| 
  • If you are citizen of an European Union member nation, you may not use this service unless you are at least 16 years old.

  • You already know Dokkio is an AI-powered assistant to organize & manage your digital files & messages. Very soon, Dokkio will support Outlook as well as One Drive. Check it out today!

View
 

week3threads

This version was saved 17 years, 1 month ago View current version     Page history
Saved by Gladys
on February 6, 2007 at 10:22:10 pm
 

Weekly Threads: Week 3

This week's threads are brought to you by:

Gladys Baya in Buenos Aires City, Argentina

Date: (01)29 January - 04 February, 2007

Number of messages: 535 (#1244; #1257 and from #1259 to #1791)

 

Gladys

 


 

 

Welcome to Week Three

Cora Chen

Dear All,

Welcome to Week 3!

I am very fortunate to have the chance to work with Gladys Baya, Nina Liakos, Cheryl Oakes who have lots of experience in using blogs, podcasts, and wikis for their classes. You can find the bios of all the members of our team on the following page:

 

http://baw07.pbwiki.com/Moderators

 

Ibrahim Rustamov in Tajikistan has also accepted my invitation to help participants with developing WebPages/websites, an optional activity in Week 3. Ibrahim was our BAW06 web star, and his website has won the first prize of a prestigious award. He will be creating tutorials for us and answering any questions you might have.

 

The following page has all the activities and information for Week 3:

http://baw07.pbwiki.com/week3

 

There will be two guest speakers' presentations at Alado

http://www.alado.net/webheads:

Barbara Dieu at 21:00 GMT on Monday, January 29th

Graham Stanley at 17:00 GMT on Sunday, Feb 4th

Here is the guest speakers' page with their bios:

http://baw07.pbwiki.com/Chat_sessions#Week3

 

Also, please post your comments to the week 3 readings to this forum:

BaW07 Forum

http://www.miumu.com/phpbb/baw07.html

The blog to write our comments about the weekly live sessions with our guest speakers is here:

http://baw07.motime.com/

 

These links are also available from our BaW07 Yahoo Group:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/baw07/

 

Some of our participants have very impressive backgrounds in using and developing technologies in teaching and learning for years. I would like to invite you to jump in anytime to help us. All of us will benefit from your expertise.

 

With the help of the strong Week 3 team and the participants, we will have a ball in Week 3!

 

I look forward to learning with/from you!

:-)))

Cora

(in U.S.A.)

P.S. I might not be able to answer all of your e-mail promptly because I'm in the time zone GMT-8 hours, which leaves me always "far behind" many of you.

Nina Liakos

Week 3 has already begun. I will be one of the co-moderators this week, and I am excited about being part of the BaW07 team--as you already know, our moderators are super people and amazing professionals, and this year's BaW participants are even more active than last year's, when I first joined this wild ride.

 

It was one year ago that I created my first blog, during BaW06. Since then, I have created a number of different blogs, some with my classes and a summer program, and others just for fun and to experiment; so I have learned something about blogging, and I hope to be able to answer some of your questions and provide some guidance concerning blogs. But I must confess to you that insofar as podcasting is concerned, I am as much in the dark as you (more so than some of you!), and I know no more about creating a webpage than I did a year ago. I will be learning together with you.

 

Back to top

New intros

No photo yet

Patricia Faustino

Hi baw07ers. I am a really late comer, but very eager to try and keep up with the hundreds of messages you've already started there. I am Patricia from Brasilia. I am an English teacher and I am still struggling to learn with these fascinating tools. For the time being,
I will just sit here quietly trying to understand what is going on, ok?

No photo yet

Sarah Jones

I am rather late in joining this group but am very happy to have found a place where likeminded teachers, students, e-moderators and inquisitive individuals can get together and explore the host and wealth of online tools in cyberspace!  [:)]  What a wonderful way to start the new year and share experiences in this often very lonely virtual realm!

 

 

Back to top

Chats

Yahoo MSN (questions of week 2.. and more!)

Maru del Campo

I experienced yahoo voice for the first time with Michael's conference, I have not been able to have more than 3 participants in the short "conferences" I have started today,though I have some answers.

1.- How do you start a conference and invite guests at Yahoo Messenger?

After logging in go to the "action" link on the top bar. Then select "invite to conference"

Choose the people available to invite and start conference.

2.- How do you save your chat logs to your hard drive?

Go to contacts and choose the option "message archive", then go to your message and click save.

3.- How do you display your picture?

Go to "my display image", then browse for your picture and click o.k.

Liliana Ferreira

I have installed yahoo messenger and I just love it! It is so much better than windows live messenger!

How do you save your chatlogs to your hard drive at YM?

We have to click on messenger tab and then choose preferences. On category click archive and tick the 'Yes, save all of my messages' option.

How do you display your picture at YM?

Do the same as above, except, on the category tab, choose display image and then change default. After this, we can browse a photo or choose an avatar.

No photo yet

Selinda

#1: Open YM. At the top, select . Scroll down and select . Your address book will appear. Select the people to wish to invite, then click . Finally, at the bottom, click --> this is a very small button!

#2: I have NOOOOOO idea! But, here's the lazy person's way. Copy and paste your chat log into Word, and save there!

#3: Open YM. At the top, select . Scroll down and select . Click (for a real picture) or (for a comptuer generated image of you). Follow the steps asked, and click at the bottom of the pop-up window titled "My Display Image".

Teresa Almeida d'Eça

(answering Sharon's question: "How did you manage to record YM with Audacity?") I have a laptop with Windows XP Pro. Laptops have a built-in mic, so I just open Audacity and start recording. It records my voice and surrounding sounds, and the sound coming in from others speaking. This is how I did it in that class recording.

 

When I use a headset with a mic, as happened yesterday, it's exactly the same. Of course, the mic will pick up all the sounds around me. 

  Rosane Domingos also answered the questions on YM!

 

Back to top

Chatting with our classes

No photo yet

Rafieh

... in a classroom situation we can predict the possibility of conflict by observing the students' body language, facial expression etc but this is not feasible on line.

Dafne Gonzalez

While I agree that in text chat participants don't have the paralinguistic aspects that help comprehension in the pragmatic level, chat users make use of different elements to overcome this lack. This is one of the findings of a research I carried out with my architecture students:

 

"Participants made use of different paralinguistic strategies to overcome the restrictions of the medium. We saw the use of uppercase letters, punctuation signs, onomatopoeias, icons and emoticons to express diverse feelings and moods, as well as to stress or emphasize their discourse"

 

I posted this article a week ago, I think:

ENHANCING COLLABORATION THROUGH CHAT IN ESP:A CONVERSATION ANALYSIS

http://www.iatefl.org.pl/call/j_esp24.htm

 

Abstract:

Text and/or voice chat rooms are ideal spaces for interaction, collaboration and negotiation of meaning. However, they have not been fully exploited in language teaching. This study shows the results of a conversation analysis of 24 transcriptions of text chat sessions where architecture students were carrying out collaborative group work. The researchers wanted to discover the discourse patterns and conversational strategies used by the students in this online context to study their possible repercussions in English learning. The results suggest that the students were building the kind of discourse that is thought to lead to language learning.

No photo yet

Rafieh

Dear Dafne,
Thanks a lot for the wonderful article. I read it and found it very interesting and informative.
Gladys

Gladys Baya

(about chatting with large classes)With YM, you can divide the students in 5 groups, with the T "following" each of the five conversations at the same time.

Back to top

 Wikis

 Wikis - answers to questions of the week

Jose A. da Silva

These questions are good because you learn a little about codes trying to answer them. Here is what I have got.
How do you create a table?
To put a title or a text into a box you should use the pound # for each line of text. To create a table with more cells and columns, use the | sign for the external frame and commas , to separate the columns.

