonder if you pronounce that MO with a long o or like Mob Log? Hmmm. . . that might be specialized name for Mafia users.

Anyway, I've thought a lot about possible applications with ubiquitous computing with distance ed--just the portability and availability of having all those services connected with a mobile phone opens up a lot of possiblity in itself in terms of access to courses and resposne time.

More later. I printed this article, saved it in bookmarks, and I know it's here on the web. I want to go back and open up all the linkes and read.

Thank you for sending this to us!

P.S. I'm still pretty pscyhed about 3 D application--more later.

Introduction and Trends

Hello all! As way of introduction, I am a long-time language educator--teaching Russian, German, second language acquisition, and language media. Along the way, I also became a university administrator and now stay in touch with foreign language sources and literacy issues mostly online. I am a colleague of Jeannine Hirtle's here at UTA, and am always ready to discuss language learning (in its many manifestations) and technology!

This post caught my eye today: http://www.webtalkradio.com/news/000024.shtml I found it to be a good summary of Internet trends for 2005, from a source I respect. (If you are looking for a first podcast experience, Webtalk Radio is always interesting!).

As I read each of the entries, I tried to connect the trend to language teaching and literacy--the exercise reminded me how much potential technology has for us in our teaching and learning, and how many exciting times lie ahead for us as educators.

Thought this might start a good discussion!

Barbara Ganley's Blog

Here's a site Pete has shared with us on a blog-based Writers' Workshop.

http://mt.middlebury.edu/middblogs/ganley/bgblogging/

What do you all think?