How do you make a word bold?
To make a word bold you should type two ** signs before and two ** after it. Of course they should be between the | sign. (BTW, how do I get my keyboard to do it? All I have been doing is copying and  pasting with this fella)

Nina Liakos

Good question, Jose (about the vertical bar).  I was asking everyone about that vertical bar because I couldn't find it on my keyboard!  There is something on my keyboard above the Enter key that looks like a broken vertical bar.  When I type it, it looks like a vertical bar.  However, when I tried it on pbwiki, no cigar. :-( Lots of people told me where it was on their French, German, etc.
keyboards.  I have yet to figure out where it is on an American keyboard. We sometimes forget that all keyboards are not created equal!

Jose A. da Silva

On my keyboard, I found it with one of the slashes ... I just had to press the SHIF key and type.

Dafne Gonzalez

On my keyboard you get the vertical bar by pressing alt gr + 1 (Alt gr is the key next to the space bar, to the right)

Nina Liakos

I have just an Alt key; maybe it's the same as Alt Gr; I will try it later

Teresa Almeida d'Eça

In my laptop it's in the bottom row, fourth key from the left. At the top left of that key there are two small hyphen-like vertical lines and right below there is a slash in the opposite direction, from left to right "\". I press Shift and the two vertical hyphens become a vertical bar: ||||||||
Does that make you green with envy??!!   ;-)))))

Nina Liakos

Daf, the fourth key from the left on the bottom row  of my keyboard is thespace bar!  But the same key Tere describes is between my enter key and backspace key, and it worked just now!Bingo! ... I even tried my "broken vertical bar" and it still worked! :-)

Hala Fawzi

I found it!! Now I am not green with envy any more, Teresinha! It is on the  right side of my lap top keyboard. The third from ...  then the key.No letters on it, but a reversed back slash(what do you call it?).It has the sign ... on top of it. It works with SHIFT key.( will never try to look for it on the PC keyboard)

 

Back to top

Using wikis

No photo yet

Ibrahim Rustamov

Whole January my students worked collaborating with our partner schools in the US, Bangladesh and Jordan about "The Right for Food and Its Role in Our Lives", my students wrote recipes of Tajik meals which was also  helped by students from other Tajik towns. American and Bangladeshi students created their own page like Food in the US, Food in Bangladesh etc.

See how is Wikispaces is used there, where members create their own user page, recipe page using templates. I recommend you to view this site, but do not register there as registration is closed for non Global Connections and Exchange Program participating countries. Just browse pages and enjoy reading how to prepare Tajik foods, especially Oshi Palav...
http://gcyp.wikispaces.com

Dafne Gonzalez

(to Victoria) You can start adding the new pages to the side bar to make navigation easier once you start adding pages. It would also be great to have a short bio and photo of the staff (you included)

Susan Wood

I'm a little intimidated by the wiki style codes -- obviously they are workable (I've printed some instructions to refer to when I actually find a little time to play), but I keep thinking that if I am intimidated, then perhaps my students (especially the lower level ones) would be, too? It makes me think that blogs and wysiwyg wiki options might be better for "teething". 
Sharon Betts

(Like Daf) I use wikis for all my presentations.  No more carrying around CDs or worrying about my computer crashing losing power.  This web 2.0 stuff has made my life easier.

A couple of examples: http://techtwaddle.wikispaces.com/ and http://eport52.org/published/s/be/sbetts/home/1/

Back to top

Trying different wiki hosts

Pbwiki

Jose A. da Silva

... the wiki, it still trial and error. I went back to it and verified and it is public already but it won't allow anyone to make comments unless the person receives an invitation. I could send an invitation to the whole group. Does anyone know how to solve this problem?
Gladys

Gladys Baya

my experience is that Pbwiki will not accept comments from people who don't know the password. Webpaint does, and I think Wikispaces too (though I might need to check that!). The only solution I found to this problem, when you want a worldwide audience,was to embed a Webnote to my class Pbwiki.

You can see the result at http://theoryofeducation.pbwiki.com. Click on the links for visitors, and you'll see! And leave a comment to try it! (just double click on the note you want to write on)

Teresa Almeida d'Eça

You and other participants amy also find it interesting to read my personal impressions about our 8-week teacher development back in Jan 2002. I think that some of you may relate to my description of my first session at Tapped In.

http://64.71.48.37/teresadeca/webheads/webheads-and-me.htm

This was to be continued, but.... I never found the time. I guess that my work in the Webhead community explains why and speaks for itself. The type of Web page I had then and have now also shows our development process in a community such as ours. Hurrah for the Webheads!!! :-)

 

What's important is that we have these texts to remind us of great moments in our life that have brought about fabulous changes for us at the professional and personal levels. I often think of how monotonous my professional life would probably be without the Webhead experience. I wonder what else could have replaced such an enriching experience!

Jose A. da Silva

In Pbwiki you have to send an invitation to get poeple to comment and make then users or administrators of your wiki.
Vera Bobkova My semester started and I was trying to find the way to do my job and to keep being active in this on-line course. That's why I created a wiki to teach my Conversational Russian course. It's in Russian, sorry, but there are pictures :) Besides, we've just started - I introduced it to my students only today, so there's only one student registered.

I am really excited about using it in my teaching and having it as a record of our work. My students seem to like the idea. We'll see how it all goes...

Here's the link http://conversationalrussian.pbwiki.com/ and I also posted it in our wiki. It's just the beginning, so I'm not expecting any comments now, though a little bit later I'll give you a password to comment. I bet my students will love that!

Hala Fawzi

Vera, I forgot to tell you that rockyou.com is blocked in Sudan, together with Bubbleshare. That was the reason  I couldn't comment on the photos.

Hala Fawzi

Earlier on this list, I posted about Bubbleshare being blocked. The day before yesterday ,to my surprise, I found that Blogger com is also blocked! ... I called the telecommunication company, as they put their "how to reach them " button in a big and clear font). After a furious talk, and to my big surprise, the man was very cooperative, listened attentively , took the URL's and among my speech, I said something about having blocked a website before and I didn't complained. The man was very keen to listen about types of these websites and promised to call back.
Guess what? Yesterday, ALL were back with a telephone call of apology.

Hala Fawzi

I am also creating my first wiki to use with a large group of students (20-30) and I am so overwhelmed about this experience! I have created a private wiki to document the daily contacts with everything involved; adminstration, students, my boss, computer lab guys and  with the  important ones involved: the students. Until now, the road seems to be paved with flowers.I hope I am not day dreaming!

Jose A. da Silva

Dear Bawers,
Good news. I guess we don´t have toworry anymore about inserting tables, getting boldface type. Pbwiki has made available the rich text editor. If you go on editing options you will see it. You will just have to choose it as your default editor.

Dafne Gonzalez

I started using the rich-text editor version of Pbwiki for the activities wiki of the English for architecture course I am teaching this trimester, and I faced so many problems with bugs that I had to go back to the original version. Maybe they have fixed those bugs, but if you are going to use the wiki for an academic project with different pages, I would suggest waiting for a while until the new interface is more stable.

Jose A. da Silva

Thanks for sharing your experience. I think you have a point in there. It looks easier, but it does need to be improved. After seeing what Dennis has been doing with his uising the classic editor, I can see the good points of using it. As mine is sort of an experimental wiki, I will keep triying the editor ans see what happens. However, I confess, I feel safer in the old style. It seems easir to separate topics and content.

Nina Liakos

As Daf said, the wysiwyg editor in pbwiki is not without problems.  One problem is a very messay sidebar. (See  http://005spr2007.pbwiki.com as an example)  I At first, I thought it was me, and I appealed to busy Daf for help.  It was she who told me that I hadn't done anything wrong; it is a problem on their end.  I wrote pbwiki support and received this reply: "I'd
love to tell you that this is being fixed soon. In reality, I can't say that. We are constantly tweaking the look and feel of the
new WYSIWYG editor and the resulting pages. It's still very new and I must ask for your patience while we work out the bugs."

Since I was copying and pasting already-created handouts on this wiki, I ultimately decided to keep it rather than struggle through the learning curve of wikistyle to re-create the look I wanted, but for the second wiki I created for this class (http://005readingspr2007.pbwiki.com) I stuck with the "classic editor".

As Tere, I think, mentioned recently, you get what you pay for, and in fact I am delighted with the level of service we usually receive from these open-source applications.  I can't figure out how these people put food on their tables and pay their mortgages or rent!
Moira Hunter I had the same problem when I used WYSIWYG in PBwiki when it first appeared and the learners and I all decided to keep with the original version too. In fact, what the students really liked and found interesting was that they learnt something about html as well as wikis, whereas in the 'easy click' wikis, they don't.

Nina Liakos

How do you link items in a pbwiki sidebar to already created pages in the wiki (classic editor)?

Dafne Gonzalez

There are two ways:
[the name you gave to the page|page name] for example:
[week1|these are the activities for week 1]
or
[pageURL|page name]

Hala Fawzi

Was the question of "How to add a flash animation to a pbwiki" ever posted here? I am posting it now...

 

Back to top

Wikispaces

No photo yet

Monica Veado

I wrote the support team in Wikispaces and told them about my problem with editing the navigation bar. The answer so far: "Not sure!" Oh, well... Guess I'm going back to square 1!
 

Teresa Almeida d'Eça

Dear Ibrahim,
Congrats on a very nice project and so well laid out! It's a great example of the look you can get with Wikispaces and how it can be used for an international collaborative project.

No photo yet

Monica Veado

How did you manage to get rid of the ads, were you using the upgraded paid version?


 

Victoria Saumell

I have started working on my first wiki and have so far encountered two problems:

1) Is it possible to upload or embed a Powerpoint presentation from my hard disk?

2) I have tried unsuccessfullly to upload a logo, which meets the requirements (gif 71x77). Any ideas why?

 

Victoria Saumell

I have been trying unsuccessfully to add pages to the side bar of my wiki (Wikispaces). Could you let me know how to do it?

Dafne Gonzalez

I have created a tutorial for you to see how to add links to the navigation bar: http://web2tools.wikispaces.com/navigationbar
 

Victoria Saumell

I tried to embed a Bubbleshare slide show and I couldn't... so I posted the link to it. Has anybody done that successfully? Please, I need tips!

 

 Back to top

Jotspot

Paul Mountjoy

Not available to everyone as yet is www.jotspot.com which was bought by Google. With jotspot you can control permissions over the whole wiki or on a page by page basis. So pages can be public or private. Commenting is allowedby anyone if you set it to public on that particular page or over the whole wiki. I use it for personal stuff as well as for notices for courses that I run.
Sharon Betts I act as webmaster for a non-profit Dog club (leonbergers) newsletter.  We use JotSpot to collaborate in producing our quarterly magazine.  The editorial staff is all across the US and all submissions, proofing etc are done online.  We put out a great magazine, too. So - here's a hurrah for Jotspot.

Dafne Gonzalez

I registered at JotSpot in 2005, but it said that it was free for only 15 days so I did not create anything there. Is it still a paid service?
Sharon Betts When we started this it was free.  Then we opted to pay to extend our storage and other possibilities. It is now under Google and I have no idea what will eventually happen.  I do know they said we would be able to continue as is.

Paul Mountjoy

Jotspot has changed. Google bought it and I've been using it for around 6 months now. Its completely free. Registration is still closed though you can add your email address at their website so they can tell you when its open again. New pages can be created as a wiki, blog, spreadsheet,  filing cabinet, photo page or calendar.  All of these page types are template based.

Dafne Gonzalez

I still have my username and password. I wonder if I will have to create a new account.
Gladys

Gladys Baya

(to Dafne) I got a free option over a year ago (don't know how, it didn't appear in a friend's browser!), and when Google bought it I was notified they'd keep all of those active, and stop charging those who'd been paying for premium services...

Paul Mountjoy

Hi Everyone
I have removed the content from one of my jotspot wikis so you can play around with it and see what you think of it. You should be able to change and make new pages. It is available at http://asterisk.jot.com/WikiHome

Moira Hunter

What a great idea!  And thank you a lot :-)
I have been waiting a long time for my jotspot and after playing around in your blog, I'm even more impatient to get my little hands on my freebie!!!!
It's so 'light', it's really comfortable to work with and has some very interesting features.  I like the calendar but couldn't make an entry there as a password was requested but I could play on all the other types of pages and uploading was quick and easy.

 

 Back to top

Zoho wiki

Gladys

Gladys Baya

Yesterday I read Zoho is just launching a wiki too (still in beta) and decided to give it a try: gladysbaya.wiki.zoho.com. On the front page, you can see how I learned about this (BTW; Zoho'sgrowing faster than I can reads the news!). So far I can tell you:


* the editor is great, with four options, from Advanced (all kinds of icons) to HTML.
* you can make a wiki public or private, but not different pages,apparently.
* you can customize the custom top panel ,the skins and where yoursidebar goes (loved so many options!)
* a wiki can be read and/or contributed to by : anyone / group members/ just its owner (you set read and contribute independenly)
* you can subscribe to updates via email for each page independently
* all documents on Zoho office suite can be embedded automatically.

 

BUT:
* I saw no way to revert to previous versions
* I found no way to keep track of who's done what or when (perhaps because I'm still alone there?). There's "recent changes", but that
seems to show only links to last pages updated, not showing changes that have taken place.

I set my Zoho wiki as ff:
who can read this wiki? anyone
who can contribute to this wiki? group

Now I need volunteers to test it and tell me how user-friendly you find it, and to find out if anyone can commment with those settings.
Also, I need some kind souls who email me to gladysbaya@yahoo.com.ar and tell me they want to be invited as members, to see how that works..

Cora Chen

I just tried out Zoho for the first time, I find it very useful and user-friendly. It's a wonderful tool with many features with lot of flexibility. I just copied and pasted my lesson plan (word.doc) onto the Zoho writer, clicked on "publish" above its tool bar, here it is:
http://writer.zoho.com/public/cora/Holidays-&-Celebrations--lesson-plan
Zoho writer's published version even allows people to leave comments (at the bottom left of the page). I really like Zoho because it's so easy to use and it allows me to create something very fast. :-)))

 

No photo yet

Dennis Newson

When I try to join Zoho, it will not let me. The fill in spots for name etc. will not activate? Is this just a bad day or my PC?

 

Back to top

Alado

Susan Wood

If you have difficulties getting the Alado conference screen to appear after logging in, make sure that Mozilla allows Active-X and other scripts through: Look for scripts blocked by the Mozilla plug-in program called "no scripts" and allow ALL of them through. Also look for any additional pop-up blockers notices that Mozilla may place at the top of the page. If your program stops to ask permission to connect to an unnamed port, say yes! If your program asks permission to active an Active-X control, say yes!

Finally, if all of that is not enough and you still seem to have trouble with Java, try going to the "Speed test" on Alado and using the button that will allow you to check your version of Java. If you see a coffeecup applet in the Java window, click on it. I really don't understand why, but doing the test (and clicking on the coffeecup) seems to make a difference with how Mozilla subsequently handles my request to get into the conference.

2. archives: use IE on a "medium security" setting. Make sure that you only click once on the program you wish to see, and allow a lot of time for it to load properly. Once it is loaded, don't click on any of the powerpoint slide buttons -- let the conference play unmolested. If you try to click on the slides, they may disappear (well, mine do!).

Cora Chen

Dear Andy,

Thank you very much for all the efforts you have made to provide us with an effective venue for our workshops/presentations. Many thanks also for your being there with us today to facilitate the presentation and offer crucial technical assistance.

 

Many thanks again

Andrew Pincon

BaW'ers:

We had a great session conducted by Bee Dieu on Blogs today. The recorded archive from today's session is now uploaded at this link: http://www.alado.net/webheads . To play this recorded archive and the others on this site, please make sure you use your Internet Explorer browser. The recording will not play in Firefox, Safari or Camino browsers since the recording is made using the embedded Windows Media Player Encoder.

 

 

Back to top

Blogs

 Why use blogs?

Kağan Sütçü

The usage is what I am more concerned about. The only advantage seems to me that students themselves and their parents or friends will see students' work and comment on them or open a discussion about it on the blog. Or by the links I can direct them to other sites online for maybe a homework or fun activity. Am I thinking straight? or am I missing something about the usage of blogs?

No photo yet

Monica Veado

Hello Kagan,

For me, the opportunity to share ideas, thoughts and texts with a real audience that can take a worldwide proportion is one of the
greatest advantages of using these new web2.0 tools. One of the things that has always bothered me is the fact that, in general,
teachers are the students' main - and sometimes only - readers, and not a very good one, as their main job is usually to criticize and
correct their work... And that clearly does not happen in real life between writers and readers. I believe that the possibility of writing to be read can help students develop not only their linguistic abilities, but also discoursive, not to mention aspects of adequacy to the target audience, style and register. Besides, I think that students should be given the chance to experiment with new technologies and learn about their communication potential, and they should also discuss their rights and responsibilities as writers. I'm sure you're going to find lots of other reasons to "blog and wiki" with your students!

No photo yet

Derya Kulavuz-Onal

... although I have never used them for educational purposes  yet (I don't know why but hope to use in the near future), 2 months ago  I created a blog for my 8-month-old daughter, to upload her photos to  share with my friends, to write some notes about her physical, personal  and language development, etc. I thought of doing this throughout her  life and when she is ready she might manage the blog herself. So this  blog would be her history and she might show it to her children,  grandchildren, grand-grandchildren,.... I hope! :) I thought that it  would be nice to share it with you although it is for family purposes:)  so here is the link

http://www.pera-onal.blogspot.com
Although it is mostly in Turkish, there are parts in English (intro,  comments on some photos etc.) and also you can enjoy her lovely photos!

Sharon Betts When we have family a long way from us, blogging is a great way to keep everyone informed.  I, too, use this as we build our solar house: http://bettsberm.blogspot.com

No photo yet

Monica Veado

I'm starting a blog to record all my "adventures in cyberland" (mmmm... that could be the name of a blog!). I spent a few hours 'playing' with layout, widgets and other bits and pieces, now I'm going to start posting more regularly.
Kağan Sütçü I've thought of my writing students. I see them once a week and I am thinking of asking them to make their own blogs and instead of handing in their papers I'd ask them to put their assignment on their blog and I and maybe his other friends will write their comments about it and the writer may do the necessary changes.
I believe I must pare some time to think what I can do with these tools.:)

Cheryl Oakes

You will find that blogs are about reflections and continuing conversations. Students and staff will write more because they have a larger audience and they will go back and revise and add to their conversations. Try that with a paper they have to turn in for the teacher.

Teresa Almeida d'Eça

I'd like to tell you about the two blogs I have with my 6th grade students (second year of English). One is an extracurriclar blog for students to practice their English outside of class and the other is a curricular blog for our CALL lessons.
http://fwe2.motime.com/  (extracurricular)
http://call05-06.motime.com/  (curricular)
My students and I are very proud to have the first blog, "Have Fun with English! 2" get the Edublog Award for "Best Teacher Blog 2006" last December.


Both these blogs show what's possible to do with beginner EFLers. I created them last year when they were in 5th grade and just starting English
In our extracurricular blog I try to diversify the posts, but always relate to the students, their work, field trips, etc. Let me call your attention to the first two posts. The first, posted  today, is about this Rodrigo's newly-created blog on his passion and dream. The second is about an interview given by another Rodrigo (now in 8th grade and a former student). Both my Rodrigo's are "A" students and in the honor roll at school.  :-)
I also call your attention to the voiceboard messages not only from students, but also from dear Webhead friends. The latest just in is from Dennis Oliver. You're welcome to leave text or voice messages for the students, preferably in simple sentences they can understand. And please write your name and where in the world you are (city and country). I'll be using that for a future CALL lesson.

You're also welcome to visit Rodrigo's blog and leave a message. You may say that you're my colleague or friend.
Finally, why not join our Frappr map?
Hope you enjoy browsing these blogs. I'm currently writing an article on them, but in Portuguese, to accompany a presentation I was invited to give at a School of Education at the beginning of March.

Mary Hillis

Last year during BaW, I created a blog for my daughter at Yahoo 360 http://360.yahoo.com/maryehillis  click on "view blog" to check it out. 

No photo yet

Monica Veado

Right now I use Multiply for a personal blog, and Blogger for school projects.

No photo yet

Ana Maria Cult

I´d like to share a blog I created last year to try out web tools suggested by our group "Learning with computers". It was not aimed at using in the classroom, but only a place to see if I was able to use those tools. It ended up looking like a portfolio of many things I tried. It also brings some interesting links. Have a look! www.lifefeast.blogspot.com
No photo yet
Ester La Torre
and now what do I write on it?
If this is the question that arises in your mind as soon as you create a new blog or a new site... welcome to my club!
I always feel worried about what to publish and if it could be useful or not, I'd like to know if someone else is in my situation.
Moira Hunter

I tend to use blogs as depositories of tools, articles, whatever.  The only 'real' blog (in my opinion) that I created was a year ago when I had a specific need and wanted to air a subject in the open and to have public comments on this subject. 
http://moira.edublogs.org/2006/02/04/online-assignment-submission-dates
It was very effective and served its purpose.
However, I discovered other problems with this blog - that of management.  I didn't know to what degree I should myself intervene, and the most problematic area for me was knowing (or not knowing) how best to manage comments which were off-topic.  Should I answer them putting the poster back on topic, should I contact them privately, should I start a new topic?
  
So many questions ... so I decided to do nothing :-) 

This blog served its purpose and by creating it, I realised that I personally cannot maintain this type of reflective blog in the long-term as I don't have the sort of time commitment which is required, as simple as that.  Nor character, probably.  So, Stephen Downes, you're safe from me

 

So, it all depends on what you want to do, what the need is and whether a a blog will fulfil that need.

Cheryl Oakes

last year when I went on sabbatical I made a blog to continue communicating to my students and community for 13 weeks. I
had a 2 min. podcast linked to it as well. My purpose was to continue communicating with my young students so they would know I had not abandoned them, I still cared and I was continuing my learning and going to school, just as they were. It was purposeful and had very few comments from my students, but lots of exposure as evidenced by my clustr map http://www.clustrmap.com


Then in the fall I was approached by Techlearning.com to participate a couple Tuesdays a month and write a blog post there. So, now my purpose changed from local community to world community. I have blogged about Webheads, virtual communities, online courses and 21st Century Literacy skills. Why do I blog there? Well, there are so many people around the planet who have helped me grow professionally, I felt I should give back to that community. I write from a classroom teacher's perspective. I hope I encourage people with my blogs and I share great things that are happening. Purpose..... for me. I do receive some comments, which are validating and keep me going. So, find your purpose, maybe it is  your students and wikis, maybe your community, maybe to connect 2 communities virtually. Try it, you never know where it will lead you.

Amy Meckelborg

A friend and I are going on a holiday to Greece in a few months and I would like a way to stay in touch with family and friends while we are gone. ....solution? A blog, of course!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No photo yet

Berta Leiva

In 2005 in Baw, I tried ... to look for a way to build my online presence and fell in love with Blogs, an affection I then carried on
when I participated in BaW and Blogging in 2006 (a Web 2.0 tools course at work with Daf) and this year BaW, B4B and OWP as well. It  has taken me all this time to handle certain functions and I forget  very easily how I came to do them. My problem is that I am too intuitive and have a hard time reading and understanding tutorials. Result: I have now blogs in three different blog servers where I sometimes post my reflections, experiment and play around with new tools, give myself step-by-step instructions on how I did certain things, compare what each can and cannot do, and have friends, colleagues and family visit when they have questions about blogs and blogging tools. I also have a family blog with lots of different picture presentations (sometimes too much movement and special effects, according to my 88 year old mom). I finally found an easy way to create functional and attractive online sites that require no complex computer knowledge or skills.
http://itwilldefinitelywork.blogspot.com/
http://bleiva2003.motime.com/
http://bleiva2003.wordpress.com/  


I feel Wikis are also great but I am not teaching at this very moment and have not had the need to work collaboratively (strange as
it may sound). I am preparing myself, though, so I know how they work and will be able to help my students use them in the near
future.  
...

No photo yet

Mary Nunaley

I have created a personal blog for my hobby business and would welcome any feedback you have http://suintn.blogspot.com.

No photo yet

Nahir Aparicio

If you use blogs with your students it is important to have a goal, and to plan well the activities, you don't need to use widgets until you feel more confident. Start simple.  Open your own blog for practicing, step by step.

Back to top

 

Trying different blog hosts

Edublogs (Wordpress)

Juliana Gense

In the blog provider you selected – www.edublogs.org

• How do you invite others to be members of your blog?

Go to USERS then in ADD USER FROM COMMUNITY type the e-mail address of another user to add them to your blog. Choose the role of the user and then click at ADD USER.

 

• Is it possible to upload videos? If so, how do you do it?

Yes, click on write, then in the options you have to post, click in the You Tube link and follow the instructions.

 

2. After exploring our wiki:

• How do you create a table?

Add a space before and after what you want in the table.

 

• How do you make a word bold?

Add 2 ** write the word and then, 2 ** again.

Paula Ferreira

In Edublog, to invite people, I go to USERS, Authors & Users, Add User from Community, User e-mail, and Add User;to upload a video I go to the WRITE page, Write Post and Upload, and select the file you want to upload.

Jose A. da Silva

I chose to explore edublogs.
1. How do you invite others to be members of your blog?
In edublogs you should click the option edit, next you click on users, after you click on the option edit and add other users. Once you have done that, you should scroll down and the role of your invitees as Administrator, Author, Contributor or Subscriber.
2. Is it possible to upload videos? If so, how do you do it?
Yes, theoretically. I tried to do it for my post on web designing (something which I am struggling with now) http://joseantoniook.edublogs.org/  but it did not work. In edublogs you have an icon for youtube in the posting box. I clicked the icon it asked for the video id. I don't know what it is, could not find it. I tried to embed it, but the code disappeared when I saved the post. Can any one help me?

Dafne Gonzalez

Dear Jose,
When you go to YouTube, and click on a video, on the right side of the page, you get a code to embed the video, that is the video ID

Jose A. da Silva

That is exactly what I tried to do over and over and it did not work. However, ... (see related entry under Wikis)

Nina Liakos

I am stymied as to your trouble embedding slideshows on your blog.  I use bubbleshare and blogger, and I have never had a problem.  I don't know html either, except for italics and bold and underlining, but I have been more or less successful going in there and sometimes deleting the stuff they put at the end ("Album powered by Bubbleshare"/"Add to your blog"/"This album").  I often get a message rejecting the html code (it says it is unfinished, or something isn't closed, or whatever, I can't remember exactly), but
interestingly, if I just click on "publish" again, it works!

No photo yet

Berta Leiva

In Wordpress (and  probably Edublog) the only videos you can place in your posts are the ones from Google and Youtube for security reasons and following a specific "formula".
Check here:
http://faq.wordpress.com/2006/10/23/can-i-add-flash-video-embed-other-media/

Once you have the whole code to embed, you only take the URL and  place it between brackets like this [googlevideo= URL]
Example [googlevideo=http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-8459301055248673864]
Example for youtube:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgEmZ39EtFk]

In a comment area I mentioned there could be a way to get around with Wordpress´ limitations on placing videos and got an unexpected comment from someone from Wordpress I transcribe here:
"Lloyd Budd // Jan 28th 2007 at 3:49 am No way to get around our limitations - it is for security. Please do send us feedback with services you feel would improve the WordPress.com experience. The ones you, our customers want we then evaluate (their security) for adding".

For me Wordpress has a lot of advantages but one cannot embed any video, flash or animations (no slideshare, picturetrail photo effect, slide, etc.)

Jose A. da Silva

I was finally able to post a video to my edublogs blog. The video I found is also a tuturial in wordpress blogs. It is really useful for those using this platform. It is   a bit long but woth waching for those interested in learning more about it.I have also summarized the process of posting video to edublogs. http://joseantoniook.edublogs.org/

 

Back to top

Blogspot / Blogger

no photo yet

Monica Veado

... it's possible to upload videos to Blogger. All you need to do is go to YouTube and select the video you want. Next to the small screen there is a box marked "embed". Copy and paste the html code onto your blog (using the Java/HTML box) and voilà!
I did one as an example, check: http://maisimpressoesdigitais.blogspot.com .
Sharon Betts You can also embed a Slide show in blogger (and most blog programs).  Just upload your pictures to slide and follow their directions for the code.  Paste it into your blog. I have one at http://bettsberm.blogspot.com/

Ana Maria Menezes

... anybody knows how to attach a word file to a blog in Blogger?

Cristina Costa

the only way I see it, is to put the word doc on a server and then create a link to its location on the post of your blog. You will need some html code for that.
Sharon Betts I haven't yet moved to the new Blogger as I read so many negative things - I have 4 Blogger accounts and worry about flipping them all.  You have had good experiences?

No photo yet

Monica Veado

Google has really made my life a lot easier by releasing the new Blogger version!

Nina Liakos

I find the new Blogger to be vastly superior to the old--faster and more user-friendly!

No photo yet

Monica Veado

I've been trying out different blogs and so far Blogger is the one that has given me the most in terms of ease and flexibility. I need something that can be simple for the students to use and I think that Blogger is very good for people with limited time and cyber-knowledge!
No photo yet
Justin Scoggin
I have a couple of blogs, but I am not satisfied with my blogger account because I can't figure out how to configure it to look like I want it to... It looks so ... plain and every time I try to figure out how to configure it, I never understand what I have to do... This is the account:  http://iguanajournal.blogspot.com/index.html
...
If anybody has advice about how to make the blogger site more palatable, I would be very grateful.

Teresa Almeida d'Eça

I like the plain look of your blog. I like the white background and the blue font. (My Web pages and blogs are always very simple or plain, as you say.) I think your layout and skin are appropriate for the type of content you have.

If you want tips on how to change it, you can change the skin and the template. I'm sure you'll find a more appealing one to you.
You can also add a photo or an image (thumbnail) at the top left of each post, for example. I think that's something that adds color, life and meaning to the post.
You can also reduce the font size. I personally prefer a smaller size.

You'll find some hints about working with Blogger in our Hints page (link in our wiki). Maybe they'll help.

No photo yet
Justin Scoggin
I don't like how the blog is all in one line, one after the other.  I want them to be separate, so people can choose which one they want to read.  I also want to use widgets and a hit counter.  The hit counter I chose asks me to put their code in the HTML code of the blogger site, which is just too much to ask of me.

Nina Lyulkun

(to Justin) To configure your blog as you like you'd better explore different blogs and figure out which is the best for you. Try zoho.com, or motime is good enough.

Martina Schubert

(to Justin) you can change the template only with a at least basic command of HTML and CSS,because all the changes of your layout are done in the source text under templates. If you would like to have at least your own header image, let me know and I will send you a screenshot, also for the part on the side bar where you would want to add your own links.
Then, with the new Blogger, you have some more options to change elements of your site and colors ...
But generally - the layout of a weblog is not what matters. It is the content. Some of the blogs I love to read are very, very simple from the view of template design, but a real adventure every time I read them.

Back to top

Multiply

Moira Hunter I absolutely love multiply.com and regard it as my 'fun' blog!
When I was first introduced to it, I didn't use it as I'm not a 'blogger' as such.  Then I came back to it much later and made my 'Multiliteracies' blog, where I literally put anything up!  (Even my son, a Digital Native,  with his creation :- cell phone + YouTube + karaoke + lots of fun.   Warning, you need to know who James Blunt is before watching it!).
BTW, if you don't like the music on the front page, just click on the mic.  I love it!  It wakes me up and I've used it in lessons too for computer language.
I also like the way you can customise the background as I have, how you can make messages locked and private to yourself, open only to friends, open only to colleagues or open to everybody.  I like the fact that you can alter this on each post and I like the spell check.
I haven't used it with learners yet but am going to in the next week with some 'creative' learners, so I'll see then whether it is an appropriate tool or not for my purposes.

Angeles Berman

I like multiply design and I like you can upload music there.It has a blog and a video box, too

Back to top

Motime

Teresa Almeida d'Eça


 I'm quite happy with it and replies to glitches get very quick responses, as I mentioned before... the capacity for different types of files is low, so I had to start uploading them to my server.
I believe that we can only have three blogs, which I already have, so next year I'll have to move on to some other provider or.... pay. 

Back to top

After Bee Dieu's presentation

Cora Chen

Dear Bee,

On behalf of Dafne, Teresa, the BAW07 moderator team and the participants, I would like to thank you for your wonderful presentation on blogs today. Your presentation introduces a lot of useful information and we have learned a lot from you.

We will certainly invite you as our guest speaker again in the future.

Our heartfelt thanks

No photo yet

Derya Kulavuz-Onal

Bee's live presentation on blogging yesterday was my first  participation on a live event in my life and it was really fascinating!  Thinking that I was unaware of such tools and virtual opportunities for  all those years is horrifying me, though!
Of course, face-to-face interaction and real (not virtual) conferences  are much better, but sometimes there are lots of things (lack of time,  money, resources, having families, children, babies, no permission from  your school, classes, students, etc) preventing you from participating  such events. However, seeing that the virtual conferences and  presentations are there with many more advantages upon one disadvantage  (you cannot touch the person speaking:)) made me very happy indeed. So  THANKS A LOT TO BEE AND BAW TEAM!
No photo yet

Monica Veado

Thank you for the link to Bee's session in Alado! I wasn't able to participate, but had a great time catching up this morning...

Dafne Gonzalez

I have created an entry for Bee's session on blogging. You can now pay it a visit and leave your comments :-)
http://baw07.motime.com
Jennifer Verschoor Today I was taking a look at the great presentation and for my great surprise saw my blog used as an example in the presentation.  This really is an honour!!

Angeles Berman

After Bee's conference , I feel motivated to open a new blog...and to start playing with wikies...

Maru del Campo

I listened to the record of Bee conference, it was like I was there! I could not believe it!  I could follow all the conference, took
notes, added sites in my browser and saw examples of the blogs produced.

Back to top

Webpages and websites

 

Nina Lyulkun

Check out the web page below. I started  creating it with the help of Google Page Creator. If you have a minute drop by and take a look. It is the first Web page of my own. ;-)
Be charitable, please. It's only my first attempt. I have found that to create wiki and blog is much more easier than web page. ...
http://nina.lyulkun.googlepages.com/home

Moira Hunter

Google Page Creator is a quick fix job :-) One other way I used it recently was as a poster for a 3-day workshop  I was giving http://moirahunter.googlepages.com/weblearningwiththehumantouch

Angeles Berman

Do you need a Gmail for it?
No photo yet
Ester La Torre
I ... want to suggest something proposing an easy way to create a site from an open source. From this URL:
http://www.johnsesl.com/templates/teachers/ you can register as a teacher and create your own site choosing from  a large selection of activities which are provided free of charge,it is useful for teachers with little experience and materials to publish, you can see my "baby site" at: http://www.johnsesl.com/community/tower3/ click on "activities" and you'll find a list, try games or quizzes; anyway, if you want, you can publish your own works using the activities generator provided by the site.

Moira Hunter

There are many easy web site creators around now but everything that is free is not necessarily the best and doesn't always give you the flexibility that you may need.  And may not be accessible to all in the world, either. Examples are Weebly, making web creation easy  http://www.weebly.com/  and Microsoft has its Microsoft Office Live Basics for IE users only  http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/officelive/FX101534261033.aspx

Teresa Almeida d'Eça

You can take a look at my homepage and see how it's looked for 9 years. I still like it. There's a sentimental attachment to it. I've grown accustomed to its face....    http://64.71.48.37/teresadeca/

Back to top

After Graham Stanley's presentation

 


Cora Chen


Here are the urls from Graham's presentation: (I might have missed one or two, but all of them are available in the recording).
http://www.digibridge.net/webheads/studentpodcastingprojects/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/everythingdigital/8453832/
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
http://www.evoca.com/
http://odeo.com/
http://studio.odeo.com/create
http://64.71.48.37/teresadeca/webheads/online-learningenvironments.htm#Podcasting

Free storage & bandwidth:
http://www.ourmedia.org

RSS 2.0 the easy way :
http://www.feedburner.com

http://clustrmaps.com/
http://themetourism.blogspot.com
ELT Podcasting group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/podcasting_elt/

ELT Podcasting wiki
http://pod-efl.wikispaces.com/

Thanks for attending Graham's presentation,

Cora Chen

Dear Graham,

On behalf of Dafne, Teresa, the BAW07 moderator team and the participants, I would like to thank you for your wonderful presentation on podcasting today. Your presentation introduces a lot of useful information and it is very stimulating! Thank you also for giving us detailed instructions on how to use the tools you recommended for podcasting. We have learned a lot from you and are motivated to use podcasting for our classes!

We are very grateful to you for giving us the presentation in spite of your illness.

We will certainly invite you as our guest speaker again in the future.

Our heartfelt thanks

Cora Chen

Dear Andy,

Thank you very much for all the efforts you have made to provide us with an effective venue for our workshops/presentations.  Many thanks also for your being there with us today to facilitate the presentation to make sure everything was running smoothly. Thanks again for your technical assistance!

Gratefully,

Angeles Berman

It was an amazing conference. Hope to have Graham again soon!!!

Top

 

Learning, learning, learning...

Jose A. da Silva

Hi Dafne,

It was really nice to read your pages in Geocities and the one about your experience with Wimba... I was thinking about trial and error when dealing with tech tools. It was really nice to read your baby web page and see you talking about trial and error. That is why I think Michael Coghlan's advice on selecting only a few of the tools you are exposed to and taking time learning about them. It takes a lot of time putting up a wiki, a blog, a web page because we are many times inexperienced and beginning to learn something new. Thanks for sharing and letting me know I am not alone.

Teresa Almeida d'Eça

I believe that the "student (though not necessarily frustration) mode" is a 'must' mode for teachers who are going to pursue online or blended teaching, first and foremost because we need to control the tools we're going to use before we use them them with students. Second, because experiencing in advance what our students will or may go through will allow us to cater better to their needs and possible frustrations.
 

 

Amy Meckelborg

I just wanted to say how much I appreciate  all the sharing of the adventures (and misadventures) by BaWers who have the time to play and explore . I have been having trouble just keeping up with messages and quickly browsing links provided. (I have a large collection of them in my Delicious links saved for a time when I can look at them more closely.) Despite not having much time to play myself, I am learning a lot  from those of you who are able to, and I wanted to let you all know that your questions and discussions are very useful to those of us who may not be contributing as much.
So thank you and keep up the great work!

Nina Liakos

We don't have to put everything that we discover here to some pedagogical (or even personal) use.  Were it not for BaW, I would probably never have learned about most (if not all) of these amazing tools, but I doubt anyone can effectively incorporate all of them, or even one of each category of them, into their teaching.  We don't want to overwhelm ourselves or our students.  Still, we have a lovely smorgasbord of possibilities from which to select those that we would like to try out with our students.

Jose A. da Silva

Do not feel discouraged ... Learning takes time. You see, we have been taking part on this session for only three weeks now. It
is true that many of the participants are posting wonderful things and creating blogs and wikis, as you have said. However, most of us, are not beginners. I am a false beginner as are almost 90% of the members of this group. I started blogging in January of last year, and I still have  a lot to learn. I do get frustrated when I cannot make a tool work as it should. Take your time, choose one tool and explore it, ask for help if you need.
A good thing about e-learning is that the support is always there for you. This community will continue existing after this session is
over. You can be sure that if you have any doubts you can contact any of us if you see from your yahoo, skype contacts' list for help.
Finally, I am glad you will keep trying. I also have given up on working with a tooll many times, but then I went back and tried
again and succeded most of the times, sometimes I failed, but I tried again and again.

Top

 

 

Widgets for blogs and wikis

Teresa Almeida d'Eça

Yesterday Kagan contacted me privately and here I am answering his question, with his permission, through the list, because it may be of interest to others.
The question was: "How did you burry that voice mail tool in your blog (Have Fun with English! 2, right frame)?"

  • Go to the MyChingo site and Sign up Wait for an email with your password (it's very quick)
  • Log in
  • Click the "Get the Code" tab, choose the sample and click it
  • Copy-paste the code where you want it in your blog

Mary Nunaley

I found a great widget for blogs that allows you to create polls: http://www.vizu.com/

Advice- miscellaneous

Dafne Gonzalez

In the wiki SideBar you can find all the links to the pages within the wiki, the links to our tools (YG,forum, blog, voice forum), the links to external pages(hints, glossary, tutorials) and the links to pbwiki tutorials

http://baw07.pbwiki.com

Kağan Sütçü

I was also wondering if is there a tool that my students can upload their hws and then I can check them and they can see it and read my comments on it. Is a web site/protopage/a blog most suitable tool for this? I am really confused and I really would like to hear your ideas about them...

Hala Fawzi

(to Vera) This article about using Skype with learners of Russian may be of interest to you :

http://www.tiny.cc/j0n2Y

Dafne Gonzalez

I have an anecdote of something very embarrassing that happened to me when I decided to share my page with the Webheads (in 2002). Instead of copying the URL from the browser, I typed it and I did not realize I had a typo. Well, I sent my page, and as soon as the message was published, I clicked on the link to my page, and, what I got was....... a porno site :-(
Can you imagine my embarrasment?
I learned the hard way that I should copy the URLs  from the browser or double check what I have written before sending a URL.
Moira Hunter Jane Hart has created a very interesting guide to choosing and using elearning tools using free tools here:  http://www.janeknight.com/Directory/guide.html
Her site is well worth clicking on the Home button and taking a look around as it is a mine of information for everybody. 

Nelba Quintana
I have just registered to delicious and it is very easy ...; One thing: my user is Nellba I want to change it to Nelba. How can I?
Sharon Betts (to Nelba) It is not possible to change a username in most of these online applications. That is usuallly what they use as the "key field". The best way is just to make a new account and start again.

Nina Liakos

Can someone who has used both Slide and Bubbleshare comment on the relative merits of each?

Cheryl Oakes

Bubbleshare I use when I want to add sound and photos. You have a few seconds per photo. Then you save and you can get a code to paste into a blog. Then the slide show can be viewed in the blog or you can go to bubble share and look at each image.
Slide, has a few views, I like the collage, but it is hard to see the images, so I switched it to the slide view which shows bigger images. There are ways to share on myspace and blogger etc. I'll try those later.So, for me bubbleshare has audio  and so far slide doesn't have audio.

No photo yet

Ana Maria Cult

Bubbleshare- good for downloading pictures with a narration. When you add it to a blog you have to create a link to your photo presentation. (Ex: www.culturaib.blogspot.com / Title of the post: Holiday)

Slide.com- great for making slideshows as it offers different themes, frames, shapes etc. Advantage: The slide is shown in your blog. You can add it to your template getting an HTML code. (Ex:www.gettingtoknowbrazil.blogspot.com )

Picturetrail.com- as good as slide.com with great shapes for slideshows. (Ex: www.culturainglesaudi.blogspot.com)

slidestory.com- in my opinion, better than bubbleshare in the sense that the presentation + narration appears directly on your blog by adding the HTML code to it.

Dafne Gonzalez

You can also embed bubbleshare on web pages, blogs and wikis in different formats. They give you the codes and you just copy them.

Nina Liakos

I have put plenty of Bubbleshare slideshows on my blogs, where they can be viewed directly or a click takes the viewer to the bubbleshare site where the slideshow can be seen in a larger size:
See an example at http://agu2006.blogspot.com/2006/08/sweet-sorrow.html

Nina Liakos

What is Zoho exactly? Not a blog--not a wiki--not a web page? or one of the above?

Nelba Quintana
Why does our Yahoo group have an RSS and mine doesn´t have it? Have coordinators added it?

No photo yet

Sarah Braxton

I found www.Snap.com, a search engine that I had not seen before. It has several features that make it worthwhile for ESL students. First, narrower search terms are suggested as you type, eliminating evaluation of the huge number of sites that are yielded with the common one-word searches my students perform in Google ("dogs"...). Second, the divided screen that comes with the results list allows for a visual preview of the website. A glance at the page combined with the well-place URL near the image make choosing a site to explore further a simple task. I like it and will show it to some students working on classic author research next week. What do you think?

No photo yet

Ibrahim Rustamov

Please do not put everything in your blog or wiki, it will load very slowly making it hard to view for those who use dial-up or have slow Internet connection. Try to make simple, accessible and user-friendly interface.

No photo yet

Ana Maria Cult

I´ve just noticed a nice little face next to our e-mail which becomes yellow when we´re online. Although I´m online my little face is still off. Anybody knows how I can activate that?

No photo yet
Monica Veado
(to Ana Maria) check your Yahoo Messenger. Open the program and, next to your picture (and name) at the top, click on the little arrow. It then opens to different options (yours is probably "invisible" right now, click on "available"). The little face shoud then turn "smiley and yellow"! Did it work???

Dafne Gonzalez

(to Ana Maria) Another possibilty is your preferences options.
  • Go to the "Messenger tab
  • Select preferences
  • then select the "privacy" option, and you will see:
  • "Allow Yahoo websites to show me when I am online"
  • check that box!
Gladys

Gladys Baya

I'd need to find a widget like Wordweb that helps me with Portuguese (either Portuguese-English or Portuguese-Spanish), any tips?

Moira Hunter

To test connection speeds:

The site Andy used is here  http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/
Another one I use sometimes is  http://www.wugnet.com/myspeed/speedtest.asp

Susan Wood

About a week ago, I upgraded Mozilla and Firefox and, to my dismay, could no longer see some of the images on selected sites (such as Yahoo).  About an hour ago, I found a wonderful, clear and easy-to-follow troubleshooting resource:
<http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=288184>
It led me step-by-step through a simple diagnostic test and then told me how to reset one config switch.  Wow!
Sharon Betts I just discovered this toolbar hosting service.  You can create your personalized toolbar.  I am thinking how great this could be for
teachers that have a separate blogs, wikis, homepages, schoolsites etc.  t even updates automatically, so when you change it, all your students would also change!
Here is mine: http://BettsBar.OurToolbar.com/
Sharon Betts

I have been experimenting with interactive start pages (Netvibes, Protopage, Pageflakes) as agendas for my presentations.
The light comes on -- Teachers could use one of these to put all the resources for a class in one quick location.
I started one for BAW07. Check it out:   http://protopage.com/sharonbetts#Shared_Things/BAW07

When to use start pages:

  • Personal homepage to contain all the links you use daily (including your news feeds, podcasts, news and regularly attended websites)
  • As a page to begin a project - links to all information you want the  students to access (del.icio.us; webquest; feeds from appropriate locations)
  • As the agenda for a presentation - links to each step - kinda like a  power point on steroids.
Moira Hunter (to Sharon)I like your Protopage very much.  I've been using Google Page and then Pageflakes but I'm off to set up my protopage

No photo yet

Monica Veado

I decided to try and create a start page for my writing project. It was fun! I'm not sure I'm really going to use it, but I liked how easy it was to have it ready. I think it may be a useful alternative when you want all the information to be clear and easy to access.

Jose A. da Silva

This is a tool to for online collaboration for kids. You can invite friends to draw and save or send your work to friens. It is called imagination cubed - http://www.imaginationcubed.com/LaunchPage

No photo yet

Ibrahim Rustamov

Why not to test Yahoo Doodle in Yahoo Messenger IMvironment? You can use it and even print using even your virtual printer.
Sharon Betts I have used Gliffy for diagrams, but seem to forget it is available... I think it would be a great way to put the storyboarding and web brainstorm online.

Dafne Gonzalez

I have been using Gliffy for different purposes. These are some of them:

1. graphic used as a pre-reading activity: http://id2125-activities.pbwiki.com/Week4#Monday
2. For students to design display ads: http://www.gliffy.com/pubdoc/1080955/M.jpg ; http://www.gliffy.com/pubdoc/1080956/M.jpg
http://id2124sec2le.wikispaces.com/space/showimage/display_ad_%28ale%29.jpg
3. Post-listening activity: http://id2125-activities.pbwiki.com/f/juan.jpg
http://id2125-activities.pbwiki.com/f/alana.jpg

In sum, I think Gliffy is very easy to use, you can work collaboratively on a graphic, you get 3 URLs with the graphic in 3 different sizes, and you also get codes to embed the graphic on web pages and blogs

Teresa Almeida d'Eça

The drawing tool is Gliffy (cute sound, isn't it?) and let me show my only creation http://fwe2.motime.com/post/576436#comment
to which dear Dennis Oliver, a big fan of my work with my students,  responded with this http://www.gliffy.com/publish/1003440/L

Isn't that so sweet?

No photo yet

Sarah Braxton

Everytime I see that using CSS is an option for creating content layout, I am distracted into thinking that I should learn how to use
this. What exactly is CSS? Are you using it?

Top

 

 

Interactive whiteboards

Susan Wood

Some teachers in the TESL-L listserv have recently suggested using the TalkAndWrite plugin (whiteboard) with the upgraded Skype version 3.  I did a little research and also came up with uSeeToo and Unyte.  They seem to have different strengths:  uSeeToo is great for sharing and marking up images, TalkAndWrite allows you to share (and write on) documents and Unyte appears to allow group interactions.  Has anyone used these programs?  Any comments about function, uses or safety issues?  They look like wonderful tools!

No photo yet

Dennis Newson

I used Unyte just a couple of times to allow two different friends to take over my PC and carry out procedures I could not manage on my own. It was a trifle slow, but it worked well.

Jose A. da Silva

Thanks for sharing these conference tools. I didn´t know about them. I googled them and checked. The one I like most was Talk and write. The look is nice and I can think of some uses for it. The good thing about it seems to be integrations, to have voice and writing in the same plataform.
Moira Hunter I have not been too impressed by the Talk and Write plug in for Skype but there are others around too to try :-)
Here are some whiteboards, some free some not, http://www.freedownloadmanager.org/downloads/whiteboard_software/
... Groupboard is worth investigating too (you can see it on my motime blog).

Dafne Gonzalez

I am not very happy with Talk and Write either Regarding Groupboard, we started exploring it during the Webheads in Action 2002 EVO session, and the avatar I use in most of my blogs was created there.
You can see the avatar here: http://dafneusb.motime.com
and you can play with one of my groupboards at: http://web2tools.wikispaces.com/Groupboard

Cheryl Oakes

I've used www.vyew.com when skyping with a small group. It allows others to chat while the conversation is going on, is free, and you can draw or play games using the service. Just another option.

Top

Getting to understand the Internet

Andrew Pincon

I'd also like to invite those of you who will be using voice, video and synchronous tools to visit the http://www.alado.net/webheads site and click on the link and graphic image on the left column beneath the "Tapped In" logo for a streaming video on how the Internet actually works. It's a link to "Warriors of the Net" and is available in multiple languages. This video may be helpful to understand how the various Internet systems operate and make all the digital magic happen, which we sometimes may take for granted.

Michael Coghlan

I just viewed this movie and it's fantastic! It really helped me understand some of the behind the scenes processes that were a mystery to me. Highly recommended viewing! (12 mins long). Thanks Andy!

Hala Fawzi

really like this movie and when I watched it some time ago, saw the immediate potential for my own teaching with students studying computer science. I used it as part of a lesson with first year undergraduates and they really appeciated it.

 

Top

 

Looking ahead

 

 

No photo yet
Derya Kulavuz

 

I know it's a bit early, but I may not be able to do it next week. I  made a video record on Springdoo to experiment the feeling and uploaded  it to our wiki participant page as one of the applications. I know it's  a bit early, but I will not be able to do it next week. So enjoy it,  and don't forget to tell me your comments about it and my daughter!
 
  http://baw07participants.pbwiki.com/your_applications
 
  Click on the link above and it is under the video recording heading. 
  By the way, I liked it but I wish the quality of the sound and display would be better.
Moira Hunter I in fact introduced this tool to this very workshop last year in BaW06.  At that time it was only a voice mail.  They have since added the video feature but the quality is not very good.  However, we'll be seeing more tools in Week 4 and one which has very good video, Gabmail.

Top

 

Recommended sites

 

Grammar

No photo yet

Monica Veado

Does anyone know of a good grammar reference online? ... all the pages I've found so far are directed to elementary / pre-intermediate levels, and my students are advanced...

No photo yet

Sharon Holdner

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/
If you scroll half the way down the screen, you'll find more advanced grammar.
 

Teresa Almeida d'Eça

 

I'm not sure about the levels.

No photo yet

Jane Petring

ESL Blues for a very rich and varied list of exercises: http://ww2.college-em.qc.ca/prof/epritchard/  The site was created by my colleague and former office-mate Eifion Pritchard who surprised us this fall by deciding to retire...

Moira Hunter

http://www.englishpage.com

No photo yet

Leo van Lie

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/

No photo yet

Dennis Oliver

I have a number of those which have already been given (plus one or two more, I think) in a small collection of grammar links on my personal website:  http://www.d-oliver.net/grammar.htm
... You can find some additional links that might prove interesting here: http://www.d-oliver.net/general-ESL.htm
No photo yet
Rafieh
Usually my advanced level students like  high intermediate level grammar of 'eslgold'. It has audio as well. Here is the site: http://www.eslgold.com/grammar.html

Vera Bobkova

Here's the web site which I used: www.onestopenglish.com
Or I just visited http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/ and found info or activities there.

Top

 

 

 

Other languages

no photo yet

Laura Girr

I am looking for some podcasts to use with intermediate Spanish students... I especially would like to find something with short passages that could be used for listening comprehension activities. Any ideas would be appreciated.

Martina Schubert

http://spanishphraseoftheday.blogspot.com/

He is podcasting only 1 Spanish sentence per day, for more than 1 year now. Imagine this now huge collection! :-)

He is American, but to me his Spanish sounds perfect. I wonder what Spanish native speakers would say.

No photo yet

Monica Veado

The site Open Culture offers free podcasts aimed at language learners around the globe. The languages go from English to Chinese, and you can download the programs into your I-Tunes, or listen in your computer (there are different formats available). I tried "Business English" and "Le journal en français facile", they were both very interesting!
http://www.oculture.com/weblog/2006/10/itunes_learn_fo.html

 

 

That's all, folks!

Cora Chen

Dear All,

As the curtain of Week 3 falls, I would like to express my gratitude to Dafne, Teresa, Gladys Baya, Nina Liakos, Cheryl Oakes and Moira
for their constant support and filling in for me while I was not online. Gladys was working very hard on the Week 3 threads back-stage
while others were on stage.  My special thanks also go to Ibrahim and Sharon Betts for providing us with technical assistance and advice.

Also, thank you all the participants for sharing with us an ocean of educational resources and your creations; I enjoy all of your
wonderful wikis, blogs and web pages.  I hope that you will continue to share more of your creations with us in the coming weeks.

We are very fortunate to have Barbara Dieu and Graham Stanley as our guest speakers.  Thank you both for your wonderful and stimulating presentations!  Thank you Andy Pincon for offering technical assistance to make sure the presentations went smoothly.
 
I am very grateful to you all for giving me the chance to learn with/from you! 

Now it's Moira, Chrissan, and Mabel's turn to take the leading roles in Week 4.  Have fun!

Hugs to you all,

Comments (0)

You don't have permission to comment on this page.